The Project Gutenberg eBook, Women's Work, by Agnes Amy Bulley and Margaret Whitley

SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY

Edited by H. de B. Gibbins, M.A.

WOMEN’S WORK

SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY.

Edited by H. de B. GIBBINS, M.A.

Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.

A series of volumes upon these topics of social, economic, and industrial interest that are at the present moment foremost in the public mind. Each volume is written by an author who is an acknowledged authority upon the subject with which he or she deals, and who treats the question in a thoroughly sympathetic but impartial manner, with special reference to the historic aspect of the subject.

The following Volumes of the Series are now ready.

1. TRADE UNIONISM—NEW AND OLD. G. Howell, M.P., Author of The Conflicts of Capital and Labour. Second Edition.

2. PROBLEMS OF POVERTY: An Inquiry into the Industrial Condition of the Poor. J. A. Hobson, M.A.

3. THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT TO-DAY. G. J. Holyoake, Author of The History of Co-operation.

4. MUTUAL THRIFT. Rev. J. Frome Wilkinson, M.A., Author of The Friendly Society Movement.

5. THE COMMERCE OF NATIONS. C. E. Bastable, LL.D., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Dublin.

6. THE ALIEN INVASION. W. H. Wilkins, B.A., Secretary to the Association for Preventing the Immigration of Destitute Aliens.

(With an Introductory Note by the Right Reverend the Bishop of Bedford.)

7. THE RURAL EXODUS: Problems of Village Life. P. Anderson Graham.

8. LAND NATIONALISATION. Harold Cox, B.A.

9. A SHORTER WORKING-DAY. R. A. Hadfield, and H. de B. Gibbins, M.A.

10. BACK TO THE LAND. Harold E. Moore, F.S.I.

11. TRUSTS, POOLS, AND CORNERS. J. Stephen Jeans.

12. FACTORY LEGISLATION. R. W. Cooke Taylor, Author of The Modern Factory System, etc.

13. WOMEN’S WORK. Lady Dilke, Amy Bulley, and Margaret Whitley.

14. THE STATE AND ITS CHILDREN. Gertrude Tuckwell.

Other Volumes are in preparation.

METHUEN & CO., 36, ESSEX STREET, W.C.

Women’s Work

BY
MISS A. AMY BULLEY
AND
MISS MARGARET WHITLEY

With a Preface
BY
LADY DILKE

Methuen & Co.
36 ESSEX STREET, LONDON, W.C.
1894

PREFACE

The writers of the present volume have a purely practical object in view. They have no desire to discuss, theoretically, the duties, rights, and responsibilities of women. They consider that it would be unwise to give prominence to considerations affecting the political or social position of women, in a work dealing specially with their industrial situation.

On the other hand, they are fully aware that there is a necessary connection between the views which appear to be in course of formation as to the proper position of women in the labour market, and the change which has taken place in the standpoint from which all questions—even the most abstract—regarding the condition of women are now discussed. Various reforms have been forced on us within the last thirty years through the necessity of recognising, legally and socially, that development in the relations of women to the state and to society which has been brought about by the pressure of the altered circumstances of modern life. Unfortunately, the agitation which has accompanied the carrying of these reforms has been characterized, in some directions, by a deplorable lack of self-control and judgment on the part of certain of those who have put themselves forward as the leaders of their sex. In the past, it must be confessed that our social system has not afforded to the majority of women those opportunities for the acquisition of disciplined habits of mind which are to be found only in bearing the responsibilities of independent action and self-government. When we hear the voices of those who have been called the “shrieking sisterhood” uplifted in frenzied violence against the male oppressor, when we are tempted to repudiate their follies, we may remember that crimes against good sense, good taste, and good feeling are, like other crimes, bred of the bitter resentment of wrong which springs in the breasts of all who awake to consciousness of the suffering inflicted by centuries of unjust rule. This being so, we may see some extenuation even of the ravings of those unhappy “wild women” who appear to hold the most serious national interests as of no importance, in comparison with the fascinating amusement of fostering an unwholesome antagonism of sex.

The clamour raised by those who have taken this line of extreme reaction has retarded the advance of public opinion in the direction of practical and needed reform, and has gravely hampered the efforts of those who have striven to arouse public interest in the attempt to better the position of women in various fields of labour. People have, not unnaturally, been alarmed by what seems to many the absurd suggestion of equality between the sexes, and, shrinking from the assertion of such principles, have adopted an attitude of hostility to the just claims of women for consideration in respect of their labour and wages, their education, the protection of their earnings and property, the removal of such trade and professional restrictions as are of an artificial character, and the opening out to them of wider means of obtaining a livelihood.

In view of the responsibilities and duties which society now imposes on women, changes in the direction of these reforms are not only reasonable but necessary in the common interest. To insist, however, that such reforms shall under no circumstances take account of the differences of sex is to fight against indisputable facts which must, in the end, prove too strong for us. There is no danger to society in the recognition of equal human rights for both sexes, if we are also ready to recognise the divergence of their capabilities, for the relations of men and women to each other, their functions in the family and the state, must ultimately be determined—however ill it may please the more ardent female reformer—by the operation of natural laws.

If we attempt to ignore these laws we are at once landed in a sea of difficulties. Take this very question of “Women’s Work.” At the outset we are brought face to face with facts that show us that all employments are not equally suitable to men and women. We find that, in the case of mothers at least, there are many occupations for which they are wholly unfit, but in which men may engage with impunity. Day after day we find child-bearing women compelled to labour after a fashion for which they are temporarily unfit, and which is not only the frequent cause of permanent injury to their own health, but entails a heritage of disease, or of that feeble health which falls a ready prey to disease, on all their offspring.

I have seen many married women who were habitually employed in handling white lead, and in but two instances has my question as to the health of their children been satisfactorily answered; whilst in certain branches of the potters’ trade the employment of the mother not unfrequently means the death of her children in their early infancy. Even where the employment is not in itself unhealthy, its pursuit, regardless of the claims of the family—as in the case where working mothers leave their little ones at the gate of the factory to a stranger’s care—has to be paid for by a high percentage of infant mortality.

It is impossible to look into facts of this class without realising that natural laws impose severe limitations, and will probably continue to impose much the same restrictions, as to health and strength on women workers; and when these marry there arise ties which conflict, and, as far as one can see, will always conflict, with the efficiency and regularity of the labour of married women. The violation of these restrictions on any large scale not only constitutes a danger to the state by causing the steady deterioration of a large section of the population, but the intermittent character of the supply of labour from the ranks of married women greatly heightens the difficulties with which those who are concerned with the organisation of modern industry have to deal. It is indeed a commonplace now-a-days, that without improved organization and regulation of the labour of women there can be no security for the majority of breadwinners.

The present state of anarchy in the labour world, and the difficulties of our industrial situation, have been appreciably heightened by the course of conduct pursued and advised by those who persist in regarding the interests of women as in themselves separate from the interests of men. Colossal fortunes are built up in large measure by the enforced labour of women and children, who are encouraged in their suicidal rivalry with their husbands and fathers in the labour market by those who do not realise the retribution which follows on the adoption of their counsels. I have used the word “enforced” advisedly; unchecked competition is a force of great power. There are masses of workers in England who are no more free to choose their work, or to make terms for it, than were the slaves on a Virginian plantation. The Newcastle woman in the white lead works of Elswick, who counts seven little ones at her board, whose man is out of work, is tied and bound as with chains. Her man, her children, look to her for food, and at her heels are hundreds of other women in similar distress, whose breadwinners are, perhaps through no fault of their own, also out of work, or in receipt of wages wholly inadequate to the maintenance of the family. Those who encourage our women to treat men as their rivals, to compete with them, and by their competition to persistently reduce the earnings of men, are doing their best to aggravate this state of things. The wages of the husband and father being reduced by the entrance into his trade of the women who undersell him, the wife and mother needs must turn her back upon her home, and give her working day to make up the difference. In this way the homes of our working classes are too often destroyed, and the health of future generations sacrificed.

