facturers, being discouraged by this class of help, have gone elsewhere. Northern women imported for dressmaking or millinery receive more than double the pay of the native-born.

Baltimore. The home condition of Baltimore's working women is decidedly above the average. Rents are very cheap, the majority of the working people's homes are separate houses, and the sanitary arrangements are good. Blocks of tenement houses, while not numerically infrequent, are, compared with other cities, rarities. The general impression, gained from repeated visits to all parts of the city, was that of roomy and comfortable separate houses. The markets are excellent, and the cost of living is low, food and clothing being almost as cheap, comparatively, as house rent.

As to their educational, moral, and religious condition, there is great variation among the women here as elsewhere. The sales women are, as a class, superior in education and manners to any in the United States; girls in other industries not above the average. The girls are an orderly and church-going class, and exhibit considerable thrift. The public libraries, free lectures, and the public parks afford advantages for instruction and recreation. The shop conditions are not by any means so favorable. Few of the manufacturing establishments of the city were constructed with a view to their present industrial uses, many being converted dwellings, stores, or warehouses, and consequently illadapted for use as factories. There are a few exceptions, but these only serve to emphasize the rule. Many of the stores are fine structures, provided with proper ventilation, light, toilet facilities, and fire escapes, and the treatment of the employés in these stores of the better class is almost uniformly good and kind. Wages are not high in Baltimore, but the cost of living in all its branches is so moderate that the city may well be considered as affording unusual advantages to working women. Boston. The most striking feature of the home life of working women in Boston is the great number who live in lodging houses. This is especially noticeable because of the large number of girls coming from the surrounding country places and from the British provinces. These, having usually few or no kindred in the great city, are forced into the lodging houses which abound, for comparatively few private families will receive boarders, and the working girls' homes, though becoming more numerous than formerly, are still entirely inadequate to provide for all these homeless strangers. Such conditions necessarily weaken the hold of the home life upon the memory and the affections; they do away with the sense of proprietorship which even the poorest tenant feels in the house which shelters him; and they also do away with that privacy which is one of the best features of the separate home.

Space being valuable, there is sometimes no parlor or reception room attached to the lodging house of the working girl, and she is forced to receive her friends in her chamber or not to receive them at all. Such a condition tends either in the direction of crushing out social inter

course, especially between the sexes, or of carrying it beyond the limit of prudence. Yet there are some compensations for this cheerless home life, if home life it may be called, and these are found in the proprietorship which the working women may have in the intellectual life of the city, in its educational privileges, in its libraries, museums, and exhi bitions. Music, literature, art, lectures, are all within easy reach, and the working girls of Boston avail themselves of such privileges to a great extent. A butt on-hole maker gave as her reason for not living in the suburbs, where living was cheaper, that she would then be debarred from lectures, concerts, and oratorios. A necktie maker contributes excellent verses to a first-rate magazine. Suspender makers, who have taught school, belong to Browning clubs, and discuss the tariff and similar vital issues. Work is regarded as honorable, and the barriers which exist between people of leisure and wage earners may in some cases be overcome.

The shops and factories are in fair sanitary condition in a majority of cases, and in very many the employers seem anxious to add to the comfort of their employés. The factory laws are more generally posted, and as regards the employment of children under age, more generally observed here than elsewhere. The work is, generally speaking, quite regular during the entire year. Many rumors were heard of improper proposals being made to girls when applying for work, or entering thereon, but such rumors were generally found to be groundless, only one authenticated case of the kind having been discovered in the investigation.

Brooklyn. Though not so crowded as New York, the life conditions in Brooklyn are almost as hard. Whole streets and districts of tenement houses are given over to poverty, filth, and vice, the sanitary and moral unwholesomeness of which is manifest. Better homes distinguish the districts remote from business centres, but the great distance of these homes is a tax as to hours and car fare. Model tenements and improved apartment houses are to be found, and ownership of the house is frequent. Rent is cheaper than in New York and the commodities of life a shade less dear.

The moral conditions, in general, vary from the best to the worst, but respectability and education are greatly in the ascendant.

A large number of Brooklyn girls work in New York, pay being higher than in Brooklyn and the industries more diversified. The making at home of clothing for the New York shops is universal in the suburbs of Brooklyn, though at prices on which no woman could live were there not other workers in her family.

Some occupations in Brooklyn involve great risks to girls, the loss of joints of fingers, the hand, or sometimes the whole arm. There is a growing public demand for shorter hours, half holidays, and equal pay to women with men for equal work.

Buffalo. The prosperity of the laboring classes in Buffalo is apparent to the most casual observer, Private houses are the rule, more than

one family in a house the exception. The residences are neat and attractive, often embowered in flowers and vines, and comfortably furnished, with sanitary conditions unusually good. As naturally follows, the cost of living is reasonable; coal is cheap, and markets abundant. Ninety per cent. of the working girls live at home, and a large proportion will work for small pay, needing money only for dress or pleasure. This cause contributes, with others, to make wages low. The girls are of average intelligence. In the patent medicine establishments, some bookbinderies and stores, the deportment and language of the employés are such as bespeak refinement and education. The standard of morals is good, and religious observances are strictly followed. No one industry is of such magnitude as to take precedence. The employment of women in shops being of rather recent date, many of the work rooms are ill-adapted to their present use. Complaints of oppression and injustice are rare. Even at ready-made clothing, the worst paid industry, girls sometimes save money.

