OBJECTIVE.
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stand all the time, whether serving customers or not, and this merely that they may appear to be always on the alert to wait on those who call. To stand from seven or eight in the morning to six, eight, or ten o’clock at night, as is the custom at certain stores, with a short time at mid-day for dinner, would weary any man; but to exact such service from girls and women is damnable. Their physical powers are, it is well known, much weaker than those of men, at any rate ; and, by their anatomical and physiological peculiarities, they are entirely unfit for bearing this especially severe toil, namely, standing all day long. My professional brethren who practise largely among women are constantly witnessing the evil consequences of this most cruel ‘ rule of the establishment.’ ”
My attention was directed, not long since, to a shop on one of the principal thoroughfares of Boston, in whose exceedingly narrow dimensions of only eighteen by forty feet, by eleven in height, heated by a furnace, no less than fourteen young ladies, ranging in age from seventeen to twenty- four, are employed ; obliged by the “rule of the establishment ” “ always to stand, to dress neatly, and to be absent only half an hour