If she had attempted to find a better and less expensive place for sleeping, in a less congested quarter of the city, she would have been obliged to pay, besides her rent, a sum at least half as large, for transportation.  In the same way, for this really very large sum of $15 or $20 paid yearly to the city railroads, she would not have received in their cars any definite place at all, honestly provided for her as her own, but simply a chance of getting a foothold when she could on a cross-town car or the Bronx elevated during the rush hours.  The yearly sums paid to the car companies by factory workers too exhausted to walk home are very striking in these budgets.  Tina Levin had paid nearly $30—­more than she had spent for her clothing during the year.  This expense of carfare and the wretched conditions in transportation which most of the car companies supply to the workers compelled to use their lines in rush hours is a difficulty scarcely less than that of New York rents and congestion, and inseparably connected with them.

Anna Flodin, a girl of eighteen, forced by illness to leave the congested quarters of New York for the Bronx, did not attempt to return to work until she was able to live again within walking distance of the factory.

Anna Flodin was a pale, quiet girl with smooth black hair and a serious, almost poignant expression.  All her life had been one of poverty, a sheer struggle to keep the wolf from the door.  She spoke no English, though she could understand a little.

She stitched regularly in the busy season 1568 yards of machine sewing daily in fastening belts to cheap corset covers.  The forewoman gave her in the course of the day 28 bundles, each containing 28 corset covers with the belts basted to the waist lines and the loose ends of the belts basted ready to finish.

The instant Anna failed to complete this amount, or seemed to drop behind in the course of the day, the forewoman blamed her, and threatened to reduce her wage.

Anna worked in this manner ten hours a day, for $6 a week.  If she were five minutes late, she was docked for half an hour.  She was docked for every needle she broke in the rapid pace she was obliged to keep, and in the first year she was obliged to pay out of her wage, which had then been only $5 a week, for all the many hundred yards of thread she stitched into the white-goods company’s output.

In order to complete 784 yards of belting a day—­over 1600 yards of stitching, for she fastened both edges of the belt—­she was forced, of course, to work as fast as she could feed and guide belts under the needle.  She had strong eyes.  But her back ached from the stooping to guide the material, and she suffered cruelly from pain in her shoulders.

There had been seventeen weeks of this work.  Then there had been ten weeks of two or three days’ work a week, when it seemed impossible to earn enough to live on.  Then, ten weeks when the factory closed.  Then she had an illness lasting over two months, which began a few weeks after the factory closed.