The Sewing Woman's Life

In the room bfllow me are two worn, faded-out old maids. They have been here in New York for eight years running a aewing machiue. Of life's neoessaries they purcluwo little handfulo : coal at ten cents a bucket ; a flatful of kindlings at three cent ; everything elae in proportion. They have never seen the iuside of a theatro, lectureroora, or any place of recreation. They know no more of the Fifth Avenue and it-s fashionable af tnruoou attractions Miau they do of the moon. They are too poor to tnke a paper. Of the daily life, incident and eventa of this great city, they eatoh only the faintest ochoes. Their lifo is bounded from yoar'a end to year's end with tho compasa of throo blocks. Pre(eut them with theatro tickets or books ? They have no time to use either. The trifle of car hire between tboir house and the theatre is to them a serious matter. It wotild buy them two large loavoe. Money comes very hard. Thero are so many roads, too, for their hard-earned dollars to travel. They have one regular caller - the landlord's agent. They let a fow rooms, expecting thereby to make their ow ii rent clear. Bisky business, so many lodgers leave them minus. So life goes on from year to year - ticd to . a sewing machine, furniture getting shabbier, carpeta more ragged, themsélves older, grayer, more sallow, leaner. The chapter of one weeks bother and perplexity to make both enda meet, sticceeded by a similar one the next : every plate and lamp which breaks, every shoe wearing out, regarded with dread and heart-sinking, for no means of replacement are known. All goes to buy bread, meat, fuel, and pay the rent. What a charming, cheering, beautiful world is this to these people 1 How they must bless the Creator for giving them the grasa and flowers they never see ; the fresh ocean Vireezes of Sandy Hook, so few miles away, which they can never afford to inhale ; the maguificent scenery of the Highlands, two honra' sail distant, but which a lean purse locks out fronc them ! As I write I hear these sewing machines whizzing all around me, propelled by prisonerB and slaves like these, tied to garrete and crowded tenement-houses, always in dread of want, toibng fourteen, flfteen, sixteen hours per day, while the happy prisoner at the penitentiary works his eight or ten, and retires at night with a certainty of f ood for the morrow, and no landlord dunning bim for rent. -