A WOMAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF WELLINGTON

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 5134, 28 November 1903, Page 12

A WOMAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF WELLINGTON

(By D. 0.5.) No. 4—FACTORY LIFE. “Yes, I am tho foreman —well, what then?”’ The voice is raspy, thin, sharp —it cuts like a knife. But then, everything about this man is sharp—sharp nose, sharp, hard, keen eyes, and a mouth that shuts sharply, and with a snap! “You were advertising—” I begin but ho interrupts mo with an. abrupt jerk. (I. almost thought that ho was going to bite that time!) • "Oh, yos. Wo can always take on more hands. Want work, eh?” "Would you mind tolling mo just whale the work is. and what pay you give?’’ "The work's easy enough, any child can do it. Its piecework mostly, and the pay depends on yourself. Some of 'em make twelve and sis a week. .But in any case, we give seven and six to strat with—in a few weeks you’ll ho able to make more.” I meditate for a moment. "Must I decide at once?” “Oh, no. start any time. Come at eight o’clock to-morrow morning if you like.” Having jerked this at me, ho turns on his heel, and leaves mo. A woman is crossing tbo yard, with her sleeves rolled up, her hair in curling pins, and carrying a bracket. Shall I "come at eighty o?clock tomorrow morning,” and do likewise, for seven and sixpence a week? As I pass out of the factory yaird into tho street I find myself doing “mental arithmetic.” Fivo shillings from seven and sixpence, that leaves half a crown. Five shillings for a room, and exactly two shillings and sixpence with which to buy food and clothe myself 1 Is it within tho range of possibility ? And this particular firm advertise publicly that they pay “tbo highest .wages in town!” . If this is 'the highest, what on. earth is the lowest? •* . * A glahoe at tho advertising columns of the paper reveals tho fact that still another factory is in immediate need of more "hands.” I will try here. Tiro wages cannot possibly be lower. This time, it is one of the principals that I see—a man of altogether' a different stamp from the razor-liko gentleman. Bland, smiling, courteous. “Yes, we want more hands. Wages, ten shillings to start with, and if you’re worth more at the end of a, few weeks, you’ll get it.” "And the work?” "Oh, a little of all sorts, labelling, packing, etc—all work, that a ten-year-old child can do.” Dear me, that is the second time in the space of an hour, that that clever “ten-year-old child” has been trotted outl It mnst be quite a.marvel, a paragon of precocity., And then he adds, as an afterthought, “Von are not asked to do any heavy lifting, or anything of that sort—there, are always plenty of hoys about, to do all that.” “Do you require any references?”

He smiles, as if the idea rather amused him. “Oh, no, not at all. They are not required. If you don’t suit us, wo tell you so. That’s all. This is Thurs-day-well, Saturday is the best day to start. We pay on Friday night, you see.”

Then he sends a message to thp upstairs regions for the forewoman, introduces me, and leaves me in her charge. She explains that! jvill trant an old skirt (“anything will do”) a big, dark print apron, and a print cap, “to keep the dust out of your hair,” she says. So it is arranged that I shall start work at eight on Saturday morning. '“Just come straight upstairs to me, and I’ll tell you what to do,” tho pleasant-faced forewoman says kindly.

I am conscious that between twenty and thirty pairs of eyes are turned on me, as I enter the big room that serves as cloak-room and dining-room at a few minutes to eight on Saturday morning. There is a hum, and buzz of -many tongues, all talking together, as the girls get OMt of their out-door things, and slip on their old skirts and aprons, and pin on their caps in front of the tiny mirror. It is rather embarrassing when one is not accustomed to it, to undress and dress in front of a crowd, but one can get used to anything in this world. And though I am certain that they are, “quizzing me,” I manage to get through the ordeal somehow?

As eight o’clock strikes, the forewoman bustles'about. “Now, then, girls, hurry up there. Its jam shop this morning.” There is a chorus of “Ohs.” It is evident that the “jam shop,” whatever, or wherever, it may bo, is not a favourite place with the majority. Then commences a game of “Follow my leader.” Everybody troops downstairs after the forewoman—through a store piled to the roof, with boxes and cases, of all sorts, sizes and shapes, big and little—away across a wot, slippery yard, and up a flight of steps into tho “jam shop,” a large building or concrete. At the first glance, one sees nothing but jam—jam everywhere! _ Piles and piles of wooden trays filled with tins, some of it, all hot from the boiler! In another part, stacks of tins, all ready for the labelling room. And in every available comer are immense casks, filled with orange and lemon chips—marmalade, “in the rough.”