Apart from the fact that, in most trades, women have made their appearance on the scene in the capacity of “blacklegs,” it must be admitted that there has been, on the side of men, something like resentment at the intrusion of women into professions or branches of industry which have been hitherto reserved to themselves. The expression by the men of this natural feeling—in the case of the doctors it was something more—has, as naturally, irritated the friends of those women who are seeking fresh means of employment; it has enabled them to appeal for sympathy and support from the public as against the “injustice” of men, and it has strengthened their determination to treat men, at all costs, as rivals and enemies who must be driven from their occupations by what I once heard one of these ladies describe, with more force than elegance, as “the cheaper animal.”

To the onslaught of these shortsighted champions of the working woman’s cause, the men, with equal unwisdom, have retorted by raising, on every occasion, possible or impossible, the plea of “unfitness” as a bar to the treacherous encroachments of the opposite sex, and they have thus, in their turn, tried to win popular sympathy with their efforts to prevent the entrance of women into certain coveted employments, or to expel them from others in which they have already gained a footing. “Unfit!” Yes, undoubtedly, much labour at present performed by our women is unfit, if there is any fitness in our old and cherished ideal of home and of the place of the woman in the family; but, if we once enter on the line of restricting their employment by artificial barriers, it seems to me difficult to foresee the number and variety of the complications which would ensue.

We may, however, freely concede that some interference may be necessary where, through the helplessness of the employed and the unscrupulousness of the employer, the health and well-being of future generations is jeopardised. In other words, certain restrictions on the labour of children and child-bearing women may be required by the interests of that society of which they are a part; further than this it seems scarcely wise to go in our demand for anything like legislative interference in respect to this matter of “unfitness.” The true remedy lies in the direction of the better organisation of the trades themselves. The same too may be said of the disastrous effect on the market of that increasing supply of cheap labour which is ever swelling to larger and larger proportions through the influx of our women. Instead of encouraging them to enter into competition with men, and by so doing to drag wages down to lower and yet lower levels, the task before us is to teach them that the interests of labour are one, and that wherever they enter a trade they must in self-protection refuse to sell their labour for less than a rate proportional to that demanded by their men.

Increased and effectual organisation would do away with the causes which provoke that clamour for prohibitive legislation which, as in the case of the pit-brow women, calls forth angry protest from those who see their livelihood endangered, and intensifies that bitter spirit of rivalry of sex which is a fatal obstacle to the better and harmonious ordering of the world of industry. The only safe course for women, the only safe course for the community at large, is to consider their industrial position as an essential part of the general problem, not to be dissociated without risk from the organisation of the men. The cardinal points of the programme of the leaders of labour—the shortening of hours, the abolition of overtime, the regulation of wages, the limitation of the number of apprentices in the overcrowded trades—these are matters of chief importance to all workers, matters in which the interests of all, whether they be men or women, precisely coincide. Even where, at first sight, their interests appear to diverge, it will on further consideration be found that such sacrifice of personal freedom as the woman may be, on certain points, called upon to make, she makes for the sake ultimately of her own hearth and of her own children. Those who prefer to regard the interests of men and women as opposed must accept a view of their mutual relations which, involving as it does antagonism of sex, pits the woman against the man in an unregulated competition for employment, which, if forced to its extreme, will end by lowering the whole level of English life far more surely than the immigration of any number of “destitute aliens.”

The difficulties which meet us therefore in adjusting the relations of the sexes in the great field of labour are not insuperable. Once our women workers see how much depends on their co-operation, on their self-restraint, on their standing firm, they will not fail their men, and the difficulties which beset them and their position in the labour movement of the day, once solved in the full light of that which is best for the family, best for our society and best for our national life, we shall assuredly be far on our way towards the settlement of those less pressing grievances which are put forward by the idle classes. The highest interests of women in every sphere of life are indissolubly bound up with those of men, and any attempt to deal with either separately is fraught with danger to the State and to the nation.

This principle lies at the bottom of all reasoned Trades Unionism, which, in so far as it is concerned with the organisation of women’s work, has for its ultimate object the restoration of as many as possible to their post of honour as queens of the hearth.

EMILIA F. S. DILKE.

76, Sloane Street.
May, 1894.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
WOMEN’S WORK: LITERARY, PROFESSIONAL, AND ARTISTIC.

General characteristics—Classification—Literature: Fiction—Journalism—Teaching: Recent changes—Day v. Resident Posts—High Schools—Advantages and Disadvantages—Hours and Salaries—Report of Committee of Enquiry—Fees—Elementary Schools—Table of Salaries—London School Board—Voluntary v. Secondary Schools—Domestic Economy—Demand for teachers—New openings—Higher teaching posts—Religion and Philanthropy: Increased employment of women—Women preachers—Law: Present position of affairs—Conveyancing—Medicine: Progress made—Prospects—Recent appointments—India—Pharmacy—Dentistry—Midwifery—Nursing: Inadequate arrangements—Remuneration—Art: Music, Painting, Sculpture—Obstacles to progress—Remuneration—The Stage: Prospects—The Ballet and its remuneration—Handicrafts: Artistic crafts—Pottery—Jewellery—Lithography—Engraving—General Conclusions: Social hindrances.

In dealing with the more cultured branches of women’s work we have to do with a department which, except in one or two directions, is as yet incomplete, being still in process of growth and development. Women are but slowly working their way into the arts and the learned professions, and their place cannot yet be definitely estimated. Progress has been so rapid of late that what is true one year has ceased to hold good in the next. A writer who attempts to deal with matter that is thus in a state of flux can only hope to give a tolerably faithful picture of the moment, acknowledging frankly that present conditions may soon give place to something very different. A counterbalancing advantage, however, lies in the fact that in literary and professional work women are independent units, and their labour is not, as in manufacture and manual occupations, so mixed up with that of men that it is almost impossible to treat of it apart. In the occupations with which this chapter is concerned each woman as a rule is economically independent of other workers, and is free to make her individual talent and idiosyncrasy fully felt. There is a satisfaction in noting what women are able to do when their hands are free, though a careful examination of the conditions under which their work is carried on may lead to the conclusion that circumstances are not yet as favourable to the production of good work as they will eventually become. It should be premised that work of any kind, literary or other, is here regarded from a purely industrial point of view, and that the aim of the writer is not to criticise, but simply to record.

For practical purposes the occupations here treated of may be classified thus:

(1) Literary work, including journalism.

(2) Teaching.

(3) Other professional work, including medicine and nursing.

(4) Art, including such handicrafts as are practised by women; music, and the drama.

Various occupations not coming precisely under any of these heads are followed by a few scattered individuals, but these will receive merely a passing notice. They are interesting in themselves, but are so largely experimental that it would be useless to consider them at any length, since they may disappear at any moment.

Literature.—It is only recently that women have entered the field of literature in any numbers. Until the last thirty years or so it may almost be said that only a few exceptional women, able to make their mark as poets or novelists, were occupied to any serious extent in literary work. Nor when we remember that the pursuit of literature was considered to “unsex” a woman, and that Mrs. Somerville had to keep a supply of plain sewing ready to cover her books and papers if a visitor should call, is the deficiency very difficult to account for. Only natures in which genius is a compelling force can burst such iron bonds. Fanny Burney, Jane Austen, Miss Mitford, Mrs. Somerville, Charlotte Bronté, and Mrs. Browning—to name a few of the pioneers—first broke down the barriers. Then other quiet workers crept in, magazines became more numerous, and offered a ready outlet for literary work; biography, history, and science began to be handled by women. Harriet Martineau perhaps more than any other woman typified the modern phase of literary activity, fulfilling in her single person functions any one of which would content most literary women, being novelist, essay writer, historian, and journalist in one. She was the first of her sex to enter upon the routine every-day work of literature, which has been freely trodden since, and her writings embody much of the tone of thought and feeling which is characteristic of the “women’s movement” of to-day.

