of means and position have, of late years, been in the habit of organizing and sustaining sewing-circles, and of acting as saleswomen and waiters at promiscuously crowded fairs, that the wonder is, not that they should co-operate in clothing themselves and their families, but that they have not long ago done so. A co-operative sewing-room or clothing-house would be in effect a dry-goods store, owned in shares by the customers, instead of by one or several individuals, officered throughout by ladies, and where all the piece-goods sold could be made up into the desired garments more tastefully, perfectly, and at least as cheaply, as they can now be done at home.
Should the association consist of no more than twelve families, three rooms would perhaps afford all the accommodation necessary for the above purposes, namely, a salesroom, a fitting-room, and a work-room. But I am so convinced that if in any community it were known that twelve responsible housekeepers were actually about to take the plunge into co-operative sewing, their numbers would rapidly swell to fifty at least, that I shall sketch a plan for a sewing-house suitable for supplying the yearly clothing of two hundred persons, since the mistresses, servants, children, and infants of fifty families, would probably count up to that number, to say nothing of the gentlemen's shirts and their mending.
Arrangement of the Building.
It should occupy, it seems to me, a good-sized building as follows:—on the first floor should be the counting-room, salesroom, consulting-room, and fitting-room; on the second floor should be the working-rooms; and on the third a dining-room (with dumb waiter), a gymnasium, and a reading-room; all of these being so connected that they could be thrown open in one suite, when the co-operative housekeepers wished to give their workwomen a ball. The two lower floors should each have a comfortable dressing-room with lounges, easy-chairs, and toilet conveniences; and
