Show WHOLE FAMILIES MAKE VIOLETS They Toil for Many Hours and Get Small Returns Few who note the array of cheap artificial ar-tificial flowers especially violets displayed dis-played In shop windows and at bargain bar-gain counters give any thought to their genesis or manufacture The liner flowers for tha trade are of course the work of experienced hands but the less I complex the small cotton varieties arc Jobbed out In yinalll quantities much after the average swciitHhop work amid many of the poorer poor-er Italian families eke I out a scant living liv-ing by making flowers from early in the morning until Into at night One Italian family oC nInethe youngest worker being the precocious age of three were all found engaged In this occupation the prlqe paid for the finished work being from 25 to 15 cents a gross of bunches and as many an two and a half gross were sometimes some-times turned out In a day when the father who earned S a week as day laborer also took part III the evening The ordinary cotton violet Is composed com-posed of green stem stIff pastetipped center and two or three layers of petals Each layer Is separate with four or more loboa or petals These come lolho worker by the yard strung on stout cord through the liny hole In the center The stems also come by the yard I with a circle of black thread tied tightly every three or four Inchcn and the centers which arc like tiny I yellowheaded wooden plus of about half an Inch In length arcobtained by the pound So many bunches of lln I Ithed I flowers are supposed to be made from no many yards or pounds of ma terlnl I But HnnictlnicH tho raw stuff IB bought outright by the worker and resold when completed The youngest I children have thin t task of separating the petals taking them of the string and pulling them apart for ns they are stnmpwl out In bulk by machinery they are often pressed lightly together togeth-er I Another child has tho box of pin like centers on eaoh of which he i threads three or four of the petal 1 icy eia mid passes ft on to lie presiding Konlus of the glue pot who dips the lower woodon ond of the center Into this pot and inserts the center In one of the tiny tubelike sterna The ardor ard-or stemming Is cut midway between oach tic BO that when every stem has received Its blossom twelve to tho hunch and the bunch Is completed It la thereby at tho same time tied and ready for Immediate handling Oddly enough thin question of caste Is most rigidly dcllned between the makers of flowers and the pickers of rags The latter arc usually of the nowlyarrlved or less ambitious sort Thry scavenge the big sweatshop headquarters nnd front the big cutting oslubllsmenlR carry away bugs ami bales of raps of all ports mixed with tho dirt and little of the floors In tho cellars which fervo ns home and workshop both they separate lie woolen wool-en from ration cleui from soiled and resell hem Bill even the children engaged en-gaged In the flowermaking business nro Imbued with the spirit of their small community Him 1 In answer to an Inquiry ns to a hrlghteycd little chap not nearly BO ragged and certain ly no dirtier than the speaker oh him picks up rags with unmistakable contempt Mo I and her Indicating 1 a dlmlnullvr sister we makes flowers New York Tribune |