These claspmakers certainly supported these ten masters and their families in ease; and, wonderful to relate, these two did not fall. An angel, clothed in white, sat on the sepulchre wherein their hopes were buried, all through that thirty years. [13] This may strike some readers like the hardihood of willing vice; but it is only callousness, born of exposure to hopeless cold and hunger. [14] When a woman wishes to get slop-work, she must find some friend, who will either deposit, or become responsible for, a sum equal to the value of the work she is permitted to carry home. This person is called her "security." The longer she works, the lower she falls; and, on the death of the "security," it is often impossible to replace him. The custom does not seem to be _general_ in this country. [15] Those who are unaccustomed to this class of women will be inclined to think that the state of things represented in the text has long passed away. People who know nothing of the value of money talk a great deal about "increase of wages," and are apt to say that any honest woman can now get a living. Women's wages are at this moment of less value than they were before the war; and, to confirm the foregoing statements, I add here the statements of my friend Mrs. Corbin, which reach me as I go to press:-- "At a meeting of the Liberal Christian League, held at Rev. Robert Collyer's church, on Sunday evening, Feb. 3, a report was read by the Chairman of the Committee on Friendless Women, from which the following is an extract:-- Your Committee aimed [in visiting houses of ill-fame], in Chicago, to find out, as nearly as possible, the general facts concerning the lives of this class of women.