Packing chocolate.
workers. Contrast her, for instance, with the theatre child out of Drury-lane. The little
actress may be as poor as the Mile-end factory-girl, but in nine cases out of ten she will be very neatly clad, with spotless petticoats and well-made boots and stockings. If you watch her, you will notice she walks gracefully, and instinctively assumes, whenever she can, a picturesque and taking attitude. The little factory-girl is decently enough attired so far as her frock is concerned, but she, or her mother, cares nothing about her boots, which are invariably cheap and untidy, whilst any superfluous coin is devoted to the adornment of her hat, an article of great importance amongst factory-girls—young as well as old. But a still more characteristic feature, which, so far as I know, is peculiar to factory-girls, is their curious method of walking, which is carefully cuitivated and imitated by the young ones. It is a sort of side "swing" of the skirts, and has one of the ugliest effects that can be produced, especially when executed by half a dozen young ladies walking abreast on the pavement.
Picking sweets.
At Messrs. Allen's chocolate and sweet factories, in Mile-end, two hundred women and girls are employed. Referring to the strike, I asked a highly respectable, intelligent looking girl why she joined it:
"Well, I don't hardly know," was the candid reply. "It was all done in a rush, and the other girls asked me to come out."
This girl was earning, by the bye, 17s. a week.
The quite young girls are principally employed in packing chocolate into boxes, covering it with silver paper, which operation they perform with great dexterity, labelling, and other easy work of this nature. The rooms are large and well ventilated, and each department is under the care of a forewoman, who not only keeps a sharp look-out on the work, but exercises what control she can over behaviour and conversation. The discipline did not strike me as particularly severe, considering that the girls left their work en masse, as soon as one of their number had announced, referring to the artist, "She's takin' Em'ly's likeness." The hours, from 8 to 7, are certainly too long for girls in delicate health; but the work itself is light, and a capital dining-room is provided on the premises, where the girls can cook their dinners and make themselves tea. Nor are the prospects at all bad. Here is Alice C—, a girl of fourteen, the daughter of a flower carman,
Flower seller.
