but even these were turned to good account by the wily Sweater, who induced the best of them to remain after their time was up by paying them what appeared - by contrast with the others girls' money - good wages, sometimes even seven or eight shillings a week! and liberal promises of future advancement.These girls then became a sort of reserve who could be called up to crush any manifestation of discontent on the part of the leading hands.
The greater number of the girls, however, submitted tamely to the conditions imposed upon them.They were too young to realize the wrong that was being done them.As for their parents, it never occurred to them to doubt the sincerity of so good a man as Mr Sweater, who was always prominent in every good and charitable work.
At the expiration of the girl's apprenticeship, if the parents complained of her want of proficiency, the pious Sweater would attribute it to idleness or incapacity, and as the people were generally poor he seldom or never had any trouble with them.This was how he fulfilled the unctuous promise made to the confiding parents at the time the girl was handed over to his tender mercy - that he would `make a woman of her'.
This method of obtaining labour by false pretences and without payment, which enabled him to produce costly articles for a mere fraction of the price for which they were eventually sold, was adopted in other departments of his business.He procured shop assistants of both sexes on the same terms.A youth was indentured, usually for five years, to be `Made a Man of and `Turned out fit to take a Position in any House'.If possible, a premium, five, ten, or twenty pounds - according to their circumstances - would be extracted from the parents.For the first three years, no wages: after that, perhaps two or three shillings a week.
At the end of the five years the work of `Making a Man of him' would be completed.Mr Sweater would then congratulate him and assure him that he was qualified to assume a `position' in any House but regret that there was no longer any room for him in his.Business was so bad.Still, if the Man wished he might stay on until he secured a better `position' and, as a matter of generosity, although he did not really need the Man's services, he would pay him ten shillings per week!
Provided he was not addicted to drinking, smoking, gambling or the Stock Exchange, or going to theatres, the young man's future was thus assured.Even if he were unsuccessful in his efforts to obtain another position he could save a portion of his salary and eventually commence business on his own account.
However, the branch of Mr Sweater's business to which it is desired to especially direct the reader's attention was the Homeworkers Department.He employed a large number of women making ladies'
blouses, fancy aprons and children's pinafores.Most of these articles were disposed of wholesale in London and elsewhere, but some were retailed at `Sweaters' Emporium' in Mugsborough and at the firm's other retail establishments throughout the county.Many of the women workers were widows with children, who were glad to obtain any employment that did not take hem away from their homes and families.
The blouses were paid for at tie rate of from two shillings to five shillings a dozen, the women having to provide their own machine and cotton, besides calling for and delivering the work.These poor women were able to clear from six to eight shillings a week: and to earn even that they had to work almost incessantly for fourteen or sixteen hours a day.There was no time for cooling and very little to cook, for they lived principally on bread and margarine and tea.Their homes were squalid, their children half-starved and raggedly clothed in grotesque garments hastily fashioned out of the cast-off clothes of charitable neighbours.
But it was not in vain that these women toiled every weary day until exhaustion compelled them to case.It was not in vain that they passed their cheerless lives bending with aching shoulders over the thankless work that barely brought them bread.It was not in vain that they and their children went famished and in rags, for after all, the principal object of their labour was accomplished: the Good Cause was advanced.Mr Sweater waxed rich and increased in goods and respectability.
Of course, none of those women were COMPELLED to engage in that glorious cause.No one is compelled to accept any particular set of conditions in a free country like this.Mr Trafaim - the manager of Sweater's Homework Department - always put the matter before them in the plainest, fairest possible way.There was the work: that was the figure! And those who didn't like it could leave it.There was no compulsion.
Sometimes some perverse creature belonging to that numerous class who are too lazy to work DID leave it! But as the manager said, there were plenty of others who were only too glad to take it.In fact, such was the enthusiasm amongst these women - especially such of them as had little children to provide for - and such was their zeal for the Cause, that some of them have been known to positively beg to be allowed to work!
By these and similar means Adam Sweater had contrived to lay up for himself a large amount of treasure upon earth, besides attaining undoubted respectability; for that he was respectable no one questioned.He went to chapel twice every Sunday, his obese figure arrayed in costly apparel, consisting - with other things - of grey trousers, a long garment called a frock-coat, a tall silk hat, a quantity of jewellery and a morocco-bound gilt-edged Bible.He was an official of some sort of the Shining Light Chapel.His name appeared in nearly every published list of charitable subscriptions.No starving wretch had ever appealed to him in vain for a penny soup ticket.