working in hotels and restaurants, often miscarries pathetically
The simple obedience to parents on the part of these immigrant girls,
working in hotels and restaurants, often miscarries pathetically. Their
unspoiled human nature, not yet immune to the poisons of city life, when
thrust into the midst of that unrelieved drudgery which lies at the
foundation of all complex luxury, often results in the most fatal
reactions. A young German woman, the proprietor of what is considered a
successful 'house' in the most notorious district in Chicago, traces her
career directly to a desperate attempt to conform to the standard of
'bringing home good wages' maintained by her numerous brothers and
sisters. One requirement of her home was rigid: all money earned by a
child must be paid into the family income until 'legal age' was
attained. The slightly neurotic, very pretty girl of seventeen heartily
detested the dish-washing in a restaurant, which constituted her first
place in America, and quite honestly declared that the heavy lifting was
beyond her strength. Such insubordination was not tolerated at home, and
every Saturday night when her meager wages, reduced by sick days 'off,'
were compared with what the others brought in, she was regularly
scolded, 'sometimes slapped,' by her parents, jeered at by her more
vigorous sisters and bullied by her brothers. She tried to shorten her
hours by doing 'rush-work' as a waitress at noon, but she found this
still beyond her strength, and worst of all, the pay of two dollars and
a half insufficient to satisfy her mother. Confiding her troubles to the
other waitresses, one of them good-naturedly told her how she could make
money through appointments in a nearby disreputable hotel, and so take
home an increased amount of money easily called 'a raise in wages.' So
strong was the habit of obedience, that the girl continued to take money
home every Saturday night until her eighteenth birthday, in spite of the
fact that she gave up the restaurant in less than six weeks after her
first experience. Although all of this happened ten years ago and the
German mother is long since dead, the daughter bitterly ended the story
with the infamous hope that 'the old lady was now suffering the torments
of the lost, for making me what I am.' Such a girl was subjected to
temptations to which society has no right to expose her.
macon hotels 1842 inn and suites macon hotels 1842 inn baymont inn and suites macon hotels 1842 