THE WRAPPER WRITER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 1 May 1890, Page 31

THE WRAPPER WRITER.

The reader has probably only a hazy idea of what wrapper-writing is ; he certainly cannot fathom the almost hopeless misery of the man Whom hanger has driven to it for bread. Most of ovlr big business houses speak to the public through the voice of the q\rarterly prospe6tus ,- it is the begging box of the charity-supported institution, the main sail that floats companies, bogus and other, into the high tide of public favour. I am one of some 500 in London who live — starve rather — by addressing the wrappers that envelop these business or charitable appeals, They are written in tears, and for a wage that just keeps the writer from starvation and a death in the streets. "Only a prospectus," and paterfamilias' contemptuously flings it aside, often unopened ; but there is a story of deep pathos in the simple name and address, if he could only read them aright. One thousand wrappers, similar to his, have to be written, and well written, for 3s ; and this necessitates 10 hours' continuous writing. The dockers' 6d an hour would be to the poor wrapper-writer a golden mine. But the pity is in the class ot men whom hunger has driven to wrapper-writing for bread. They are nearly all men of good education, who are either physically unfitted for hard and well paid labour, or without the " gumption "to undertake it. They arc men who have gone wrong. Some are graduates | of out universities, who can declaim the Antigone of Sophocles without a false accent — lawyers, doctors, physicians who have forfeited caste, and never feel the stirring of ambition to regain it. Nearly all have lost character; many have lost hope. "A year a wrapper-writer, a wrapper-writer for ever," is a saying of the fraternity. There are about a dozen firms in London whose sole business is wrapper-writing. Some have a regularly employed staff, but when a large order requiring despatch comes in, an army of casuals is employed. Thepermanents and the casuals are of the same class, and of much the same mental calibre. Look down that large room, bare of furniture save for the long table, flanked with forms, that runs its entire length. Each side of the table, on which stand miniature Eiffel towers of wrappers, is occupied by men writing away as if for very life. Each has before him a few pages of " list " — leaves plucked from a directory — containing names and addresses, and these he writes on wrapper after wrapper with lightning-like rapidity. You rarely hear a word spoken, so absorbed are they in their work. Now and again one will rise and yawn, or stop a moment to chafe his cramped fingers, or to light his pipe, then down again to his monotonous labour. Ten long hours' work for 3s 1 Just think of it ! The firm probably receives from 8s to 10s for the work their employes are forced to do for 3s, and the latter think themselves lucky to get it to do even at that price. And look at their faces. There is not a vulgar or stupid-looking face in the long double-row that bends over the inkbesmudged table. Many are old soldiers, and bear the soldier stamp in close-cropped hair and military moustache, and otherwise reveal themselves in tricks of speech and gesture. The tall man on my left hand has been a sergeant-major, was wounded twice in the pits before the Redan, and again in the fierce hand-to-hand fight of Inkerman. He on my right is a surgeon. Drink has compelled him to change the lancet for the pen. He is moody and taciturn, and only self-assertive when drink lights his dark life with a transient gleam. Before me is a French officer, who, a year ago, held a commission in the Foreign Legion. One old man at this table has owned a dozen racehorses in his day, and has hobnobbed with the cremo do la creme of the aristocracy — now noDe so poor as do him reverence, or so generous as to lend him a " tanner " or his " doss," for the wrapper writers are " dossers " to a man. Each writer receives a shilling " sub " every night, acd is cleared up at the week end,'but when a man is permitted to do his work at home he is paid for his thousand on delivery. The foreman, generally a promoted wrapper writer, goes carefully over each bundle handed to see that the list is returned, that the work is not scamped, that a couple of hundred blanks do not nestle in the centre — ■ a trick sometimes played — and that the same name is not repeated.