If You Want To Ascertain The Inner Ways Or Habits Of
Life Of Any Man, Woman, Or Child, See, If It Be Practicable To Do
So, His Or Her Bed-Room.
You will learn more by a minute's glance
round that holy of holies, than by any conversation.
Looking-
glasses and such like, suspended dresses, and toilet-belongings, if
taken without notice, cannot lie or even exaggerate. The discreet
matron at first showed me rooms only prepared for use, for at the
period of my visit Lowell was by no means full; but she soon became
more intimate with me, and I went through the upper part of the
house. My report must be altogether in her favor and in that of
Lowell. Everything was cleanly, well ordered, and feminine. There
was not a bed on which any woman need have hesitated to lay herself
if occasion required it. I fear that this cannot be said of the
lodgings of the manufacturing classes at Manchester. The boarders
all take their meals together. As a rule, they have meat twice a
day. Hot meat for dinner is with them as much a matter of course,
or probably more so, than with any Englishman or woman who may read
this book. For in the States of America regulations on this matter
are much more rigid than with us. Cold meat is rarely seen, and to
live a day without meat would be as great a privation as to pass a
night without bed.
The rules for the guidance of these boarding-houses are very rigid.
The houses themselves belong to the corporations, or different
manufacturing establishments, and the tenants are altogether in the
power of the managers. None but operatives are to be taken in.
The tenants are answerable for improper conduct. The doors are to
be closed at ten o'clock. Any boarders who do not attend divine
worship are to be reported to the managers. The yards and walks
are to be kept clean, and snow removed at once; and the inmates
must be vaccinated, etc. etc. etc. It is expressly stated by the
Hamilton Company - and I believe by all the companies - that no one
shall be employed who is habitually absent from public worship on
Sunday, or who is known to be guilty of immorality, it is stated
that the average wages of the women are two dollars, or eight
shillings, a week, besides their board. I found when I was there
that from three dollars to three and a half a week were paid to the
women, of which they paid one dollar and twenty-five cents for
their board. As this would not fully cover the expense of their
keep, twenty-five cents a week for each was also paid to the
boarding-house keepers by the mill agents. This substantially came
to the same thing, as it left the two dollars a week, or eight
shillings, with the girls over and above their cost of living.
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