Part 25

=144. Maple Sugar.= The cheapness of sugar made from sugar cane has almost annihilated the existence of maple sugar, except as a sweetmeat. The peculiar flavor of maple molasses and sugar makes them much loved by some people. The trees are tapped early in the spring, when the sap first rises. After sufficient water is collected, it is put on and boiled until of the consistence required. It is slow work and pays poorly, but can be performed by women capable of the heavy labor involved in carrying, lifting kettles, and stirring.

=145. Market Women.= Mrs. Childs says, in her "History of Women," "On the seacoast of Borneo fleets of boats may be seen laden with provisions brought to market by women, who are screened from the sun by huge bamboo hats. In Egyptian cities, the country girls, closely veiled, are frequently employed in selling melons, pomegranates, eggs, poultry, &c." In the southern countries of Europe it is common to see women riding to market on donkeys, laden with marketing. We learn from "London Labor and London Poor," that there are 2,000 persons employed in the sale of greenstuff in the streets of London, as water-cresses, chickweed, groundsel, turf, and plantain. The cresses are eaten by people; the other articles are sold for birds. We may divide market women into two classes--those that raise or have raised the products they sell, and those that buy to sell again. The articles of the first are generally genuine and of fair price. Vegetables, poultry, eggs, and butter, with fruit, both green and dried, are carried to market, and there the market women, placing them on stalls or retaining them in their wagons, wait for purchasers. This class mostly supply the markets of towns and villages. Their articles are usually fresh and wholesome. There are thirteen markets in New York city where everything is obtained at the second or third remove from the producer. It is estimated that there are 1,300 huckster women attending the New York markets. The members of some families are engaged in the sale of different articles: one will sell eggs; another, vegetables; another, poultry, &c. It is said that better meat and vegetables are brought to Philadelphia than to New York markets. In New York there is a larger population requiring articles of a cheap kind. We think market women, considering their habits and modes of living, probably do as well in a pecuniary way as any other class of women. Their wants are few, their habits simple, and their occupation--though an exposed one--healthy. The variety of seeing new faces, and chatting with those similarly employed, yield more comfort and content than most women's work. They take in but a few pennies at a time, yet have their regular customers, and, in prosperous seasons, many besides. I will give an extract from my diary of a visit made to several of the New York markets: "I saw some women selling fruit; some, vegetables; and some, tripe and sausage. I judge, from the appearance of most dealers, it is not unhealthy. Most of the women were far advanced in life, particularly those who sold vegetables. They all complain that they do not sell so much since the commencement of the hard times. How is it? Do people buy less, and so eat less? or is less wasted in their kitchens? or are some unable to buy meat and vegetables at all? Here I would state the remark of a druggist: that, as times are hard, people do not indulge in so much rich food, nor in a surplus of it; consequently there is less sickness, and so little medicine sold that the druggists are discouraged. This druggist has since sold out, and moved to the country. Most of the market women looked to be Irish. One strong Irish woman told me that American women cannot bear the exposure in cold weather, and rent their stalls through the winter to men. They make their appearance in March with the flowers and early fruit. Butter is sold exclusively by men in Washington market, New York, and is more profitable than anything else. There is considerable difference in the class of custom in the different markets in New York; but the poor are usually more in number than the rich--so the markets frequented by them may receive as great a profit as where a smaller number of better customers attend. Some women regulate their sales to have a percentage, but many sell for what they can get, without regard to the amount of profit. I find those selling vegetables, buy of farmers who come early, and leave a supply for each seller in case she is not there. Any vegetables they may have left are locked up in boxes, or barrels, or covered over and left on the bench. The gates of the market house are closed and locked up at one o'clock every day except Saturday, with the exception of Washington and Fulton markets, which are open all day, and the first mentioned all night. Watchmen are about the markets at all hours of the day and night, and in some markets an extra fee is paid by the sellers to secure attention to their stalls. At two o'clock in the morning, Washington market is fully lighted, and the farmers begin to arrive to sell to grocers. The grocers usually buy from four to five in summer, and from four to six in winter. Boarding-house keepers mostly buy from seven to nine o'clock. Families buy during any of these hours, or later. All the markets are open by half past three. Fulton market is rather warmer than the others because of the stoves and ranges used for making coffee, cooking oysters, &c. Ladies do not come to market so much in winter as in spring and summer. I think the vocation of market selling must be very healthy, when the venders are comfortably clad, and have stoves, as many of them do. Market women live to a great age. Vegetables injured by frost or long keeping are sold at a lower price. As a general thing, less is sold in market during January and February, than any other months. In spring time the market presents the most inviting appearance, for the stalls are then freshly painted, and flowers and fruit exhibited to advantage on them. Mrs. B. told me that a woman who sold flowers in Fulton market had made a fortune at it. Some of these sellers let other women have flowers and fruit to take over the city to sell, and reap a profit in that way. One old lady told me she always made 12½ cents profit on her goods, they being pocket-knives, combs, &c. The stalls are sold or rented. One woman told me she paid 12½ cents a day for her stall; another, 9 cents; and this must be paid for even on days when they are absent from market. Another woman told me that she got a permit for the use of a stall in Washington market when it was first built, and not long since she sold it for $1,500, and the owner pays a tax of $2 a week besides. She paid $200 for the stall at which she stood in Fulton market, and pays a rent of 75 cents a week. She makes a living by selling smoked salt fish. The processes through which produce must pass from the producer to reach the consumer, might be avoided by permitting farmers to remain longer in the city, and furnishing them with a place for their teams and produce; but now they must all leave by ten o'clock, and can scarcely feel that they have a place to put anything down while they are in the city. In England are women who shell peas and beans at so much a quart. I have seen books, spectacles, canes, pocket-books, caps, shoes, hose, china, and even old clothes for sale on the streets, and around or in the market-houses of Philadelphia and New York.

