Nature's Aristocracy: A Plea for the Oppressed

Chapter 7: Journeymen Tailors

chapter 7 Journeymen Tailors The Troubles of a Tailor.—How Custom Coats Are Made.-Too Much Work, or Too Much Leisure.—Their Pay.—Intellectual Ability.—Oppressive Foremen.— Piece-Makers.—How They Grind the Face of the Poor.1 1 There is no class of workingmen so subject to annoyance as that of the journeymen tailors. They are either overrun with work, or have none at all. To-day they earn ten dollars and tomorrow will earn nothing. During this week, perhaps, they must work all day and nearly all night to fulfil the contracts made by their employer, and next week they will be seen loafing about the shop or street corners without employment. At some seasons of the year they have plenty of work, and can purchase every needed comfort; at another, they earn nothing for many weeks. Their tasks are usually those which require the closest application of mind and body, and which will soon exhaust the strongest physical or mental constitution. The strain upon their eyesight often makes them blind before they are forty years of age; the constant use of their right hand induces paralysis of the right side; their cramped position on the bench makes them rheumatic and gouty; while their irregular hours and nervous exhaustion create an unquenchable desire for stimulating drink. Receiving great pay for an uncertain period and then for many weeks little or no income, they find themselves subject to a cross-fire of temptation, coming from too great prosperity on one side and from compulsory idleness upon the other, either of which is likely to de- Nature’s Aristocracy | 67 stroy the most cautious. If they are not as a class more intemperate, more immoral, more subject to poverty than other men, it is not because they have not had hardships and temptations sufficient to make them so. During the “strikes” which have occurred among the journeymen tailors within a few years in Philadelphia, New York, St. Louis, and Boston, there has been a great outcry from the general public, and the tailors have been accused of many mean acts; and have been partially defeated in some of their attempts to get better wages by the united public, who feared a rise in the price of clothing. This would never have been the case had the sufferings of the workmen been known to those who opposed the “strike.” It often happens that a wealthy customer enters a clothing house, and gives an order for a coat, to be completed before a certain day on which he intends to wear it. It is possible that there is but one day and one night intervening, and although the proprietors are aware how arduous the task must be, the contract is made to deliver at the time requested, rather than lose the trade of the rich customer. The measure is taken, the cloth cut with all despatch, and the bundle hurried up to the coat room, where sit the journeymen tailors, perhaps crowded with other jobs for which there is the same haste, or perhaps waiting for a coat to come. “Here,” says the person bringing the bundle, “is a fine broadcloth coat to be made and pressed before day after to-morrow morning without fail. Mr.——, the rich banker, wants it to wear on an excursion, and it must be one of your best jobs.” The “jour.” examines it, and finds that it is one of the very best pieces of broadcloth in the market, and that the cut is in a style that will require the greatest care and skill to give it a tasty appearance .2 He knows that at least three days’ time ought to be devoted to it, and conceives of no way in which it can be completed unless he works through the entire night. Then begins a day and a night of toil, such as no one but he that has undertaken it can appreciate . Swift fly his fingers, flashing to the end of the thread and back again thousands and thousands of times; and at the end of each needleful of thread he seizes another needle ready threaded by an 68 | Nature’s Aristocracy assistant, and proceeds as before. Hours wear on, piece after piece is fitted, stretched, ironed, sewed, until, far into the night, it begins to assume the appearance of a coat. Then he leaps to and fro between the bench...