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Show TRADE IN THE STREET Many Women Fakers Tramp the Thoroughfares of New York City on Business All Are Healthy and Seenv ingly Thoroughly Enjoy Their Live, yTT ROM tne heart of New I ' York's kaleidoscopic life comes a practical contra- f ' jf-S1 diction t the common- be- lief that women form the weaker sex. Fully 5,000 Wtjfij women work on . the fr&S streets of the American jjh metropolis in fair weather ISrl and foul. The sidewalk is their ' " lm sn0P the curbstone their counter. They know nothing of the barest comforts afforded by a poorly appointed ap-pointed store. They stand or walk about the whole day long, while carrying carry-ing on their petty businesses. Yet they are strong, they enjoy life, after their own fashion, and they lay go into a common fund, but the children chil-dren are usually kept in school until the grammar grades at least have been reached. The mother may not have so much as a charcoal brazier to warm her hands while at her cart, but she will keep the children presentable pre-sentable for their teacher. More fortunate is the woman who runs a dry goods cart. Her hours are shorter and there is no early morning tramp to the wholesaler's. Her stock is merely a study In remnants, strips of cloth a few yards long, small bundles bun-dles of lace, half a dozen pairs of hose and a dozen towels, all different When the combined efforts of husband hus-band and wife will permit they rent a corner store farther uptown and stock it gaudily. They select a corner stand, because the old outdoor instinct is strong within them, and what the shelves inside contain is nothing compared with the stock displayed on the sidewalk. A stout awning pro- , vides protection from the weather and nothing short of a blizzard or a deluge will drive them indoors. The stock of such a store includes everything in housefurnlshings and dry goods and piled high on the sidewalk, side-walk, in what is apparently hopeless confusion, are ready-to-wear suits, lace curtains, wool underwear and stamped oilcloth. And out of that confusion the sidewalk clerk can instantly in-stantly select the desired article. The Division street "body snatch-ers" snatch-ers" are perhaps the most notorious of the sidewalk saleswomen. In truth, they are not saleswomen at all. They simply lead the lambs inside the shops to be fleeced, but their hours are long and they never know what it is to sit down. They are stationed outside the millinery shops which line this east side thoroughfare. In summer they wear neither wrap ! nor hat, but in winter they don both, the latter of a type which presumably will advertise the establishment. During Dur-ing cold weather their hours are short, as they are expected to stamp up and up treasure in banks of whose stability they have the best assurance. This steadily increasing army of street saleswomen does not include agents of any sort who make a house-to-house canvass, nor beggars who wear the guise of peddlers. It represents repre-sents only those who have placed themselves in open competition with the male peddlers who cry their wares and the fakers who offer anything salable on the street corner, from half- j frozen fruit to near-gold watches. Among them are numbered the pushcart push-cart women of the east side, the news-girls, news-girls, the proprietors of vegetable and fruit stands, from the Battery to Harlem, Har-lem, the clerks connected with the dry goods stores on the upper east, side, the "body snatchers" on Division street, the women who work cafe and theater entrances with smokers' supplies, sup-plies, and the Romany women who infest in-fest the fashionable shopping district with so-called "handmade laces." As the majority perhaps 75 per cent of these women live on the east side, it is worth while to hear the opinion of a Ghetto physician who has a large private practice, and who is also connected with one of the leading lead-ing dispensaries: "Never waste your pity on these women who cry their wares on the street. They are more healthy than 1 W0iMh mm .M&wm down before the store only during such time as unwary women are abroad. During the summer they work far into the night. Newswomen are becoming so common com-mon in New York that they excite no comment, but a case on the upper west side has aroused some curiosity. During all sorts of weather a woman of perhaps 23 years presides over a jwu ever nreamea or oeing and infinitely in-finitely better off than the women who shut themselves up in stuffy flats. Their diet is simple and this, with their open-air life, seems to harden them to all changes of weather. In summer it is a rare thing for one of them to be overcome with the heat, while a woman who spends her days indoors will easily fall a victim to the heat of the blistering streets. In winter they rarely apply for cold or grip remedies, and rarer still is it to find a case of pneumonia among them." The most interesting phase of the Ufe of these street saleswomen, mostly man news siana in wnat is known as the Central park west district, where many Wall street men reside. She opens up her stock about 3:30 in the morning and remains perhaps two hours. Then she disappears, returning return-ing to duty for an hour or so about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. It is also in New York's better residential resi-dential sections that one sees scores of women running fruit and vegetable stands, having leased sidewalk space in front of successful markets or grocery gro-cery stores. Husband and wife usually usual-ly manage the stand jointly, but It is the wife who does most of the selling. Her husband buys in the wholesale markets and delivers the purchases. Many of these women can barely speak English, but they know values and are j shrewd traders. Chicago News. A Woman Peddler. of Jewish extraction, is their dual mercantile and domestic ability. "A bachelor maid" is unknown among them. In truth, the mother of the family is most often In business and if it be a daughter or unmarried sister sis-ter she continues to do her share of the household duties and boarding away from one's relations is unknown. Wives and mothers run both business and home with remarkable success. If the older boys work, their earnings, earn-ings, with those of father and mother. |