=146. Meat Sellers.= In markets and in meat shops of the United States, women may occasionally be seen selling meat. They are generally the wives or the daughters of butchers. They no doubt assist in cleaning tripe, and making sausage and souse. On the streets of London are nearly one thousand sellers of dogs' and cats' meat. Most of them are men. This meat is the flesh of old worn out horses, which are bought, killed, cut up, boiled, and sold by those who make it a business. Mrs. M. told me of a woman that sells meat in the New York market. She has made a fortune by it. She stands in market, and sells, and orders her hired men to cut it up as desired. Mr. W. told me that women are employed at the pork houses in Louisville, in putting up hogs' feet, to send to New Orleans. Less meat is sold in summer than winter. I have been told that curing meat is too heavy work for women, on account of the lifting. Besides, they would get wet from the brine used; but some German and English women do pickle meat, and some even buy and sell stock. The late census of Great Britain reports twenty-six thousand butcheresses.

=147. Milk Dealers.= Kindness to animals always indicates something good in the heart. Life, in its every form, should be precious to us. Cows yield much less milk, and of an inferior quality, on the eastern than western continent. In Canada and some countries of Europe, the milk of goats is sold, and considerably used. In some parts of Rome it is customary for dairymen to drive their cows in every morning, and around to the houses of their customers, when the milkman draws from the cow into the vessel the desired quantity. In Belgium it is not uncommon to see milkmaids following their little wagons, containing vessels of milk, and drawn by dogs. Mayhew stated, in 1852, that in St. James's Park, London, eight cows were kept in summer to supply warm milk to purchasers; four in winter, and the number of street women engaged in the sale of curds, was one hundred. A lady called with me in a milk depot. The man has his milk brought in on the cars. Milkmen pay their women from $6 to $7 a month. They begin to milk about five in the morning, and the same hour in the afternoon, so that it may cool before being placed in the cans. Those hired to milk do house work or kitchen work in the intervals. When milking is done in the afternoon, the men that work on the farm, and the proprietor himself, assist. In some places where butter is made for market, the churning is done by horses and dogs. A milk dealer told me he sold to those who wished to sell again at cost price, four cents a quart; to other customers his price is six cents. At one depot, Williamsburg, the dealer was counting over an immense pile of pennies. His milk comes from New Jersey, seventy miles from New York. He crosses two rivers every night at twelve o'clock, to receive his milk at the Jersey depot. He sells at six cents a quart. To those who buy to sell again, his price is five cents a quart. He told me a separate freight agent is employed on some trains to take charge of the milk sent on the cars. Milk does not often sour while being brought in. Cream is brought in cans placed in large tubs of ice. He pays for freight, forty cents a can. Cream usually sells at twenty-five cents per quart. He sells twice as much milk in summer as in winter--he supposes, because it sours so easily. At shops, milk is usually sold at five cents; when delivered, at six cents. Milk is less rich in winter than summer. A milkman told me that in dairies in and near the city, men mostly milk. He mentioned one quite near a distillery. Women that take milk about in buckets to sell, have a cow of their own, and feed her on swill from the distillery, and slops from kitchens. The milk they sell is not healthy. Some of them buy a little good milk and mix with theirs. If a dairy woman's time is not entirely occupied with her business, she might in some places find it profitable to have an ice house, and send ice around with the same horse, wagon, and driver used for the sale of milk. Borden's condensed milk is boiled at a temperature of 112°, I think, and prepared in Connecticut. The American Solidified Milk Company, in New York, employ some girls in rolling, packing, and labelling. The superintendent writes: "The employment is healthy. Women receive from $7 to $8 per month, and their board. They spend twelve hours per day, including meal times, in the establishment. An intelligent person may learn in a week. There is a prospect of more being employed. All the girls we employ are Americans, except one. It is a very comfortable occupation. I find little difference between male and female labor. When I have hired men or youths, I have found them to be more habitually attentive, and less irritable; but women are usually neater. The women all board at a house, subject to the control of the Company. The price is $2.25 per week, washing included, and is paid for by the Company. The character of the house is unexceptionable, and the table is much better provided than that of most farmers living here."