Down the middle of the room runs a long wooden bench. The girls range themselves at each side, and every girl has a clean duster, which she wrings cut of boiling water and folds into a., hind of tEck “wad.” Then the tins filled with jam (those that are sufficiently cool) are tumbled out of the trays on to the. table. One or two girls scrnpo the side of the tine with a slurp knife, to get off any jam that has run over in the filling—others again, wipe off with the,damp duster, every little speck that the scrapers may have left on. passing the tins on in turn, to another girl, who fits on the lids, which are piled up in hundreds ca a table near by.

Oh, how my bands ache—and ray back 1 I begin to think that the morning wild never come to an end. 1 To stand on a

hard, concrete floor, from eight o’clock till twelve, passing sticky jam tins from one hand to the other, rubbing a wot cloth round each one, tho while, may not bo hard work, but it is decidedly monotonous! In the meantime, a constant buzz and chatter comes from different parts of tho room. In one corner, girls with their anus hared to tho elbow, are chopping suet, and mixing materials for p.unr pudding, hereafter to ho known as“olda English*;.” Some are carrying the puddings, already mixed, in big tins, oufc to tho next room, through tho open door of which one catches sight of tho gleam-* ing copper sides of tho big boilers. At tho other side of the room, men and boys, in shirt, sleeves, and, for film most part, with black mufflers round their necks, are soldering tins, or busy carrying steaming buckets between tha boilers and ths casks. Now'and then, one of them will pause in his work, to crack a rough joke, or to indulge in a little bit of pleasantry with one of the girls. Once or twice, somebody lonics at tho clock, announcing tho result for the general benefit. Slowly, very slowly, the time crawls along. The tap, tap, of the hammer ou tin newer ceases —tho screeching, scrawling, whirr of the machinery seems like Tennyson’s brook —going on for ever I At last there comes a gradual slackening of things, ik pause.—a dead stop—a whistle goes—io is twelve o’clock, and ’the longest morning I have over spent in my life cornea to an cud!

I find that very few of the girls go home to lunch. The most of them bring it with them. Tiie dining-room, which is simply one corner of tho largo upper store-room walled off by a. partition reaching half-way to tho celling, is utterly hare. There is a long, bare table down tho centre, bare floor, bare forms.

, As I watch those gins sitting down to their lunch in that hideous room I cannot help | wondering what effect it 1 would havo if they formed themselves into a deputation, and wetted upon the principals of tlie firm, with an invitation to oorao np and dino with them. It would cost so voi’y little to cover the floor with bright coloured linoleum, to distemper or paint the walls green or pink, and to hang a few pictures round. Reprints of really good pictures (not mero dabs) post almost nothing now. And in , place' of the one tiny, cracked .mirror (the only decorative article in the room, as far as I can see) to have several pieces of mirror glass here and there on the walls. And the firm would get their girls to start work at least five minutes earlier in the morning. For girls are girls, all tho world over, bo they princesses or factory girls, and it is certain, that no self-respecting girl will risk having her cap on crooked for the sake of not “looking in the glass!” And there might bo at least one or two moderately comfortable chairs, surely. The cost ol all this “elaborate furnishing” would be comparatively trifling. But what a world of difference it would make to those tired girls. •

Factory life is unlovely enough in all its details—necessarily so. It is ono of the last places in the world where a sensible person would think of looking for the poetry of life. But is it impossible. that in one little corner of it, a love for the beautiful may be kept alive? Those who know the difference that 4 picture, or even a flower, makes in a room, will appreciate and understand this. A, sceno flashes- across my eyes. A beautiful room, all filled with soft light, a long table, flashing ami gleaming with glass and silvery and snowy napery, flowers everywhere, banks, and arches and mosses of them, broken by splashes of tender, cool green, tho waring of the feathery ferns. A crojvd'of pretty, weSldressed girls, the dainty framing of tha pictures. Here, almost within a stonethrow, these other girls, sitting down to their lone, bare table! Society girls, at a fashionable “Afternoon tea”—working girls, eating their frugal dinner ol bread and jam! And there m a whole world between them.