This incident is mentioned here, as a striking illustration of the practical working of that system of grinding the poor, especially poor females, by which many men make fortunes, or at least acquire far more than a simple competence for life.  That carriage belonged to Berlaps, and those happy children were his.  But how could he buy a carriage and horses, and build fine houses, and yet not be able to pay more than the meagre pittance for his work that the reader has seen doled out to his half-starving workwomen?  How could his children be fed and clothed sumptuously every day, and the widow, who worked for him from early dawn until the silent watches of midnight, not be able to get wholesome bread and warm garments for her little ones, unless he took more than his just share of the profits upon his goods?  If he could only afford to pay seven cents for coarse shirts, and so on, in proportion, up through the entire list of articles made, how came it that the profits on these very articles enabled him to live in elegance, build houses, and keep his own carriage and horses?

Such questions apply not alone to, the single instance of Berlaps, here introduced.  They are pertinent in their application to all who add to their profits for the purpose of a grand aggregate, at the expense of reducing the pay, even a few cents, upon the hard-toiling workwoman, whose slender income, at best, is barely sufficient to procure the absolute necessaries of life.  This cutting down of women’s wages, until they are reduced to an incompetent pittance, is a system of oppression too extensive, alas! in this, as well as many other countries.  It is one of the quiet and safe means by which the strong oppress the weak—­by which the selfish build themselves up, cruelly indifferent to the sufferings of those who are robbed of a just compensation for their labor.  The record of a conversation overheard between two of the class alluded to will illustrate this matter.  They were tailors—­or, rather, what are sometimes called slop-shop, or clothing men.  Let it not be supposed that tailors alone are the oppressors of workwomen.  In most of the employments at which females engage, especially such as admit of a competition in labor, advantage is taken of the eager demand for work, and prices reduced to the lowest possible standard.  In the eager scramble for monopolizing more than a just share of custom, or to increase the amount of sales by the temptation of extremely moderate rates, the prices of goods are put down to the lowest scale they will bear.  If, in doing this, the dealer was content with a profit reduced in some proportion to the increase of his sales, no one would have a right to complain.  He would be free to sell his goods at cost, or even below cost, if that suited his fancy.  Instead of this, however, the profits on his articles are often the same that they were when prices were ten or fifteen per cent. higher, and he reaps the advantage of a greatly increased sale, consequent upon the more moderate rates at which he can sell.  The evil lies in his cutting down his operatives’ wages; in taking off of them, while they make no party to his voluntary reduction of prices, the precise amount that he throws in to his customer as a temptation to buy more freely.  But to the promised dialogue—­