Fiction.—The branch of literature in which women are most successful at present is undoubtedly fiction. Besides the few novelists whose names are widely known, there are a multitude of scribblers of lesser fame who yet make a good living by their profession. There are grades in these things, and writers whose works are seldom found on the shelves of the fastidious are yet in good demand at the libraries, and have a circulation and a public of their own. An immense amount of second class fiction is written by women, who seem to have a special gift for producing tales that are readable and brightly written without ever rising above the level of mediocrity. There is a still lower literary grade, in which poverty of invention keeps company with a wretched literary style. Yet books of this class are not always unsuccessful.

The writing of fiction is usually supposed to be a highly remunerative occupation, and so indeed it often is. But it does not follow that the writing of three volume novels pays. The phenomenal success, pecuniary and literary, of one or two recent novels must not be taken as a sample of what a writer may expect.[1] Though a good price is generally paid for a novel if the author has once hit the public taste, only moderate terms can be secured by less known writers, and beginners must be content to part with their works for a very small sum. A well-known novelist may receive £400, £500, or even more for a novel, but a writer of fair reputation does not as a rule receive more than £100 for a novel that may have taken many months to write. If the novelist is wise, however, she will make a varied use of her material. Good prices, say from £100 to £250, are given for serial stories by publishing syndicates, who issue the tale simultaneously in half-a-dozen newspapers; and the regular publishers do not as a rule give any less for novels which have already appeared in the serial form. Probably they regard the earlier issue as a good advertisement. Short tales also pay well to those who can write them, and by the contribution of occasional miscellaneous papers to magazines and reviews the strain of prolonged composition may be avoided and the income proportionately improved. A lady novelist and miscellaneous writer in London has been making from £600 to £700 a year for some time, and has lately made as much as £900. Just at present the acknowledged author has an advantage even in journalism, for there is a great demand for articles in newspapers signed by writers of repute. As much as £10 a column is sometimes received for articles not in themselves of an important character by writers whose names are well known in other fields. It is an expensive fancy, and whether it will last cannot yet be predicted; but if one paper indulges in it, the rest are obliged to follow suit. Outside fiction, a good deal of miscellaneous literary work is done by women, of which it is impossible to give any detailed account. Each writer works in her own fashion, and for lack of meeting-places there has hitherto been little interchange of thought or experience among literary women. The foundation of the Writers’ Club in London may perhaps be taken as a sign of change in these matters. The formation of this institution is instructive, since it was due to the limitation of the projected “Authors’ Club” to men, on the express ground (endorsed by Mr. Walter Besant) that women writers could not afford to pay the subscription. In support of this opinion a lady engaged in literary work in London estimates that few of the rank and file among her colleagues are earning more than £200 a year. On the other hand, some writers have made a competency for old age, and not a few married women, hard pressed by fate, have contrived to bring up a family upon their literary earnings. Miss Annie S. Swan recently owned to an income of about £1,000 a year, and Miss Yonge made a handsome fortune by her novels. Successful playwrights also make a good deal of money; but it is doubtful whether any woman comes under this category as yet.

[1] George Eliot received £8,000 for Middlemarch, but Mrs. Humphry Ward is said to have received £18,000 for David Grieve.

Journalism.—At the present moment journalism appears to be the fashionable literary pursuit for women, and their contributions to the daily and weekly papers have increased enormously during the last few years. The general lightening of the cargo which has taken place throughout the periodical press has greatly contributed to this result; for women writers have usually a light touch, and an apparently inexhaustible power of turning out bright and readable, though often flimsy, articles upon social subjects. In the department of dress they of course reign supreme, and few newspapers can now afford to despise this erstwhile frivolous subject. The writers who discourse upon fashion, however, have, as a rule, had little literary training; and through their efforts a kind of press jargon has been evolved, wonderful alike in grammar, in phraseology, in similes. But this is the least creditable form of feminine journalism, and we will not linger over it. In many of the papers written for women (and to which, of course, women largely contribute) there is very fair writing upon a great variety of subjects. Women have occasionally been successful in the main walks of journalism, but the position of the lady who represents the Daily News in Paris is probably unique. As a rule women keep to their special department, chronicling the doings of London society, and taking charge of the lighter topics generally, while their confrères are dealing with politics and diplomacy.[2] This new development of journalism affords an example of the results which may be expected to follow when women are allowed free play to their activities in other directions. They will not always simply duplicate the work of their male predecessors, but will enlarge the field of operations by striking out a line of their own.

It is impossible to name with any accuracy the income attainable in the profession. Few of the women whose names are known in connection with the press are journalists pure and simple, though some of the younger generation are adopting the profession in all frankness, to sink or swim as their luck allows. Some few who entered the field before there were many competitors have achieved a good position, but their number could easily be counted on the fingers. A woman, however, who has a fair variety of subjects at command, and can combine purely literary work with the day-to-day business of a journalist, may make a very reasonable income from her profession—say £400 a year. But a journalist beginning at the bottom of the ladder would take long to mount so high, and would probably be well content, after some years’ work, to be earning £200 a year. It should be noted that journalism among women is almost confined to London; for though there are women so engaged in the provinces, it seldom forms their regular means of livelihood.

[2] Miss Flora Shaw, who writes upon Colonial subjects in the Times may be mentioned as an exception.

Teaching.—The profession most commonly followed by educated women is of course that of teaching. Until recently it was almost the only occupation open to the class above shop assistants, and even in becoming a teacher a lady was held to have lost caste. The opening of university education to women has given the death blow to such false sentiment, and women are now free to adopt what calling they like without loss of social position.[3] The foundation of public day-schools for girls and the working of the Education Act of 1870 have diverted the channel of women’s activities from private teaching to public schools. Instead of the governess we have the High School mistress; instead of the “Dame” in a cottage the Elementary School teacher. Not that the private governess is in any way abolished, for many parents prefer, or are obliged by reason of residence in the country to have their children taught at home. Both the governess’s status and salary are, however, considerably improved, owing to the rise in the general level of education. Greater acquirements are demanded, and payment is higher in return. A resident governess may earn anything from £20 to £200 a year with board. If not resident she hardly obtains the full equivalent in money, since her board costs her employer but little if she lives in the house, and is generally left out of consideration. But for many reasons resident posts are unattractive to the majority of teachers, and a bribe in the way of higher salary has to be offered if a really competent teacher is desired in a boarding school or a private family. Young women entering the profession generally prefer posts in High Schools, where the work, though fatiguing, is kept within fixed hours, and where time out of school is (nominally at any rate) at the teacher’s own disposal. There is something stimulating in teaching large classes, and those who have grown accustomed to it are seldom content afterwards to devote themselves to one or two children. Payment too is regular, and employment tolerably certain, whereas in private families either means or honesty or both may be defective, and in any case the growth of the children deprives the governess sooner or later of her employment. For these reasons therefore High Schools as a rule attract the ablest teachers, unless delicate health or personal predilection happens to weigh in the other direction. A similar state of things prevails with regard to private schools, which are obliged either to pay high salaries in order to attract good teachers, or to put up with the inefficient ones who cannot easily obtain work in a High School.

[3] The early students of Girton and Newnham, however, were regarded askance. One of them, now in a position of honour, related that when her intention of going to college became known in the country district where she lived, her acquaintance “could not have spoken worse of her if she had committed a forgery.” To another who had gained a scholarship her friends remarked, “You are surely satisfied now, you cannot want to make use of it.”

