The Alien Invasion

ugh the land, the miseries of the needlewoman's lot have not only remained unalleviated, but they have gathered in intensity as the years rolled on. How comes it that in these days of social

countries. They are not likely to be consulted, since they are powerless; no one angles for their votes, for they have none to give. The strong man in his strength when confronted by this alien invasion can battle with it, or when the contest is hopeless, he can retire before it. The world is open to him, and in other lands beyond the seas he may find that fair field for his energies which is den

is not to be wondered at. Physically weaker than men, women receive a smaller amount of work, and a lower rate of wages, especially in unskilled labour. Combination can do nothing for them; it does not reach them. The mass of wome

ail nothing. On the contrary, they only handicap women the more, and tell fatally against them in the competitive battle. The commercial competition of to-day in the cheap clothing trade, intensified as it is by the influx of the foreigner, positively trades upon the maternity of women-workers. These poor creatures have no time for the pure tender delights of motherhood; they have no opportunity of attending properly to their ch

ricted immigration of destitute aliens tends directly to increase prostitution in London an

adequate. Their provisions are constantly evaded. Women are kept working in these dens from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., 10 p.m., or even midnight; or the intention of the Act is frustrated by their being given work to do at home. A case was mentioned before the House of Lords' Committee of a girl eighteen years of age, who worked from seven in the morning to half-past eight at night, for wages ranging from 3s. to 8s. a week. On Fridays she worked from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. (eleven hours), that being considered half a day, and paid for accordingly. All sorts of tricks are played to evade the Factory Inspector. His first appearance in the street is notified all along the sweating dens by a

can afford. Here they labour, and live, and die-no one heeding. In the winter they do without fire, and often the workers put on their backs, for the sake of warmth, the garments they are not actually engaged upon. Oftentimes it is not the woman alone, but her whole family who have to share this single room. It is impossible for a woman, w

t is made at prices varying from 4-1/2d. to 10-1/2d. complete, according to the amount of work. For a suit made at 9d. the sweater gets 1s. 3d., leaving him a profit of 6d. Before destitute immigration set in, in such a volume, and prices were consequently higher, such a suit would have been sold at 3s. 6d., which would have admitted of a larger profit, and consequently higher price for labour. Other prices are-a shirt, sold in a shop for 7s. 6d., is made for 1s.; and men's trousers are made outright at as low a price as 4-1/2d. per pair. The price paid by a sweater to a woman for machining trousers, runs from 1-1/4d. to 3-1/4d. per pair, and out of this she has to find cotton and "trimmings." If she does t

by hand and sew on the buttons, get 3d. a dozen shirts, finding their own cotton, and can finish 1-1/2 dozen to 2 dozen in a day. Silk mantles, costing in the West End shops from ￡1 to ￡25, are made throughout in the East End for 7-1/2d. apiece, out of which

m. to 8 p.m. She had a sick husband and three children, and out of her earnings she paid 2s. a week rent. She chiefly lived

d are irregularly paid. The sweaters frequently keep their workers waiting for their money, and the more disreputable ones will cheat them out of their just dues. Work too is precarious; there are slack tim

r and lower by the fierce competition from the shoals of destitute foreigners landed in London week by week), hundreds, nay thousands of young women-Englishwomen, our sisters-eke out their wretched earnings by means of the street. The Pharisee and the Self-righteous pass by on the other side and condemn them; but it

age, had already embarked upon a life of shame. One of these girls h

n, fell ill and died. The wife laboured on, managing by some almost superhuman effort to earn enough for herself and the children, and to keep body and soul together. Then the slack time, so greatly dreaded by all those engaged in the "sweating trade," came on, and there was nothing to be done for weeks and weeks. In despair this woman, who had hitherto led a blameless life, took to the streets. "It was wrong," the moralist and purist will say, "wrong and reprehensible to the last degree. Is there not the workhouse for such people, is there not parochial relief, are there

idenced daily by many little acts of kindness, many little generous deeds towards those who are more miserable and more suffering than themselves. "It is mostly the poor who help the poor." I will go further and say, it is mostly the wretched who help the wretched, for between them exists that intimate knowledge of each other's sorrows which is the truest bond of sympathy. Under happier circumstances these poor women might have lived honest and virtuous lives. As it is, they have to work side by side with men of all nationalities, under unhealthy and objectionable conditions-conditions subservient of all sense of decenc

in I ask, Can nothing be done to rescue these women-our sisters-from the attendant horrors of this fierce and degrading foreign competition?

ong? Such is the bitter cry o