HELP WHERE WANTED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIII, Issue 8726, 27 November 1913, Page 6

HELP WHERE WANTED.

A great insurance company, employing 4100 men and women in its New York offices, furnish as them with luncheon every day at a cost of £32,000 a year, or an average individual cost of lOfd, and it is only because the catering is done on such a large scale and under efficient management that the meal can be provided at that price. The company does not pose as being particularly philanthropic,, but as saving money by . the operation. By providing'lunch in the building the time is shortened to 35 minutes, which is half-arirhour earlier than the customary New York insurance office hours. The minimum wages paid a woman employee is 36s a week, and before being employed she is examined by one of the company's physicians to see that she is in good health, and then she must pass a simple examination in English and arithmetic. The company provides for her a gymnasium,-a'roofed playground that she can use in pleasant weather, and a well-stocked library. If she cuts her finger sharpening a pencil she can go to the dispensary, where a physician and a professional nurse will take care of her. The nurse at the head of the dispensary is more than that; she is friend and od\iser of the girls. A girl earning SGs a week and often having entirely or partially" to support a mother or younger children fights off going to a doctor, and yet she has distressing headaches or her hack aches. The nurse, a woman of strong sympathy,

large experience, and much tact, advises'and encourages her, and the girl is either sent to a doctor or a clinic, not as a charity patient, but where she receives the best professional treatment ior a merely nominal fee, or by proper attention to diet or the rules of hygiene, of which she is ignorant, is cured. "