High Schools.—It is doubtful, however, whether High School work altogether deserves the respect with which it is regarded by aspirants to the teaching profession. A glamour was thrown around it in the beginning by the interest with which the foundation of new schools was regarded, and there is a certain sense of distinction in forming part of an institution whose working always attracts a good deal of local attention. Against these attractions, however, must be set decided disadvantages. In the first place the work is very severe, and it is made harder than it need be by the bad methods of teachers. To impart to large classes the stimulus which is the essence of good teaching is no light task, and the better it is performed the more is taken out of the teacher. But as the actual class hours are usually short (9 to 1, and 2.30 to 4 on three or four afternoons in the week according to arrangement) this alone would not be found injurious; and where the staff is as large as it ought to be, teachers should get an interval during some at least of the mornings. But the worst part of High School work is the correction of homework, which in many cases takes up most of the evenings in the week. Such an expenditure of energy is almost pure waste, and the mistress comes to school in the mornings tired and dull, incapable of exerting the magnetism which makes the lesson a living thing. It is greatly to the discredit of head mistresses that a greater number of them do not set their faces against this practice. Instead of consulting with their assistants as to how corrections can be minimised, they often insist upon a certain amount of homework being set, and seem to consider that the more of it a teacher does the greater is her value. In reality the opposite is the case, for a good teacher will test her class during the lesson, and thus do away to a great extent with the necessity for homework. Homework cannot be altogether abolished, but it might and ought to be much diminished, in the interests of both teachers and taught. Women need to be less rigidly conscientious in these matters, and more truly enlightened.

Salaries.—The salaries to be earned by assistant mistresses in High Schools can hardly be regarded as satisfactory, though they are probably higher than anything that could be gained by teaching, except in a few cases, before the institution of public day schools for girls. A committee of ladies and gentlemen interested in education recently investigated this question with great care, and a summary of their conclusions may be given here. In the first place they estimate that a change from private teaching to a High School is “mostly attended by pecuniary loss,” which confirms the statement made above. After analysing the replies to schedules of questions sent out to schools, the committee come regretfully to the conclusion that, apart from head mistresses’ and a few exceptional posts, “something under £160 per annum is the average reward, after twelve or thirteen years’ experience, of the most expensively educated and successful assistant mistresses.” From my own knowledge of High Schools I can fully endorse this estimate. Few assistants earn more than £150 a year, and there are probably—nay, certainly—not half a dozen who receive £200 a year. As the reward of an expensive education, and, presumably, a fair amount of talent, these figures can hardly be regarded as satisfactory.

Summing up the general results, “We may say,” proceeds the report, “that of the teachers who joined their present school more than two years ago one-fourth are at present receiving an average salary of £82 for an average week’s work (the average including very large variations) of 32 hours; half (25 per cent. of whom possess University degrees) are receiving an average salary of £118 for a week’s work of about 35 hours; and one-fourth (50 per cent. of whom are University women) are earning an average of £160 in exchange for a week’s work of 36 to 37 hours.

“These results do not appear unsatisfactory, but it must be remembered that under the phrase more than two years is covered a length of service extending in one case to as many as seventeen years, and of which the average must be taken as very nearly six. Many also of these teachers have had considerable experience in other schools before entering the one in which they are at present engaged.”

A further question which the Committee were charged to investigate was the decline or otherwise of school salaries. Upon this point they remark, “The schools which have been in existence for some years appear to be paying within a trifle of what they paid in 1885, but among the few returns which the Committee have been able to obtain from teachers in the employment of the recently formed Church schools, are some salaries so low as appreciably to affect the general average.

“The Committee, however, are obliged to note—and they do so with the greatest regret—that whereas between three or four years ago the commonest initial salary of non-graduates was fluctuating between £70 and £80, the preponderance has now been decisively gained by the lower figure.”

This real though slight retrograde movement in salaries is reinforced by another factor, of which intending teachers should take note.

“Until recently,” reports the Committee, “when a new assistant-mistress was engaged in a High School, the agreement then made arranged not only for an initial salary, but also for a scale of annual or biennial increment up to a certain maximum. The Committee learn with regret that in many schools these agreements are no longer being made, and that new mistresses are therefore obliged to trust for the future entirely to the liberality of their councils.”

It will be seen therefore that the position of a High School mistress, though fairly stable and moderately well remunerated as women’s occupations go, does not present a brilliant prospect. Additional risk arises from the recent establishment of schools, some of which belong to the Church Schools Company, others to local companies, with lower fees than those prevailing in the average High School. These tend by their competition for pupils to reduce the profits of the better schools, and therefore to lower teachers’ salaries. The evil is a serious one, and it is much to be regretted that women, by accepting posts in such schools, should countenance a movement fraught with injury to their fellow-workers.

It is exceedingly doubtful whether the public schools for girls which have sprung up all over the country with such rapidity of late years have been formed upon a sound footing as regards payment of fees and salaries.[4] Broadly speaking, the fees are too low to pay salaries which will allow the recipients to live in any but a very careful manner. If unhampered by claims of relations, teachers may secure the necessaries, and, to some extent, the comforts of life; but they can hardly allow themselves such recreation, change of scene, and general liberality of living, in the wide sense of the term, as will enable them to recuperate their stock of health, energy, and intellectual brightness, so as to retain freshness in teaching and keep abreast of the times. The right level of teaching cannot be maintained upon any less terms; and so long as girls’ secondary schools are founded upon a purely commercial basis, the standard which we have a right to demand from those who have charge of the education given therein will seldom, I fear, be reached. The organisation of secondary schools is, however, too large a matter to be discussed here. The whole question, including the claims of secondary schools upon the State for support, is rapidly becoming an affair for national consideration. Legislation cannot be long deferred, and the preliminary stage of discussion and debate has already begun.

[4] The average fee in the Girls’ Public Day School Company’s Schools is £12 12s. 0d. per annum, the same as that charged by the City of London School for Boys, a richly-endowed school, which has no dividends to pay, and is backed by the richest Corporation in the world.

Elementary Schools.—The conditions under which employment can be obtained in the elementary schools may be found in the official publications of the Education Department, and the general character of the work is also too well known to need description here.[5] More women than men are employed in the elementary schools, the number of certificated masters being 18,611, of mistresses 27,746. I append tables of salaries drawn up in 1893, by the National Union of Teachers, classified according to the denominations to which the schools belong. It should be noted that the tables refer to certificated mistresses only.

[5] Regulations as to certificates and examinations are undergoing considerable change, and it is expedient therefore for candidates to consult the latest publications.

AVERAGE SALARIES OF CERTIFICATED MISTRESSES.

NUMBER OF CERTIFICATED TEACHERS IN RECEIPT OF SALARIES OF CERTAIN SPECIFIED AMOUNTS.

These tables show a considerable difference between the salaries paid in Board and in Voluntary Schools, the Board School average being £91 3s. 10d. against the highest Voluntary average of £69 14s. 3d. In rural districts also extra duties of an onerous nature, such as teaching in the Sunday-school, playing the organ in church, getting up village concerts, and performing parochial duties generally, are often imposed by the clerical managers of Voluntary Schools. Small School Boards also are not wholly guiltless in the matter. Particulars as to these exactions may be learnt from the publications of the National Union of Teachers, which is making a determined stand against their imposition.

The highest salaries are given by the London School Board. Trained assistants (female) begin at £85 a year, and head mistresses receive from £200 to £300. Higher salaries are given for special work, and in the large provincial centres also it may be said without inaccuracy that the regulation scale is constantly broken in order to secure good teachers of special subjects. In London pupil teachers’ schools the salaries of assistant mistresses begin at £125 a year, rising by annual increments of £5 to £150. Assistant masters in similar posts receive £140 to £170 per annum. Salaries for both sexes are said to be rising gradually throughout the country, and although a contrary movement has recently been initiated in the London School Board, it is hardly likely that it will be carried out to any great extent.

