is such an over-proportion of labour in the market, must not competition reduce prices, as it has done, to the lowest grade, even below the minimum necessary to support existence?
I am well aware of the superabundance of female labour—of the direful effects of over-driven competition, not only on the comfort and happiness, but on the morals of the labouring classes of society, in every quarter of the globe. But I contend for it, that every principle of honour, justice, and generosity, forbids the employer to take advantage of the distress and wretchedness of those he employs, and cut down their wages below the minimum necessary to procure a sufficiency of plain food and of clothes to guard against the inclemency of the weather. Whoever passes this line of demarcation, is guilty of the heinous offence of "grinding the faces of the poor." The labour of every human being ought to insure this remuneration at least. And I am persuaded that there are thousands of honourable men who give inadequate wages to males as well as females, merely because they have never thought sufficiently on the subject; and who, therefore, have no idea of the real state of the case. They would scorn to give the wages they do at present, were they aware of the distress and misery thus entailed on those by whose labours, I emphatically repeat, they not only enjoy all the comforts and luxuries of life, but many of them make immense fortunes. My object is to induce upright men thus circumstanced, to scrutinize the affair, and obey the dictates of their better feelings as soon as they have ascertained the truth. Of the honourable issue I cannot entertain a doubt.
Let me most earnestly, but most respectfully, conjure the ladies, into whose hands these lines may come, to ponder deeply, and frequently, and lastingly, on the deplorable condition of so many of their sex, who are ground to the earth by an inadequate remuneration for their painful labours. Let them raise their voices, and exert their influence in their defence, and urge their male friends to enter the lists in the holy cause of suffering humanity. I am not so enthusiastic or deluded as to suppose that a complete remedy can be applied to so enormous and so inveterate an evil—an evil, the remedy of which requires more generosity and disinterestedness than usually fall to the lot of mankind. But by proper efforts, the oppression of the mass of the sufferers may at least be mitigated, and no inconsiderable portion of them may be completely relieved.
The ladies will, I hope, pardon me for an observation which applies to some of them, but I hope to only a low. I have known a lady expend a hundred dollars on a party; pay thirty or forty dollars for a bonnet, and fifty for a shawl; and yet make a hard bargain with a seamstress or washerwoman,[1] who had to work at her needle or at the washing-tub for thirteen or fourteen hours a day, to make a bare livelihood for herself and a numerous family of small children! This is "a sore oppression under the sun," and ought to be eschewed by every honourable mind. "Let it be reformed altogether."
Philadelphia, June 18, 1833.
- ↑ Extract of a letter from the Rev. Mr. Dupuy.Philadelphia, April 13th.Dear Sir.—As you are desirous of ascertaining the average amount of wages paid to some of the poor, I send you an individual whose case is peculiarly hard. I know the woman to be a person who would on no account deviate from the truth. She gets $10 per quarter for washing, an.d frequently washes eight dozen of clothes per week-she finding soap, starch, fuel, &c. This is ahout ten cents per dozen. Your obedient servant,
Mr. M. Carey. CHARLES M. DUPUY.
