Part 40

=308. Pattern Makers.= The wife of a pattern maker told me it requires ingenuity, patience, and a knowledge of drawing to become a pattern maker. C. thought general pattern making would not do for a woman, as it would require planing, cutting, and turning wood. He said some of the finer parts of pattern making, as forming models on a small scale for the patent office, could be done by a woman who is qualified. It would require a knowledge of arithmetical proportions, ability to turn a lathe properly, and aptness at catching the ideas of others. A gentleman who makes models for the patent office, patterns for machinery, steam and gas fittings, &c., writes: "The varnishing might be done by women, but in most shops there would not be enough to keep one at work all the time." S. told me that a part of the work of pattern making could be done by women, but it would be advisable they should have a separate apartment in founderies. The variety of ornamental iron work is so great that it affords scope for inventive talent. We suppose the business of pattern making is not more laborious and is very similar to block cutting. If women were prepared for some branches of this business, we doubt not it would prove remunerative and furnish steady employment. A pattern maker writes from Hartford: "We do our own draughting, but there is considerable done independent of a shop. For such work we pay $2 a day. A knowledge of geometry and mathematics is a prerequisite."

=309. Rattan Splitters.= Formerly, rattan was thrown from the ships that landed in New York, as something useless; now it sells at from four to nine cents a pound. The centre of the rattan is used for hoop skirts. The outside is split off by a strange-looking machine. The strips are then shaved thin by another machine, for making chair seats and ornamenting buggies. They are bleached in a close room with ignited sulphur. The refuse is used in some way in the manufacture of gas--also for making coarse mats and filling beds. At N.'s factory, I saw girls shaving rattan. The work was dusty--one sat, but the others stood. The girls had merely to attend to the strips as they ran through small machines moved by steam. Each girl received fifty cents a day of ten hours, for her services. In Fitchburg, Mass., fifty girls are so employed.

=310. Segar Boxes.= I called in a segar-box factory where the man had four boys at work. The trade requires care, and some ability to calculate proportions. The work consists in driving small nails, gluing on tape, planing the edges, and similar labor. Women could do it, and I expect do in Germany. If boys from ten to fifteen years of age can, why cannot girls? After two months, a boy earns something. Two of the boys had been working at the trade two years, and were earning each $3 a week. The wood is cedar, and so easily managed.

=311. Turners.= I saw the process of wood turning. The flying of the chips I thought disagreeable. The trade can be learned in three years very well. A boy learning is paid $2.50 a week, the first year; the next year, $3; the next, increased fifty cents more, and so on. A good hand can earn from $1.75 to $2 a day. Some women do the turning of small wooden articles in France, and quite a number are employed in bone and horn turning in the old country, which is not so hard. Turning is more nearly perfect than most mechanical operations, and consequently is employed in all those branches susceptible of its use. In most work of this nature the article operated on is stationary, and the machinery in motion; but in turning, the article is kept in motion, the tool merely pressed upon it by the hand. "There is said to be but little difference in the management of turning different substances. The principal thing to be attended to is to adapt the velocity of the motion to the nature of the material." Rosa Bonheur, when a girl, was apprenticed to a dress maker, whose husband was a turner. His lathe stood in an adjoining room. Rosa delighted to slip away from her work and employ herself at the turner's lathe. The making of bone and wooden handles for canes and umbrellas could be done by women. Removing the surface of the bone is dirty work, and requires some strength. The polishing could be done by a girl. The bones are bought at glue factories, slaughter houses, &c. In New York, for a small new bone, two and a half cents is paid; for a large one, five cents.

AGENTS.

=312. Express and other Conveyances.= We saw a description, a short time ago, by some traveller in Scotland, of ladies acting in the capacity of railroad officials; that is, one sold tickets, another collected them, and a third was telegraphing at a station. I have been told that some of the ticket agents in Boston are women. Women are also employed at some of the railway stations in France and Germany, not only to sell tickets, but to guard the stations and crossings. I have heard that on those roads where women are switch tenders no accident has ever occurred. "In Paris, omnibus conductors submit their way bills at the transfer offices to women for inspection and ratification. Women book you for a seat in the diligence. Women let donkeys for rides at Montmorency, and saddle them too." The St. Louis _Republican_ mentions that there is one feature about the steamer _Illinois Belle_, of peculiar attractiveness--a lady clerk. "Look at her bills of lading, and 'Mary J. Patterson, Clerk,' will be seen traced in a delicate and very neat style of chirography. A lady clerk on a Western steamer! It speaks strongly of our moral progress."

