THEY DO THE SAME IN ENGLJND
35
aroused, however, by a loud rnicrophonic voice announcing the lucky draw.
After all, I had paid for two programs. Hurriedly I fished inside my
pockets and took: them out.
The announcing voice went on, and when I heard the details I was
thunderstruck:. Two cash prizes were being offered, the first for seven
shillings ($1.75), the second for five ($1.25) ! Was I dreaming? In–
credible! I did some rapid calculus. Here were a thousand couples, and
each couple had paid threepence (six cents) for a program. Why, great
Scott! the company was working a neat racket on the thing. A thousand
programs netted them sixty dollars. Subtract ten dollars (an exorbitant
figure) for the cheap printing and still the company was making money.
My
companion, watching my pencil, was grinn"ing harder than ever.
"Now sit down again and I'll tell you something," she said, and she
began to tell me how to profitably run an English five-and-ten-cent store.
"First of all , after paying hardly any wages, you must. be sure never to
draw the veil away from the private lives of your employees," she said,
and she began telling me appalling stories of clerks and shops girls who had
confid·ed in her and to whom she had given a little money. She herself,
being an expert translator and taking care of the foreign correspondence
from foreign manufacturers, received four pounds (twenty dollars) a
week, perhaps the highest salary on the staff, but her wage was exceptional.
I sat listening while the lucky draw was going on and through the
blur of excitement the choppy Germanic words of my companion carne
to me. Many boys and girls, she told me, 'after trying to make b'oth ends
meet-and failing-start living together to save expenses. "So you see,
I'm working with immoral people," she smiled. However, a few years
ago, the owners had had a twinge of conscience. The "radical" member,
because business was good and expanding, called in social service people,
asking for assistance. "We want to help our employees," he told them.
"It
has come to our notice that some of our girls do not live in very good
quarters. We would consider financing and operating hostles for them, at
cost; we want them to be comfortable, to have the necessary amenities ..."
The social service people called in architects, technicians. A series
of conferences was held. Plans were drawn, blue-prints and figures
scanned. From the inner office a warm wave of good-will-toward-our–
employees publicity began to flow. But the wave turned out to be a
wavelet, and was stopped abruptly. The whole thing went up in smoke.
The lowest, positively the lowest figure for hostle accornodation for girls,
was fifteen shillings a week. And the law, in such a case, required some
kind of supervision-the girls would have to have matrons or overseers,
the girls would have to be in at a certain hour at night-
