Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ... Morris when I had removed my coat and hat and donned my working costume. Between the door and the sorting corner there stretched a large body of "A DOZEN GIRLS AND WOMEN WERE IRONING." soapy water, several yards square, and in some places almost ankle-deep. "Pick your skirts up," said Mrs. Morris, as she prepared to lead me across. I was on the point of asking for a boat and ferryman, when I saw her step into the water and walk bravely over; so, acting on the principle that the employee was no better than the employer, I also walked across, and landed with wet feet. I supposed that, of course, there had been an accident, that one of the boilers had turned upside down; but I was afterwards told that the pond was always there. It was let out from the washing-machines in which the linen was boiled, and allowed to flow about the place until it found its way to a small sewer underneath a board, where it sunk into the ground, and its place was taken by more water from the next boiler of clothes. Taking into consideration the fact that I was in a " sanitary" laundry, it was only natural that I should have been surprised that there were no pipes for the purpose of carrying off this water. In the sorting-corner I was introduced to Miss Stebbins, the head packer and sorter, a position considered to be the most genteel in the business. It was there that I spent the first three days of my apprenticeship. Until I was set to making figures with red cotton I had never thought of connecting needlework and laundry work. I had supposed my career as a needlewoman was ended when, just before I left Mrs. Allison's, I darned up the contents of the mendingbasket; but darning was as nothing compared with the making of figures with red cotton. With...