Charleston. In no other southern city has the exclusion of women from business been so rigid and the tradition that respectability is forfeited by manual labor so influential and powerful. Proud and wellborn women have practiced great self-denial at ill-paid conventional pursuits in preference to independence in untrodden paths. The embargo against self-support has to some extent been lifted, and were there more occupations open to women the rush to avail themselves of them would show how ineffective the old traditions have become. The special feature, then, of Charleston shops is the well-born, well-educated girl side by side in the least attractive pursuits with the "cracker." They are religious and respectable, and receive from their employers the consideration due to good conduct and efficiency. Pay is small for men, and naturally lower for women; hours of labor are not excessive, and shop conditions are favorable. The dressmaking industry, elsewhere the special sphere of working girls, is conducted almost wholly by colored women. The few manufactures which exist are mainly due to the enterprise of foreigners, the native-born citizen not always having the means to develop the resources of his city.

Chicago. The tenement house system is largely engrafted on the life of Chicago. The houses, however, are rarely in long blocks, often have light and air on four sides, and seldom contain more than six families. Two or three families living in a separate house is the general rule, and often each family has a single home. The sanitary condition of houses and streets is bad, but these evils are being remedied by the vigorous action of the health department. Rents are high, the markets inconvenient, and the cost of living greater than in any other western city. There is a large foreign element in Chicago, which furnishes a rough class of girls, sometimes unfamiliar with the English language, and again speaking it fairly. Habits of economy do not prevail among the working classes, and there are cases of poverty as extreme as in New York.

Wages are higher than in the East, and expert workers scarcer. Even employments requiring no skill command pay enough to render girls independent; if displeased they leave on the slightest pretexts, and the employer must fall behind his orders or hire whom he can get. Workwomen are always in demand, and as a rule employers make no requirements as to good character. Notwithstanding the indifference of proprietors the general morality in most callings is surprisingly good. In order to prevent absenteeism and to insure prompt attendance, the employers have adopted an oppressive system of fines. Bad work also occurs so often that fines are imposed for this cause. As a result the working women are inclined to be antagonistic to employers, and discontent is more outspoken than in the East, where work is scant and competition strong.

The sanitary condition of one or two large shops is worse than any visited elsewhere during this inquiry. In the new establishments the ordinary provisions are made and gross neglect is rare.

Cincinnati. The percentage of working girls living at home is higher in Cincinnati than in any other city visited in the course of the investigation, but the homes are unusually uninviting, even in the newer quarters. The streets are dirty and closely built up with ill-constructed houses, holding from two to six families. Many poorer parts of Cincinnati are as wretched as the worst European cities, and the popula tion looks as degraded. Rents are disproportionately high and commodities dear. German food and drinks are largely consumed, and continental customs prevail. Sunday concerts and dance halls are more popular than the churches. Too many young children are employed in the work shops, and illiteracy is not infrequent even among the native-born.

Labor organizations are a striking feature of Cincinnati, especially in two of the larger industries-boot and shoe making and cigar making. The Hannah Powderly Assembly, K. of L., numbered over 1,100 women at the time of this inquiry, and practically controlled the shoe trade, but since then its power and influence have declined. The workers at this branch are intelligent and respectable. Some shoe factories are commodious and handsome, but in these, as well as in the cigar factories, the sanitation is defective.

The system of fining works great hardship among the shop girls, and petty regulations hamper their freedom. Wages and the moral tone of the shops are not high. Diversity of occupation is considerable, but the skilled worker is rare.

Cleveland. To the mass of Cleveland's working girls labor is less a necessity than a means of outside income. The large iron, coal, and oil interests of the city give employment to thousands of men who are able to maintain their families, yet whose daughters are self-supporting or partially so.

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Separate houses, good sanitation, comfortable surroundings, and general respectability are the rule rather than the exception, and extreme poverty is rarely witnessed.

Living is cheap, and the markets are good. Schools and churches are numerous and well attended. The working girls are less worldly and extravagant than in larger cities, less dependent on excitement, less alert and knowing, and consequently seem slow and dull in comparison; but the slowness is respectable and the dullness good.

The work rooms as a rule are comfortable, and many are even luxurious. Lack of proper ventilation is very common, but in other respects no striking defect is generally noticeable. There is a great diversity of industries in Cleveland, and women are employed in occupations unusual for the sex, notably in nail and tack factories, bolt, nut, and screw works, which are sometimes badly located and arranged. Wages are low. Fines and strict rules are so unusual that the mention of them to the girls was greeted with great surprise.

Rough girls are found in every calling and in every city, but their number in Cleveland is below the average, and in the large cloak factories the average of intelligence and morality is high. Tidiness and decorum are general.

Indianapolis.-Nine-tenths of the working girls of Indianapolis live at home. The suburbs of the city contain a great number of cottages of from two to six rooms each, and these are the usual homes of the working people. Many of these homes are owned by those who occupy them. As a rule these houses are neat and comfortable. Rents are moderate, and as the city is situated in the midst of a farming and grazing country, the markets are abundantly supplied with cheap and varied food.

There is little poverty among the inhabitants, and the worst streets seem neat and desirable compared with the crowded quarters of larger cities.

Educational facilities are ample, and churches are numerous, though church affiliation among the working girls is not so marked as in some other places. The working girls are largely native-born, and though their manners are not fastidious, and carelessness or indifference as to looks prevails among them, their morals are good.

Wages are low, and in some industries almost beggarly, but owing to a general disposition to save, a large proportion of the girls own stock in building associations or have bank accounts.

As a rule the establishments in which the girls work are not well calculated for industrial uses. Many of them are without proper means of escape in case of fire, many have no dressing rooms or closets, and most are neither sufficiently lighted nor properly ventilated. exceptions to this rule were found, several buildings being fitted with all the latest conveniences.

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The shop regulations are kind and fair, the moral tone of the workrooms respectable, and the employers, as a class, just.