AMERICAN SHOP GIRLS.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 119, 15 November 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

AMERICAN SHOP GIRLS.

There seems to be little td choose between the shopmen of New York and. London. ' The American shop girl, however, is far ahead of her, English .cousin. She .is not so ladylike and polite;, but she is a bundle of intelligent vivacity. She is neither anaemic nor languid. She treats customers with a' familiarity 'that would be met with a rebuke in ah 1 English shop. But she means' no impertinence or cheekiness. You want to buy, she wants to sell, and you are' equal. ' There are 3500 employees at Wanamaker's place in Broadway. In .summer the hours are from 8 to 5, with" 'a' half-holi-day on Saturday ; in winter the hours are from 8 to 6, with no half-holiday at all. The lowest wage for a girl at the notions counter — needles, hairpins, studs, odds and ends — is 28s a week. A good saleswoman of experience will get £3. The men, the counterjumpers, Average 50s to £3 a weekV This is above the English standard, but, after working out calculations based on the increased cost of living, I am convinced the American shop worker is, in the end, no better off financially than the English. . ' ' Where the American is better, off is ,that he and ., she . have more . wholesome food, and plenty of it. The compeer of ■ the girl whom > you will see in" a London A.B.C. place, making a lunch of a cup of tea and a piece of cake for 4d, you will see in one of Child's many .restaurants in New York having a "quick lunch" of melon , soup, roast beef, and ah ice cream for 2s. — John Foster Fraser. ' '