Elementary versus Secondary Schools.—Hitherto elementary schools have not commended themselves as a field of work for the class of women who now form the staff of girls’ secondary schools. The salaries offered outside London have not been high enough to tempt them; holidays are short in comparison with High Schools (six weeks in the year instead of thirteen); and, lastly, the conditions as to training hitherto exacted have been practically prohibitive. Women who have already received an expensive education are not inclined to spend two or three years more in a denominational training college. The relaxation of rules in favour of women who have passed certain recognised examinations, and the opening of day training classes in connection with recognised colleges, such as Owen’s College, Manchester, and several of the local University Colleges, may do much to open the elementary schools to a more cultured class of women. Such women would soon obtain the headship of a school, and would then, under a liberal Board, find a good field for the exercise of talent and organising power. I fear, however, that the shortness of holidays may still prove a serious obstacle.

Domestic Subjects.—Meanwhile a new field of work is being opened by the inclusion of domestic subjects in the school course. A teacher of cookery in elementary schools can earn from £80 to £100 a year in a fairly agreeable manner, and private and visiting teachers often earn more. Dressmaking and laundry work are also in great demand, particularly in evening continuation schools; and if to these subjects is added a knowledge of sick-nursing and elementary hygiene, the combination forms an admirable stock-in-trade for a teacher. In some towns School Boards are training their own teachers, probably with more haste than thoroughness, to fill the posts for which such a sudden demand has arisen. Instruction in domestic subjects is also being carried on under the auspices of the County Councils, for there are few among their number that have not devoted a share of the funds available under the Technical Instruction Act, and in towns by the power of levying a penny rate, to the furtherance of technical education, in which domestic instruction for girls is almost always included. Thus, throughout the length and breadth of the land, teachers of these subjects are eagerly sought; and cookery schools, embryo technical schools for women, and voluntary agencies, such as the National Health Society, are busily employed in training teachers and sending them out to different districts. The Liverpool School of Cookery is particularly active in this direction.

The misfortune is that in these subjects there is no definite standard, and each school trains after its own fashion. The money for technical education was gained by a side wind, and the passing of the Act found the country unprepared, no organised system of instruction or of training for teachers being in existence. As experience is gradually accumulated the different agencies at work will probably make comparison of methods and adopt to some extent a common system and standard. In this connection it should be mentioned that though women have no place upon County Councils, they may be and are appointed upon the local committees for carrying out the Councils’ schemes, and in this way they are able to take an active share in educational work.

It cannot at present be foretold what shape this large enterprise will eventually take, but it seems likely that for some time to come the teaching of domestic subjects will form an important and considerable opening for women. It is fortunate that it is so, since many are thereby enabled to find congenial employment who have no taste for the purely literary side of education. In time permanent institutions for domestic instruction will probably be formed in the large centres of population—indeed such a movement has already begun. The superintendence of work at these centres, which will also embrace outlying districts, must give rise to good appointments, and it is well to bear in mind that these will certainly fall by preference to women who besides technical knowledge have received a good general education, and possess powers of organisation and management. Women so qualified will probably be highly paid. The rank and file may not impossibly find their earnings diminish as their numbers increase; at present their services are at a scarcity value. In view of the certain extension of this branch of teaching work it is worth while for girls or their parents to consider whether (viewed as a wage-earning instrument solely) a course at a school of domestic economy, requiring at most two years, and costing a comparatively small sum (say £15 per annum), is not more advantageous than three or four years at Oxford or Cambridge, costing from £70 to £100 a year. In the ordinary branches of teaching, as I have shown, a woman seldom earns more than £150 a year, and teaching is almost the only breadwinning occupation followed by women graduates. I know teachers of domestic economy who make as much or more in the winter months, and have the summer free for either rest or self-culture.

Higher Teaching Posts.—But few posts of higher teaching or superintendence are open to women. Even those mentioned above are only just beginning to take visible shape. Headships of High Schools are of course important positions, and are often well paid. An initial salary of £250 a year (sometimes, however, only £150) is offered, generally with rooms, but not board; capitation fees, varying from 10s. to 30s. are usually added, but these do not begin until 100 pupils have been entered. Thus in an unprosperous neighbourhood a mistress may have all the trouble of organising and managing a school for £150 or £200 a year; for it is precisely in these districts that the lowest initial salaries are offered. In some few cases the income rises to £700 or £800 a year. The headships of colleges and training colleges available are of course very limited in number, and the same may be said of the college lectureships at Oxford and Cambridge, with rooms in college. These are not well paid, and are chiefly attractive for the pleasant university life they afford. Few women are as yet engaged as University Extension lecturers, though it is hard to see what impediment, beyond the prejudice of sex, stands in the way of their employment.

Religion and Philanthropy.—Religion and Philanthropy have not hitherto been reckoned among the avenues leading to remunerative employment for women; but it is by no means certain that this will be the case in the future. The Catholic Church has always provided careers for women in connection with convents and sisterhoods, and institutions formed upon their pattern are springing up in the Church of England and even in the Dissenting churches. Since, however, the members are merely supplied with board, lodging, and clothing, and are content to find their reward in the satisfaction of their calling, there is little further to be said about these occupations from the industrial point of view. The feminine side of religious and philanthropic work, however, is developing upon much broader lines than heretofore, and though at present it partakes largely of the character of amateur work, it can hardly fail in course of time to create remunerative and (if the term may be allowed) professional occupations for women. To some extent this is the case already. Even in the Established Church the propriety of women preaching appears to be regarded to some extent as an open question, and—with or without formal sanction—the innovation seems destined to spread. Whatever else women preachers may lack they at any rate seldom fail of a congregation, an item which no church can afford to disregard. It can hardly be doubted that in this field also the labourer will eventually be found worthy of her hire. For example, philanthropic societies have usually a paid secretary, besides, in many cases, visitors, lecturers, and propagandists. Most of the religious bodies have now “Settlements” in the London slums, with women’s branches. The resident manager is certainly paid in some instances, and will no doubt soon be in all. Political work may also in time afford occupation to a limited number of women. It is, however, in purely religious work that we may expect to see the next development of women’s activities. In almost all denominations women are already at work preaching and exhorting, and the desirability of giving formal sanction to their proceedings is being actively discussed in Nonconformist churches.

Law.—Of the learned professions only one, that of medicine, is open to women. A combination of law and ancient custom keeps women out of the legal profession, and it is only in certain of its approaches, such as conveyancing and accountants’ work, that they are free to seek a livelihood. A summary of the case by Miss Eliza Orme LL.B., gives a clear idea of the situation. “Women can make wills and simple agreements without qualification. Anything else (i.e. deeds) must be nominally done by a solicitor, and women can only be employed by them as clerks. Women cannot go into court. If they do chamber practice (i.e. settling difficult deeds for solicitors, or giving counsel’s opinion), they can only do it through barristers as ‘devils,’ receiving half fees. If women are to be solicitors the Act will need altering. To be barristers they must be admitted by the benchers of one of the four Inns (Inner and Middle Temple, Benchers’ Inn, and Gray’s Inn), and if a woman applied, probably a joint council of all would sit.

“The Benchers might admit them as certificated conveyancers, which would not allow them to plead in court; but men themselves have not used their certificate for many years.

“The University of London law degree is open to women. It is a thorough practical test, but not a legal qualification to practice.”

From this summary it will be seen that the door of the legal profession is still fast closed. There is no difficulty however in a lady’s practising as a conveyancer, and no reason therefore why more women should not follow the example of Miss Orme in adopting the profession, which is said to offer a fair prospect of remuneration. There is also at least one lady accountant in London, and the audit of societies and public companies, the preparation of balance-sheets and financial statements, may be freely undertaken by women who are willing to train for the work.

It should be added that legal work seems likely to become possible for women in India. Miss Cornelia Sorabji, who recently passed in the law schools at Oxford, is about to take up a Government appointment in her own country, and will be occupied with attending to the legal interests of Hindu women, who are unable to consult lawyers of the opposite sex. It remains to be seen whether her example is capable of being followed by others.

