"The _out-door_ or sweating system, by which the great proportion of their work is produced, has had a fearful debasing effect on journeymen tailors. Work is given out to a person denominated a "middle-man." He alone comes into contact with the employer. He employs others to work under him, in his own house. The workmen have no respect for him, as they have for an ordinary employer; nor has he the slightest influence over them, in enforcing proper conduct or prudent habits. On the contrary, his influence tends only to their hurt. _He engages them to work at the lowest possible prices_--making all the profit he can out of them. He ordinarily sets them down to work in a small, dirty room, in some unhealthy part of the city. They are allowed to work at irregular hours. Sunday, in innumerable instances brings no rest to the tailor under the sweating system; he must serve his slave-driver on that day too, even if he should go idle on the other days of the week. _No use of churches or ministers to him; his calling is to produce so-called cheap clothes for the million_--Sunday or Monday being alike necessary for such a laudable pursuit, though his soul should perish. Small matter that: only let _the cheap system flourish, and thereby increase the riches of the people_, and then full compensation has been made, though moral degradation, loss of all self-respect, and tattered rags, be the lot of the unhappy victim, sunk by it to the lowest possible degree."[13] [13] _Modern System of Low-priced Goods_, p. 2, 3.