=148. Mince Meat and Apple Butter.= The preparation of mince meat might be performed by women. And it might be sold by them in stores where poultry, eggs, and butter are disposed of, or in clean, well-kept groceries. With a machine for cutting the meat, and another for paring the apples, it could be easily accomplished. Apple butter is an article that meets with ready sale in market. People that are very particular about their food only buy of those they know to be cleanly in their cooking. Stewing apple butter is laborious work. If a farmer has a cider press and an apple parer, much labor is saved in preparing the materials. In some places, apple butter is kept for sale in groceries, and in establishments for the sale of the products of the dairy. The apples that are partly decayed, and those picked off the ground, furnish an abundance from large orchards. And from orchards not accessible to market where defective fruit can be sold, there will be no want of a supply. It is sold by the pint or quart, or put up in jars holding more.

=149. Mustard Packers.= Most of the mustard in this country has been imported, but some planters are now turning their time and attention to it. Mustard is cultivated to some extent for the oil pressed from its seed. Some factories exist in the United States. I have heard of a man in New York that used to be engaged extensively in grinding mustard with vinegar, and employed women to put it in jars, paying $3 a week. In some dry mustard factories women are employed to put the mustard in papers. A manufacturer of mustard writes: "Women are employed at some large establishments. The business is severe on persons with weak lungs, as a large quantity of steam or dust arises from packing. The work is paid for by the quantity, not the day. Women of good judgment would soon become mistresses of their work--in six months they would become good workwomen. They would probably spoil as much as their wages were worth for the first few days. When cholera and yellow fever are about, is the best time for the sale of mustard. Ten hours is the usual time for work, but in busy seasons the hands work longer."

=150. Oyster Sellers.= I called on a woman who makes a living for herself and five little children by selling oysters. She sells most about tea time, and on until twelve o'clock. She thinks oysters are wholesome all the year. Physicians recommend them for their patients, and many can eat them when they cannot eat anything else. Of course a real oyster saloon can only be kept in places where fresh oysters can be had. Oysters are rather hard for a woman to open. In summer nothing is done. The room, vender, and oysters should be clean, to draw decent customers. It pays well; but too often, in small concerns, the profits are derived from the sale of liquor. At a little oyster shop the woman told me she barely made a living. She keeps boys to open the oysters. She supplies families with fresh oysters, and when she receives an order, prepares them for families and sends them to the house.