Medicine.—The profession of medicine has at last, after long struggles, been thrown open to both sexes, and women doctors are slowly taking their place in the ranks as recognised practitioners of the healing art. Their presence will tend in an eminent degree to the preservation of health as distinct from the cure of disease, at any rate as far as women patients are concerned; since it is plain that women, and especially girls, can be more readily induced to complain of ailments in the initial and manageable stage if they are able to consult a member of their own sex. This statement is sometimes questioned, but as far as girls, at least, are concerned, I have no doubt whatever of its correctness. And since the seeds of illness are often laid in early life this point is of the very greatest importance. It is not necessary here to recall the history of the struggle for medical education, or to give details as to the places of study open to women.[6] It is more important to enquire what rank medical women are taking in their profession, and what appointments they are able to obtain. Upon the first point it is still too soon to pronounce an opinion. A medical man does not expect to make a reputation within the time that the majority of women have as yet been at work. There are about 170 medical women upon the register, and of these only a dozen qualified before 1880. It is obviously too early, and the ground covered is too small, to expect conspicuous results as yet; and if a number of women are filling public posts in India, or working at private practice in England with adequate success, they and their friends have every reason to be content. In some respects it is said to be easier for women to build up a practice than for men. Dr. Jex-Blake remarks that “in point of fact women are continually doing what men hardly ever attempt—viz., settling down in a strange place with no professional introduction to practice by purchase or otherwise; and if gifted with a moderate degree of patience, tact, and other qualities needful in every successful practitioner, they do manage to succeed in a way that certainly goes far to justify their bold adventure.” It is usually estimated that five years are necessary to put together a practice that will afford a livelihood. Whether the standard of “livelihood” here taken is as high as that of man cannot be exactly known; but it is certain that women who succeed in the medical profession make much larger incomes than in most other callings.

The appointments which have recently become available are a great help to medical women at the beginning of their career. A medical man usually fills minor posts in hospitals, or acts as a locum tenens for a while before attempting to set up for himself; but women have hitherto been obliged to take up practice as soon as their qualification was gained. The New Hospital for Women in Euston Road, officered entirely by women, now affords young doctors the means of gaining experience, and a number of other posts are gradually becoming available. Several medical women hold Government appointments as physicians to the female staff of the Post-office; a lady officiates as assistant resident medical officer in a workhouse hospital, another in the Holloway Sanatorium, others in fever hospitals or as asylum inspectors. A well-known surgeon in the provinces employs a lady as an anæsthetist, and a country doctor in good practice has for some time been in the habit of employing medical women as assistants. A few middle class girls’ schools have engaged the services of a consulting lady doctor, and it would be well if the example were more widely followed; since, apart from cases of illness, there are many questions of hygiene and school arrangements in which a properly-qualified woman could give valuable advice.

[6] For the former see Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake’s Medical Women and (inter alia) a pamphlet entitled Women and Medicine, by Edith A. Huntley (Lewes: Farncombe and Co., Printers); for the latter The Englishwoman’s Year Book, which gives a list of medical schools open to women.

Medical Women in India.—An important field for medical women is to be found in India. The Mahommedan races do not allow the presence of a male physician in the zenana; and the Hindus, who have borrowed from the conquering race many of their ideas and customs, are also opposed to the practice. The Countess of Dufferin’s scheme for supplying medical aid to the women of India—now too well known to require explanation—was instituted in 1885, and has been warmly supported by native princes, some of whom have founded hospitals on their own account. At present thirteen women doctors are working under the Dufferin Fund, besides assistant surgeons, and over 200 pupils are studying in Indian medical schools. The various missionary societies also educate and support a number of medical missionaries in India. It is possible that some day Government may include the medical profession in the Civil Service, but for the present the work has to be done by voluntary effort. Eventually too Indian women will take over the medical care of their own sisters; but for some time to come the field must continue to be largely occupied by Englishwomen. Hindu and Mahommedan girls do not study medicine; the native students in medical schools are drawn from the Parsees, Brahma Somaj (Veda Hindus), and Eurasians. Englishwomen holding appointments in India are allowed private practice as well, but the latter alone would never yield a livelihood, since the natives who make use of the dispensaries do not expect to pay a fee. If they receive medicine they do not object to pay for it, and those who send for a lady doctor to attend them in their houses are also ready to pay for her services; but only the comparatively rich think of asking for a doctor’s visit. Ladies employed by the association engage to work for five years in India, and, besides a free passage out, receive a salary of 300 rupees a month. Scholarships are attached to some of the women’s medical schools, but the amount—£25 or £30 per annum during education—seems very small in relation to the obligations undertaken, which, if not fulfilled, involve the return of the money.

Pharmacy.—One or two ladies have adopted pharmacy as a profession; and as means of training are now accessible, there seems no reason why an occupation which is neither arduous nor disagreeable should not be largely followed by women. Mrs. Clarke Keer has a dispensary in London, and a few other ladies hold posts in connection with hospitals. It has been suggested that the work should be taken up by the daughters of medical men, whose position gives them special opportunities for training.

Dentistry.—Another very suitable profession is dentistry, which is largely followed by women in America, but only by a few in this country. There should be excellent openings in this profession. A dentist once observed to me, that with children a woman dentist would have it all her own way, and would probably beat all the men, for children were troublesome patients, and men did not know how to deal with them.

Midwifery.—Women of education are being trained in increasing numbers as midwives, and there is abundant opening in this direction for useful and remunerative work. But at present the status of midwives is uncertain, owing to the lax regulations respecting their practice and qualifications. The whole profession is undergoing a change, passing from the ranks of untrained, unskilled, and inefficient work to that of a skilled profession. The registration of trained midwives is being urgently demanded, and a Select Committee has reported in favour of the examination and registration of all who practise as midwives. The necessity for stricter regulations will be apparent when it is stated that seven cases of childbirth out of ten in this country take place without the presence of a medical man, and that the women (mostly poor) who employ midwives have no means of ascertaining their fitness for the duty. The Obstetrical Society, London, gives a midwife’s certificate of acknowledged value, which should be obtained by every lady intending to practise in midwifery. For those who wish to undertake benevolent work among the poor, especially in country districts, a knowledge of midwifery is highly desirable. The Midwives’ Institute in Buckingham Street, Strand, looks after the interests of midwives, and arranges for their training.

Nursing.—The profession of nursing continues to attract numbers of educated women into its ranks, and facilities for training are said to be insufficient for the demand. (For details see Englishwoman’s Year Book.) Considering the hardships involved in the profession its continued popularity is surprising. The work of a trained nurse, whether employed in a hospital or in private or district work, is necessarily severe, and it is to be regretted that more careful provision is not made for the comfort of so useful a class of workers. Hours are long and holidays short, and work of the most trying description is expected to be done year after year, with a mere fraction of the rest and recreation which is considered necessary in other and not more arduous professions. In Nursing Institutes and Homes the dietary is often very poor, and in hospitals the state of things is not much better. It is unfortunately impossible to repeat in any detail the complaints made by nurses without indicating the institutions to which they refer; but most persons with acquaintances among hospital nurses know that abundant dissatisfaction exists in the profession. Examples could of course be given of institutions that are well managed in this respect, but they are, it is to be feared, the exception rather than the rule. Boards of Management are under constant pressure to increase their accommodation, and, funds being seldom abundant, they are tempted to work with an insufficient staff. The consequences are felt most severely by the more educated nurses. It seems to be forgotten that the superior tact and skill which make the cultured woman a better nurse than her uneducated colleague are gained to some extent at the expense of toughness of fibre, and that hours and dietary need modification accordingly. I am afraid that a good deal of the mischief arises from mistaken notions as to what the profession of nursing ought to be. Nurses are supposed to take it up in a missionary spirit for the good of the community, without regard to their own comfort or health. Now unfortunately the more “noble” a profession is considered, the greater is the tendency to neglect the material well-being of those concerned in it; and nurses have reason to feel the full force of this misplaced sentiment. The policy followed in their regard is as foolish as it is unjust. The inevitable fatigues of a nurse’s life require to be counteracted by the most careful provisions for her comfort, if full efficiency is to be kept up; and Hospital Boards would do well to remember that more professions are now open to women than there were when nursing first became popular. The supply of capable nurses is already insufficient, as the recent influenza epidemic showed, and may easily become still more inadequate, if neither facilities for training nor conditions of employment undergo any improvement.

