Natalya’s shop had settled with the operatives on the 23d of January, and she went back to work on the next day.

She had an increase of $2 a week in wages—­$8 a week instead of $6.  Her hours were now fifty-two a week instead of sixty—­that is to say, nine and one-half hours a day, with a Saturday half-holiday.  But she has since then been obliged to enter another factory on account of slack work.

Among the more skilled workers than Natalya in New York to-day, Irena Kovalova, who supports her mother and her younger brother and sister, has $11 a week instead of $9.  She is not obliged to work on Sunday, and her factory closes at five o’clock instead of six on Saturday.  “I have four hours less a week,” she said with satisfaction.  The family have felt able to afford for her a new dress costing $11, and material for a suit, costing $6.  A friend, a neighbor, made this for Irena as a present.

Among the older workers of more skill than Irena, Anna Klotin, who sent $120 home to her family last year, has now, however, only $6, $7, and $8 a week, and very poor and uncertain work, instead of her former $12 a week.  Hers was one of the thirteen factories that did not settle.  Of their one hundred and fifty girls, they wished about twenty of their more skilled operators to return to them under Union conditions, leaving the rest under the old long hours of overtime and indeterminate, unregulated wages.  Anna was one of the workers the firm wished to retain on Union terms, but she felt she could not separate her chances in her trade from the fortunes of her one hundred and thirty companions.  She refused to return under conditions so unjust for them.  She has stayed on in her boarding place, as her landlady, realizing Anna’s responsible character, is always willing to wait for money when work is slack.  She has bought this year only two pairs of shoes, a hat for 50 cents, and one or two muslin waists, which she made herself.  She has lived on such work as she could find from time to time in different factories.  Anna did not grudge in any way her sacrifice for the less skilled workers.  “In time,” she said, “we will have things better for all of us.”  And the chief regret she mentioned was that she had been unable to send any money home since the strike.

The staunchest allies of the shirt-waist makers in their attempt to obtain wiser trade conditions were the members and officers of the Woman’s Trade-Union League, whose response and generosity were constant from the beginning to the end of the strike.  The chronicle of the largest woman’s strike in this country is not yet complete.  A suit is now pending against the Woman’s Trade-Union League and the Union for conspiracy in restraint of trade, brought by the Sittomer Shirt-waist Co.  A test suit is pending against Judge Cornell for false imprisonment, brought by one of the shirt-waist strikers.