=151. Pie Bakers.= "Many of the young Swabian girls of thirteen or fourteen years old are sent to Stuttgart to acquire music, or other branches of education, among which, household duties are generally included. A matron, who keeps a large establishment there, gives the instruction, which they voluntarily seek. They may often be seen returning from the bakeries, with a tray full of cakes and pies of their own making; and sometimes young gentlemen, for the sake of fun, stop them to buy samples of their cookery." The foundation of Miss Leslie's culinary knowledge was laid at a school of cookery in Philadelphia. In England, women make pastry for confectioneries. At the W. pie bakery I was told they employ women to prepare the fruit. They used to employ them to roll the dough; but they are not such fast workers as men. One man remarked, the shoulders ache from rolling by the time evening comes. The women are paid fifty cents a day, and board themselves. One woman boards with them, and receives $1.50 a week, with her board. M. & Co. pay their women five cents an hour, for preparing the fruit and making pies. They sell most to retail stores and hotels--consequently sell most in the spring and fall, when the largest number of strangers are in the city. They keep three wagons running part of the time, which start at six in summer, and, in busy seasons, sometimes do not get in to remain till twelve at night. When it rains or snows they do not sell so much, as those who sell at stands on the street are not out. The drivers come back several times during the day for pies, when very busy, and they mention how many are ordered. So the manager knows how many to have baked. They always sell most on Saturday, and I think sell least on Wednesdays and Thursdays. When the women work over ten hours, they are paid extra at the same rate, five cents an hour. C. and wife pay their best woman $9 a month with board and washing. It is her duty to roll out pastry, put the fruit in, and put the covers on. They employ some girls for $6 a month, to wash dishes, cook fruit, chop apples, pick dried fruit, &c. The work requires more strength than skill. There are only four large pie bakeries in New York. Madame L., who sells French pastry and confectionery, says very few women are employed in Paris, in making pastry, except for families. It requires too much strength and too long labor, to do so for a saloon. The saloons are usually open until twelve o'clock at night. At a bread bakery an attendant told me she prepares the fruit for pies, but the bakers prepare the crust, make and bake them. She says their men do that in the morning, when not otherwise employed, and it would not pay to have a woman for that purpose alone. Mrs. H. employs fifteen women. She pays $3.50 a month, with board and lodging, to those that slice apples and carry pies to and from the oven. Men place them in the oven and take them out. She pays $6.50 to those that roll out pastry and wash dishes, &c. She has three thousand pies made sometimes in one day. It requires more care to bake pies than bread. At another pie bakery, the lady told me she has the fruit prepared for pies in her kitchen and taken to the bakehouse, where they are made up by men, to save the women from working where the men are. She pays a woman for preparing fruit $5 a month and her board. In a pie bakery in New York, one of the attendants said in the old country women learn to bake pies and cakes for confectioners. They pay £30 for instruction, and spend two years' apprenticeship. They learn the whole process, including the stewing of fruit and preparing mince meat. In this country that is followed as a separate branch, and mostly done by women for bakers. She said in the bakery where she stood, girls were required, not only to wait on customers, but wash the counters, shelves, and windows of the store. The other attendant told me she found the smell of the pastry, and being so constantly on her feet, very injurious. They each receive $8 a month, and their board and washing. To succeed, a person should be quick in her motions and calculations, and a good judge of money. They are in the shop fifteen hours. In some bakeries the girls spend eighteen hours in the shop. The time could be shortened, if all the establishments of the kind would unite and make regulations to that effect; but it could not be done by one or two stores on account of the competition in the business. Such a store would lose its patronage. The majority of girls board with the bakers' families, on account of rising early to be in store. Summer is the poorest season on Broadway, as most of their customers are out of the city at that season; but in localities where the working classes are supplied, the summer is the best season, as most of them do not go to the expense of making up a fire to bake their bread and pastry.

=152. Picklers of Oysters.= An oysterwoman told me that girls and women are employed at most places where oysters are put in cans to send away. They are paid by the gallon for opening the shells; and near New Haven, some girls make $4 a day. On the Great South Bay, they do not earn so much, as the oysters are smaller and rougher. It requires considerable practice to become expert, but not much physical strength. The business is considered healthy, and women are paid at the same rate as men. Miss B. told me that at Fair Haven some women are paid for opening oysters two and a half cents a quart.

=153. Poulterers.= Much attention has been paid in this country, during the last ten years, to the breeding and feeding of poultry. All that read this will remember the hen fever that spread through our country a few years ago. Chinese chickens sold at from $40 to $100 a pair; and the usual price of one egg for a time was $5. The saving of feathers off poultry will be found profitable, for they bring a high price and ready sale. Poultry are best disposed of in large quantities at hotels, steamboats, and restaurants. Houses for poultry should be warm and tightly made. When there is a variety of poultry, each kind should be separately lodged. Plenty of space, water accessible, gravel, living plants and loose soil are the principal things to render poultry comfortable. The worms and insects obtained from the loose soil furnish them animal food, and sand or gravel is necessary to promote digestion. It is best not to draw poultry when preparing it for market, as it keeps longer when the air is excluded. In winter some farmers let their poultry freeze, and pack them in boxes of dry straw, and send them to market. They will keep so for two or three months. I was told of an old lady, back of New Albany, Ia., that has made several thousand dollars by the sale of poultry. The egg trade is a very extensive one. It requires a knowledge of the state of the market, and promptness in supplying its demand at the right time. Several establishments in Cincinnati entered largely into the business some years ago, and, we suppose, still continue it. Eggs are often shipped from Cincinnati to New Orleans and New York. "In France and England 6,000,000 eggs are used annually in preparing leather for gloves." In New York the poultry sold in market is mostly purchased from the wholesale commission merchants, who have stands in some parts of the market, or stores near the market. Poultry is there sold by the pound: chickens, 9 and 10 cents, and turkeys from 10 to 12 cents. It requires experience to learn the quality of poultry, but those in the business can judge of it by seeing the poultry when alive. The best time for selling is through the fall up to February. Some market women sell poultry in winter, and flowers in summer. Those who engage in raising poultry, could unite with it the raising of rabbits, pigeons, &c. About a hundred persons (mostly women) are employed in a henery near Paris, where thousands of chickens are annually hatched out by keeping eggs in rooms, heated by steam to a uniform temperature.