AN ALMOST FORGOTTEN INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 74, 24 September 1927, Page 15

AN ALMOST FORGOTTEN INDUSTRY

When one sees the white stone gtepa and stone verandahs disappear with other parts of the cottages in tne resumed'area* it recalls an almost forgotten employment that belonged to the young girl of a century or seventy years bads—that of the pipeclay and sandstone "artist."

it was considered quite ah art co to use stone or pipeclay that the. steps, path, or verandah was snowy white, whilst the j walls around did not show a splash or & speck. The method of using the material differed according to the 6kiU of the worfcer, and a smootn, shiny surface was the effect aimed at. This involved washing off the old layer o£ clay or- Btone whicn was-usually stained with mud or dust from trampling feet. An old lady told the writer that she thought she was the last of the "pipeclay" girls, and she explained that many years ago, - when she was a. girl, there were very tew openings for young girls where they would earn money from the start. Being a nursemaid or an errand girl meant living away from home, and the wages were very small, starting at 2s 6d a week, and the highest being Ss, therefore the girl who could earn eight or nine shillings weekly by going round the better houses in her neighbourhood and keeping the stone steps and verandahs in condition, might consider herself as lucky that she had a business all her own, where her recompense'; depended upon her own energies and upon her ability to please her patrons. "Some people had their steps cleaned every morning when twopence was the charge," said the old lady, "but if they only had them attended to every second day 3d was the charge. In some cases people provided their own floor cloths and soft stone or clay, but one always had to carry along a stock in case of need. I had many customers, who were very good to my mother, my crippled father; and the big lot of little brothers and sisters. In those days charity was a more personal thing than nowadays." The old lady, for some years now gone to her rest, told the writer how her father pressed the pipeclay into blocks in a mould in the back yard, but how much more difficult it was to measure off the stone. Some people preferred to have their hearthi pipeclay and doorsteps stoned, whilßt others considered pipeclay had a better result. -She also said that whilst poor people did their own work, all who could afford to do so employed a girl, who was expected to begin her work with the first streak of daylight, and no one wanted to see a pipe-clay girl about after 9 o'clock in the morning. What a difference there is in the employment of girls then and now. There was no set age when a girl could lawfully begin work, no school standard that she had to reach, no fixed rate of payment, no opportunities rapidly to improve her position. How many a "mute inglorious" genius never got a chance in what was certainly the "bad old days" as far" 88 employment and care for development of girls were concerned! To-day every girl gets her opportunity, and if she has ability she finds scope to use it. In the early days of the young country only the specially favoured by fortune got a chance, the great majority (outside the marriage lottery) had mere toil, with very little to repay them.