Appeal to the Wealthy of the Land/Preface

by Mathew Carey

PREFACE.

The subject of the following essays is deeply interesting to a large portion of the human race, much of whose happiness, morals, and manners depends on its being correctly understood, and rightly acted on. It therefore demands the most serious reflection of the wise, and the good, and the liberal.

Some of the most material of the opinions herein contained, are in direct hostility with those generally prevalent on the same subject, and even by some highly enlightened citizens. But few can be ignorant that the most enlightened and profound men, may be radically and fatuitously in error on particular points. Bacon believed in astrology; Johnson in the Cocklane ghost—and the great Judge Hale in witchcraft. He sentenced a miserable wretch to death, for that imaginary crime. Need I add a word to prove the folly of placing implicit credit, without due examination, on opinions sanctioned by great names, or regarded as venerable from their antiquity.

All I ask for such opinions as at the first view may appear heterodoxical, is a fair, and candid, and repeated examination. Let them not be cast aside with scorn, as mankind are too apt to do, because they coincide not with preconceived views. If they cannot pass this ordeal, let them perish. If otherwise, I hope they will meet with that attention, and produce those practical results, which the importance of the subject demands.

Should it appear, as it probably will, to some of my readers, that I have expressed myself with too much warmth, in discussing the sufferings of the seamstresses, &c. let it be borne in mind, that I have been pleading the cause of probably 12,000 women in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, (with souls as precious in the eye of heaven as the most exalted females that ever trod the earth—as a Maria Theresa, a Princess Victoria, a Mrs. Washington, a Mrs. Madison, or a Mrs. Monroe,) who are grievously oppressed and reduced to the utmost penury, in a land literally flowing with milk and honey, while many of those for whom they toil, make immense fortunes, by their labours.

We are assured, as I have stated,^[1] by ladies fully competent to judge on the subject, that nine cotton shirts a week are as much as the great mass of seamstresses can make. Those shirts are frequently made for 6, 8, and 10 cents, leaving 54 a 72 a 90 cents a week for the incessant application of a human being, during thirteen or fourteen hours a day, for the payment of rent, the purchase of food, clothes, drink, soap, candles and fuel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Deplorable as is the condition of the poor in the crowded cities of Europe, there are few females there who earn much less than this—and therefore, it must follow, that there is frequently as intense a degree of distress suffered here, as in London or Paris. The principal difference is not in the intensity, but in the extent of the distress. Compared with London or Paris, there are few who suffer in this way here. But it is no alleviation of the misery of an unfortunate female in Philadelphia or Boston, who makes shirts for six or eight cents, or even ten, that is to say, who earns from nine to fifteen cents per day, that there are fewer similarly circumstanced here than in those cities.

It is often triumphantly asked, respecting the case of the women who are so very inadequately remunerated for their labours, What remedy can be applied to such an inveterate evil? Does not the proportion between supply and demand, in this, as in all other cases, regulate prices? And while there is such an over-proportion of labour in the market, must not competition reduce prices, as it has done, to the lowest grade, even below the minimum necessary to support existence?

I am well aware of the superabundance of female labour—of the direful effects of over-driven competition, not only on the comfort and happiness, but on the morals of the labouring classes of society, in every quarter of the globe. But I contend for it, that every principle of honour, justice, and generosity, forbids the employer to take advantage of the distress and wretchedness of those he employs, and cut down their wages below the minimum necessary to procure a sufficiency of plain food and of clothes to guard against the inclemency of the weather. Whoever passes this line of demarcation, is guilty of the heinous offence of "grinding the faces of the poor." The labour of every human being ought to insure this remuneration at least. And I am persuaded that there are thousands of honourable men who give inadequate wages to males as well as females, merely because they have never thought sufficiently on the subject; and who, therefore, have no idea of the real state of the case. They would scorn to give the wages they do at present, were they aware of the distress and misery thus entailed on those by whose labours, I emphatically repeat, they not only enjoy all the comforts and luxuries of life, but many of them make immense fortunes. My object is to induce upright men thus circumstanced, to scrutinize the affair, and obey the dictates of their better feelings as soon as they have ascertained the truth. Of the honourable issue I cannot entertain a doubt.

Let me most earnestly, but most respectfully, conjure the ladies, into whose hands these lines may come, to ponder deeply, and frequently, and lastingly, on the deplorable condition of so many of their sex, who are ground to the earth by an inadequate remuneration for their painful labours. Let them raise their voices, and exert their influence in their defence, and urge their male friends to enter the lists in the holy cause of suffering humanity. I am not so enthusiastic or deluded as to suppose that a complete remedy can be applied to so enormous and so inveterate an evil—an evil, the remedy of which requires more generosity and disinterestedness than usually fall to the lot of mankind. But by proper efforts, the oppression of the mass of the sufferers may at least be mitigated, and no inconsiderable portion of them may be completely relieved.

The ladies will, I hope, pardon me for an observation which applies to some of them, but I hope to only a low. I have known a lady expend a hundred dollars on a party; pay thirty or forty dollars for a bonnet, and fifty for a shawl; and yet make a hard bargain with a seamstress or washerwoman,^[2] who had to work at her needle or at the washing-tub for thirteen or fourteen hours a day, to make a bare livelihood for herself and a numerous family of small children! This is "a sore oppression under the sun," and ought to be eschewed by every honourable mind. "Let it be reformed altogether."

⁠Philadelphia, June 18, 1833.

1. Page 13.
2. Extract of a letter from the Rev. Mr. Dupuy.
   Philadelphia, April 13th.
   Dear Sir.—As you are desirous of ascertaining the average amount of wages paid to some of the poor, I send you an individual whose case is peculiarly hard. I know the woman to be a person who would on no account deviate from the truth. She gets $10 per quarter for washing, an.d frequently washes eight dozen of clothes per week-she finding soap, starch, fuel, &c. This is ahout ten cents per dozen.⁠ Your obedient servant,
   ⁠Mr. M. Carey. CHARLES M. DUPUY.