Making Both Ends Meet | Page 4

girl in a Sixth Avenue suit store at
$4 a week, a sum less than the wage for which she had begun work five
years before. Within a few weeks, dullness of trade had caused her
dismissal. She was again facing indefinite unemployment.
Her income for the year had been $281. She lived in a large, pleasant
home for girls, where she paid only $2.50 a week for board and a room
shared with her sister. Without the philanthropy of the home, she could
not have made both ends meet. It was fifteen minutes' walk from the
store, and by taking this walk twice a day she saved carfare and the
price of luncheon. She did her own washing, and as she could not
spend any further energy in sewing, she bought cheap ready-made
clothes. This she found a great expense. Cheap waists wear out very
rapidly. In the year she had bought 24 at 98 cents each. Here is her
account, as nearly as she had kept it and recalled it for a year: a coat,
$10; 4 hats, $17; 2 pairs of shoes, $5; 24 waists at 98 cents, $23.52; 2
skirts, $4.98; underwear, $2; board, $130; doctor, $2; total, $194.50.
This leaves a balance of $86.50. This money had paid for necessaries
not itemized,--stockings, heavy winter underwear, petticoats, carfare,
vacation expenses, every little gift she had made, and all recreation.
She belonged to no benefit societies, and she had not been able to save
money in any way, even with the assistance given by the home. So
much for her financial income and outlay.
After giving practically all her time and force to her work, she had not
received a return sufficient to conserve her health in the future, or even
to support her in the present without the help of philanthropy. She was
ill, anæmic, nervous, and broken in health.

Before adding the next budget, two points in Lucy Cleaver's outlay
should, perhaps, be emphasized in the interest of common sense. The
first is the remarkable folly of purchasing 24 waists at 98 cents each. In
an estimate of the cost of clothing, made by one of the working girls'
clubs of St. George's last year,[3] the girls agreed that comfort and a
presentable appearance could be maintained, so far as expenditure for
waists was concerned, on $8.50 a year. This amount allowed for five
shirt-waists at $1.20 apiece, and one net waist at $2.50.
In extenuation of Lucy Cleaver's weak judgment as a waist purchaser,
and the poor child's one absurd excess, it must, however, be said that
the habit of buying many articles of poor quality, instead of fewer
articles of better quality, is frequently a matter, not of choice, but of
necessity. The cheap, hand-to-mouth buying which proves
paradoxically so expensive in the end is no doubt often caused by the
simple fact that the purchaser has not, at the time the purchase is made,
any more money to offer. Whatever your wisdom, you cannot buy a
waist for $1.20 if you possess at the moment only 98 cents. The St.
George's girls made their accounts on a basis of an income of $8 a
week. Lucy Cleaver never had an income of more than $5.50 a week,
and sometimes had less. The fact that she spent nearly three times as
much as they did on this one item of expenditure, and yet never could
have "one net waist at $2.50" for festal occasions, is worthy of notice.
The other point that should be emphasized is the fact that she did her
own washing. The more accurate statement would be that she did her
own laundry, including the processes, not only of rubbing the clothes
clean, but of boiling, starching, bluing, and ironing. This, after a day of
standing in other employment, is a vital strain more severe than may
perhaps be readily realized. Saleswomen and shop-girls have not the
powerful wrists and muscular waists of accustomed washerwomen, and
are in most instances no better fitted to perform laundry work than
washerwomen would be to make sales and invoice stock. But custom
requires exactly the same freshness in a saleswoman's shirt-waist, ties,
and collars as in those of women of the largest income. The amount the
girls of the St. George's Working Club found it absolutely necessary to
spend in a year for laundering clothes was almost half as much as the

amount spent for lodging and nearly two-thirds as much as the amount
originally spent for clothing.
Where this large expense of laundry cannot be met financially by
saleswomen, it has to be met by sheer personal strength. One
department-store girl, who needed to be especially neat because her
position was in the shirt-waist department, told us that sometimes, after
a day's standing in