=313. General Agents.= "The walks of business become more manifold and extended as the luxuries of civilization and the skill of human inventions become more multiplied and more widely displayed. Every description of commercial, mechanical, and executive business excited and created by the new wants and new imaginations of advancing society, will call for the creation and extension of new agencies to accomplish the labor which they must demand. Thus the variety and number of business agencies of every kind must spread out in a constant increase." We think there is great imposition practised by some people who secure lady agents, and we would advise ladies who can undertake an agency to learn something of the parties who would employ, and the character of the article, before they engage in any undertaking of the kind. A conscientious agent is likely to have her interests suffer by a want of honor in those whom she represents. With a liberal discount on the retail price of most goods, agents might be enabled to make a handsome return for their services. I saw a man that manufactures indelible ink, and employs agents to sell it and stencil plates. He allows them half they receive. One lady in Boston, he said, made $20 one day. I think it probable it was in a large school. Ladies, he says, will not stay long at it, because it tires them very much to go up stairs a great deal. An agent should be one that can talk well and has tact and judgment. She should select those parts of a city where she will be most likely to meet with success. If her article is something for ladies' use, let her go where the best dwellings are. If it is something for universal use, if she selects but part of a city, the largest quantity will probably be sold in those parts most densely populated. A manufacturer of fancy soaps and perfumery told me he has employed ladies as agents to go around selling those articles. Some have cleared $2 a day. He allows one hundred percentage. C., of Boston, manufacturer of needle threaders, wick pullers, and pencil sharpeners, offers a liberal discount to agents; but we presume it would require some Yankee tact to make the sales amount to much. He states that some of their agents make from $200 to $300 a month. A stencil cutter in New Haven writes: "I have made tools for ladies to do the work of making embroidery stencils. It is necessary to travel to sell them. One lady may make the work at home, and another sell it. One young man, whom I furnished with tools, told me that he sold $14 worth of plates in five hours." Dr. B. employs twenty ladies making shoulder braces, and pays them from $3 to $4 a week. The sewing is done by hand. He allows lady agents to have the braces at $1 a pair, which can be retailed at $2 a pair. Boarding agencies have become common in some of the large cities. Some agents charge the keepers of boarding houses a percentage for every boarder sent them, but do not charge the applicant. In some offices a person records his name and pays $2, for which he has the privileges of the office one year. The boarding-house keeper pays a percentage to the agent in proportion to the rate of board, without regard to the length of time the boarders remain. One agency charges $2 for registering a name, and fifty cents for each boarder it secures. Some agents in New York have purchased articles of every kind on commission for Southerners, receiving a commission from both parties. Southern ladies have always preferred New York goods, but we suppose they will now wish to patronize their own people.

=314. Literary, Book, and Newspaper Agents.= By literary agents we mean those that are willing to take the compositions of others, review, correct, prune, polish, mend, and present them for publication. We suppose there are not a great many ladies, in our country, of sufficient experience in this way to be prepared for the business, and probably a smaller number that would wish to undertake it. Yet, we think, to a competent and reliable lady, it might yield a handsome profit. We know there are a few gentlemen so engaged. Proof readers are sometimes employed by authors for this purpose, or some literary friend of ability does it as an accommodation. Ladies have been agents more for magazines than standard works. Indeed, only new books claim the privilege of having their merits set forth by agents. In towns and cities, ladies could act as agents without any difficulty. The business, of course, requires one to be on her feet a great deal. In sparsely settled portions of the country, it could not be so easily done. Yet we were told in New York of an educated lady that wished to earn a livelihood, and, not seeing any other way open, she became a book agent. She got a horse and buggy, and rode through the country, and was very successful. She met with a young lady who was very anxious to join her. They made a great deal of money, and wrote a book of their travels. There are said to be many book and paper agents in New York city--both men and women--and they are paid the same percentage. The time of work is confined to daylight. If newspaper advertisements for book agents can be relied on, we suppose the business would pay well. We can scarcely glance over the columns of a newspaper without finding a call for agents to present the merits of some new work, with the promise that, if active and diligent, the individual will clear from $30 to $100 per month. It requires judgment, taste, and a knowledge of what is popular in the book market. I was told by the editor of a ladies' magazine, that he pays his agents fifty cents on the dollar, and would be glad to secure the services of more lady agents. He stated that one of his lady agents in Brooklyn obtained in two weeks twenty subscribers, so making $12.50. Some sell books on subscription, but if the books are printed, the surest and most speedy way is to deliver the book and receive the money, when the individual decides to buy. A lady who earns her living as a book and newspaper agent, told me that she gets a percentage for the agency of books and papers. She has been an agent eight years in New York. Her health is poor, and she thinks it is from being out in all kinds of weather. She does not go to every house, but calls on one friend, who recommends her to another--so that she has as many to visit as she can. She says the qualifications needed are health, tact, judgment, courage, pleasing address, perseverance, with faith in the work, and in God. Ladies are more likely to be well received than men, but cannot walk as much. She prefers the agency of books, because she then gets the money, gives the book, and that is the last of it. But there is a responsibility attending the agency of papers. The editor may require pre-payment for his magazine. If he is not an honorable man, he may discontinue his magazine during the year, and not refund what is due to his subscribers. The agent is then blamed, as well as the editor, when it may be totally out of her power to remedy the matter, or to have prevented it. A lady news agent, that has a good location and a small circulating library, told me she has occupied the place for several years, and so has regular customers. She does it to aid her husband in supporting and educating their children, but thinks an individual could earn for self alone a comfortable living by keeping a news depot. In the large cities of the North are newspaper agents (men) who solicit advertisements, for which they receive a commission from editors. There is a Miss S. in New York, who makes a very good living by obtaining advertisements for the principal city papers. She goes to stores and offices, and solicits advertisements of business men, for which she receives a percentage from the conductors of the papers.