Nurses’ Salaries.—Except in institutions to which pensions are attached, the profession of nursing cannot be regarded as a money-making career. At one large London hospital probationers receive £12 with uniform the first year, £20 the second, and the “sisters,” or heads of wards, receive £40 per annum. The Workhouse Training Association (for replacing pauper attendants by trained nurses in workhouse infirmaries) gives no salary the first year, £20 the second, rising to £25. A district nursing association in the provinces gives trained nurses £24 the first year, and salaries rise to £30—board, lodging, and washing being also found. From £25 to £30 therefore generally represents the money payment of a trained nurse. The matron of a hospital may receive anything from £50 to £100 per annum. In the large London hospitals the latter sum is often exceeded, with the addition of house, servant, and handsome fees from probationers. For heads of hospitals therefore the profession is by no means unremunerative; but these posts are few and far between. With the multiplication of cottage hospitals which is certain to take place minor posts with fair salaries and a not too arduous life will become available. Private nursing under a medical man is often well paid, but uncertainty of employment has to be taken into account. Co-operative associations of nurses are also being formed, and it is possible that by their means a larger proportion of the fees paid by patients may find their way into the pockets of those who earn them.

Art. Painting and Music.—And now what must be said of the domain of the arts and of women’s place therein? If women have entered but timidly into this fair kingdom, it has not been for want of fitness, as the rapid success of a few among them clearly shows; the hindrance has lain rather in the prejudices of society and the lack of proper training. Though rapidly disappearing, the former are not yet extinct; means of training are not the same for both sexes, nor have women ceased to suffer from the blasting influence of Puritanism upon art. Anything that damages the social reputation of a profession bars it more or less to women; and anything that makes training difficult or expensive is a more serious hindrance to women than to men, since parents are not so willing to make sacrifices for a girl as for a boy. Astonishment is often expressed at the absence of women composers of merit; but the reason is not really far to seek. Until the foundation of the London schools of music (to which that of Manchester must now be added) musical education has been difficult to obtain by either sex. But the practical part, which involves an acquaintance with orchestral instruments, the methods of opera, the arrangement of church music, the management of chorus parts and a hundred other details, has hitherto been almost unattainable by women. There seems little à priori reason for supposing that music is an affair of sex. Fanny Mendelssohn was scarcely, if at all, less gifted than the brother who so calmly placed her in the background, and was not ashamed to appropriate the credit of her work. Some of the “Lieder ohne Worte,” and “O rest in the Lord”—the latter perhaps the most popular of all Mendelssohn’s melodies—were, as is now generally known, composed by Fanny.

Remuneration.—It is impossible to give any estimate of the value of either music or painting as a means of livelihood. A music teacher, if well qualified, may earn a fair living; and a teacher of an instrument less commonly learnt than the piano—say the violin—may sometimes earn £150 or £200 a year while quite young. Singers, unless of the first rank, generally find it profitable to combine private teaching with public performances. For a concert engagement a beginner may receive £5 with travelling expenses, rising soon, if successful, to £10 or £20. Great performers are of course at a “monopoly value,” as the economists say, and their annual earnings often run into four figures. As for composing, its pecuniary reward is very uncertain. “It does not pay to write symphonies,” a popular composer naively remarked, and the same thing may be said of most of the higher kinds of composition. Incidental music for stage plays is often well paid, and a popular song may yield a small income in itself. The budding composer, however, like the artist or author, must be content to let his first works be sold for almost nothing for the sake of making a reputation, but this once made he can command his own terms. A deadening effect is exercised on musical art in this country by the mischievous system of royalties. Many singers high in the ranks will not look at a modern song unless they are paid a handsome royalty for singing it, and thus a valuable means of advancing the reputation of a young composer is rendered useless.

Painting and sculpture are so purely an affair of the individual that it is more difficult to make general statements with regard to them than with any other artistic profession. Each artist works on his own lines; there is no general or usual rate of remuneration, and no one can predict with any certainty the prospects of the profession even to a painter of talent. Indeed the less the talent, often, the greater the success. All that can be said is that the woman who means to live by her brush or her chisel must be prepared for a hard struggle before she can earn a competence; and very few attain to wealth. The development of illustration in periodicals has however opened a large and fairly-well paid outlet for women’s work, and many a rising painter would be hard put to it but for the aid that comes—only in guineas and half-guineas it may be, but steadily—from black-and-white drawings for the press. Many men, though at present few women, earn a fairly good living entirely by black-and-white work.

The Stage.—The stage is, socially speaking, becoming easier of entry for girls. Those who wish to succeed must begin young, a proviso which forms a serious disadvantage in a profession involving obstacles to be surmounted, or awkward corners to be rounded. It is difficult to obtain entrance to a good London theatre, and novices generally have to go through a course of probation with a touring company, with the prospect of hard work, ill quarters, and uncertain pay. The profession is thus encountered on its roughest side at first, and it is not surprising that the prospect should daunt intending candidates. Yet the stage has a fascination of its own, and those who once tread the boards can seldom find it in their heart to forsake them. If a girl can by luck or perseverance gain a footing in one of the good London companies, the life need present no terrors to herself or her friends, and payment will be fair and regular while it lasts; but outside a comparatively small circle the stage, though perfectly reputable, is at best precarious as a means of livelihood. Engagement is almost always for the run of a single piece only, and there is usually no payment for rehearsals. Thus, after weeks of rehearsal, if the piece is unsuccessful, a girl may only earn a fortnight’s salary. In these matters actors and actresses are not well used, and when they have learnt the value of united effort they will certainly combine for securing juster terms. There is less cause for complaint in the rate of payment, which is generally fair, and often very good; while a successful actress can of course make a very large income. In good theatres a guinea a week is a common wage for a girl who merely “walks on,” but with touring companies she is generally expected to serve an apprenticeship before earning anything. If she obtains a speaking part she may earn £2 or £3 a week; but an actress would do well to reckon her salary at half its nominal amount, as she is likely to be frequently out of work. The institution of regular rates of payment is hindered by stage-struck amateurs, who are willing to pay, in some cases large sums, to appear on the boards, even in the smallest capacity.

There are all ranks and grades in the dramatic profession, and a vast number of actresses never rise above the position of “extra” ladies in pageant plays, or the rank and file of performers in pantomimes. The latter earn from 15s. to 20s. a week, and their employment is intermittent. In the case of impecunious or unscrupulous managers payment also is uncertain. Girls in the humbler ranks of the profession are subject to all sorts of ill-treatment and swindling. For example, a number of girls were recently engaged for an “open-air fête” in the country during some weeks of the summer. The weather turned out wet, and a friend who visited them found their dressing-tent only partly covered in, and swimming in water. They had attended thirteen rehearsals and a few performances without payment, and but for the intervention of friendly outsiders it is doubtful whether they would ever have received any payment at all. These girls had left paying employment as dressmakers and milliners for this thankless work, yet they endured their unjust treatment without complaint.

Speaking generally, the difficulty of the dramatic profession is, that while talent is rare, it is overcrowded with candidates of very moderate abilities. On this account it is very difficult for a girl to get an opportunity of showing what she can do, and much patience is necessary to success. If possible, a girl should have some other means of eking out her income during the first months or years of the struggle.