=315. Mercantile Agents.= At the office of a mercantile agency on Broadway, New York, one hundred young men are employed in writing. Why could not women do it? An agent who travels for C.'s paper-hanging manufactory, exhibiting specimens and getting orders, and has a commission also from another house for another kind of business, makes $4,000 a year. Ladies were employed writing for one mercantile agency in Boston one winter.

=316. Pens.= The inventor of Prince's Protean pen thinks a lady would do well to act as agent for the sale of his pens. A man who was agent made $3,000 a year, but he could not stand such exertion over a year. His pen is so constructed as to furnish a flow of ink for ten consecutive hours. It is very convenient in travelling, on account of the ink being in the case. Physicians would find it very convenient. An agent would receive a very good allowance; for instance, a $5 pen she would receive for $3; one style of $4 pen for $2.50, and another style for $2.25. Mr. Snow, of Hartford, an importer of steel pens, offers to pay $2 a day to all agents who sell five gross of pens per day, at the list of prices furnished, and at the same rate for any larger quantity.

=317. Sewing Machines.= H., manufacturer of low-priced sewing machines in Newburyport, Massachusetts, desires to secure some local and travelling agents. In his circular he says: "In order to ascertain who would prove an efficient and reliable agent, we have concluded that each applicant shall sell thirty days on commission; and after that time, if he proves as before stated, and prefers it to a commission, we will pay him a salary of from $30 to $80 a month, according to capabilities, and travelling expenses. The commission allowed will be thirty-three and one third per cent, on the machines sold." We know nothing of the merits or demerits of the machine, but give it as a criterion by which to judge what sewing-machine agents may expect in the way of remuneration. The manufacturer of the universal hemmer, which can be attached to any sewing machine, retails them at $2.50, but to agents a deduction is made of seventy-five cents. (It probably costs ten cents apiece to make them.) They require agents to buy what they wish to sell. It being a cash business, they have few lady agents. Their agents confine themselves to towns, on account of the time that would be consumed in travelling through the country. At a manufactory of children's spring horses, I saw a lady employed to sell the horses and make saddles for them. Some she stitched by hand, and some quilted and stitched by machine. She got $6 a week.

=318. School Agents.= A lady properly qualified might, we think, conduct a school agency. As there are few school agencies in New York, we suppose it must be a business that pays. The prejudice that will probably be created by the difficulties in our country, will no doubt open the way for the preparation and employment of slave State ladies as teachers in their own States, and consequently one or more agencies in the South will be needed. The terms of one of the best agencies we know of, are as follows: "To principals who have their schools registered for the purpose of obtaining scholars by making known the terms, locality, and advantages of their schools, a fee of $5 is charged; and for each yearly renewal, $2; and for the introduction of each pupil into a registered school, where the board and tuition does not amount to $120 per annum, the fee is $5. When over that amount and under $160, $7, &c. For the registration of a teacher, in advance, $2. When the situation is obtained, and the remuneration is under $1,000, three per cent. If $1,000 and over, five per cent. When desired to examine and personally assume the responsibility of selecting teachers for important positions, an additional fee of from $3 to $5 will be charged."

=319. Telegraph Instruments.= A manufacturer of telegraphic instruments in Boston writes: "We do not employ women in the mechanical part of our business, but we employ them as agents to sell our instruments for medical use. They fit themselves as lecturers by studying the science, and travel about lecturing, giving instruction, selling machines, &c. A very handsome income is derived therefrom."

=320. Washing Machines.= At a washing machine establishment, I was told they make a deduction of twenty per cent. to agents who sell for them; but to agents who sell for themselves and buy six or more, they make a deduction of thirty per cent.

MANUFACTURERS AND COLORERS OF LADIES' APPAREL.