Many girls work at dressmaking in the summer months, taking to the stage regularly when the pantomime season comes on. Then there is the ballet, which in London alone employs thousands of women. An ordinary ballet dancer receives £1 to £1 10s. a week, and has to work hard for her money; the best members of the troupe however may earn as much as 35s. a week. The earnings of “solo” dancers are of course much higher. English principals in pantomimes receive £5 and £9 a week, but the usual custom is to employ foreigners—French or Italians—who are paid as much as £12 a week. Popular performers receive fancy salaries, and a dancer or music-hall singer who has hit the public taste sometimes makes as much as £70 a week. A lady in this branch of the profession was recently invited to visit America at a salary of £250 a week. A “variety artist” sued her manager for £43 6s. 8d. as a week’s salary, and gained all but the odd £3 6s. 8d. Miss Loie Fuller, the “serpentine” dancer, was engaged, as a subsequent lawsuit shewed, by a French manager for three years, at a salary of 102,000 francs, or over £4000 a year. If reward went by talent and artistic culture these figures would be highly satisfactory, but as a rule the reverse is the case. With regard to dancing, however, public taste is improving, and both on the stage and in private houses graceful dancing—dancing worthy of being called an art—is increasingly appreciated. A really good dancer is highly paid, though not upon the extravagant scale quoted above.

Handicrafts.—A word must be said about the position of women in artistic crafts and in designing, though it is to be feared that the account will somewhat resemble the famous chapter on “Reptiles in Ireland.” Pottery is almost the only field in which women are employed as designers, and here, as in isolated examples in other trades, what has happened is rather that an artist has turned trade designer, than that the trade has educated an artist. For example, a lady now carrying on business as a jeweller was educated at an art school, and owing to some accidental circumstance began designing for a jeweller. Eventually she set up in business for herself, and still designs many of the articles manufactured in her workshop. Isolated cases of the same kind might be cited from other trades. Speaking generally, however, women designers have not shaken themselves free from the trammels of the art schools, or gained the practical acquaintance with crafts and manufacture which alone can make their work marketable. It is probably more difficult for women than for men to gain this practical knowledge, and those who mean to succeed must bring both courage and perseverance to the task.

Artistic Crafts.—The artistic crafts proper are hardly followed at all by women. With the decay of domestic industries they lost what skill and knowledge they once possessed, and technical education has not yet restored them to their rightful position as skilled workers. If women are employed as jewellers, potters, or even photographers, it is only in the least skilled, and consequently worst paid portions of the work. Thus in the jewellery manufacture they are employed in unskilled operations, such as stringing pearls; and their earnings do not rise above £1 a week, while the skilled labour of men brings in from £3 to £6 a week. At electrotyping, in Birmingham, their wages are not more than 25s. a week, and the same might be said of those engaged in the electro-plate manufacture in Sheffield.

A few women are employed in chromo-lithography, but not many lithographers are willing to take women as apprentices. Wood engraving employs rather larger numbers, and the work is fairly well paid. In an office in which four women engravers work the wages earned per head during three months were, on an average, £2 18s. 5d. weekly, the highest wage earned being £3 3s. 4d., and the lowest £2 13s. 7d., representing a payment of 1s. 1d. an hour. At another office the average weekly wage is £1 18s. 9d., the highest being £2 3s. 9d., and the lowest £1 7s. 11d., representing an average payment of 10d. an hour. The entrance of women into such crafts has been materially aided by the Society for the Employment of Women, in Berners Street, which endeavours to find both means of training and business openings for its clients. In artistic crafts which require an apprenticeship women have much opposition to encounter; their entrance is generally opposed by the workmen employed, who fear, and not without reason, that the women will undersell them and bring their wages down. If women hope to gain a footing in skilled occupations they must conciliate opposition, by showing that they have no intention of underselling their fellow workmen.

General Conclusions.—It will be seen that in almost all the occupations here considered women have special difficulties to contend with—imperfect training, amateurish habits, social customs or prejudices, and the opposition of those who, sometimes from prejudice and sometimes from a well-grounded fear of injury, oppose the industrial employment of women. Time and good counsels may be trusted to diminish these obstacles, if not to do away with them entirely. Meanwhile it remains to give women the opportunity, by thorough training, of showing the extent of their capacity for different kinds of work. Disquisitions as to what women can do, or cannot do, are irrelevant at the present moment, when facilities for training and employment have not been open long enough to test their powers in any direction. In these matters it is safer to prophesy after the event, and it is certain that competition will eventually drive women out of any calling for which they prove themselves really unfitted.

CHAPTER II.
WOMEN’S WORK: CLERICAL AND COMMERCIAL.

Routine Clerical Work: Type-writing and shorthand—Secretaryships—Clerks and Book-keepers—The Civil Service: The Post Office—Number of women employed—Clerkships—Sorterships—Telegraph Learnerships—Counter-women and Telegraphists—The Telephones—Complaints against women—Commerce: Subordinate position of women—Shopkeeping—Trade as a Career—Shop Assistants and their condition: Wages—Deductions from Wages—Fines—Forms of Agreement—Long Hours—“Counter and Bed”—Select Committee on Mr. Provand’s Bill—Evidence from different places—Select Committee 1888—Standing all day—Effect upon health—The Lancet on the provision of seats—Combination of assistants necessary—Insanitary Surroundings—Living in—Evils of the system—Bad food and insufficient accommodation—No social life—Hurried meals—Sunday arrangements—Personal Narratives—Warehouses—Combination among assistants—Objects of the different Societies—Legislation and its probable effects—Addendum: The Reports of the Lady Assistant Commissioners to the Labour Commission—Miss Collet’s summary.

Routine Clerical Work. Type-writing.—There has been a great increase of late in the variety of routine clerical work open to women. The type-writing machine might have been designed for their especial benefit, since it has brought within their reach a number of occupations well suited to their capacities. The lady typist and shorthand writer is a recognised institution in American commercial houses; American women, with their superior adroitness, having promptly seized upon an opening so favourable to their interests and adapted it to their own use. The difficulty as to the two sexes working together is not as much felt in America as here, and where special arrangements have to be made or accommodation provided for women clerks it is done without demur. For type-writing to be satisfactory as an occupation it should be combined with shorthand, for a typist pure and simple can seldom rise beyond a clerkship in a type-writing office, and must not expect more than clerk’s pay; and in this case her weekly wages will certainly be counted by shillings, not by pounds. The addition of shorthand renders many kinds of secretarial work available, and here, as in other occupations, any special skill or knowledge may lead to a considerable increase in wages. An industrious typist who can secure a good connection may make a fair, though not a large, income by working on her own account. Authors and journalists often dictate their work to a shorthand writer and typist, receiving it back in a few hours in a handy and legible form. The usual fee is from 2s. to 3s. 6d. an hour. Doctors, literary and public men, often give permanent employment to a typist, and this kind of work is specially suited to women. Here again, however, brains as well as manual skill are needed. Mere routine work can never earn more than low wages.

Clerks and Book-keepers.—Female clerks and book-keepers are largely employed in retail houses of business. To judge from their rapidly increasing numbers it would seem as if their work were quite as satisfactory as that of men, and yet their wages are invariably lower. Herein, it is to be feared, lies the only difference between them and the male clerks whom they supersede. From 15s. to £1 a week is probably as much as a woman can expect in this employment; but, on the other hand, a girl with an aptitude for business may sometimes make a clerkship the stepping-stone to a forewoman or manager’s post, thus leading, of course, to much higher wages. A well-known shipping firm in Liverpool has for many years employed a lady to take charge of all the ship linen and furniture. Under her is a large staff of clerks and needlewomen, who carry on their work in comfortable and well-arranged premises not far from the Docks. It is probable that as women come to receive a more practical and thorough education they will be more largely employed in posts in which care and attention to small details is important. At present the capacity which women undoubtedly possess in this direction is often neutralised by slovenly business habits.

The Civil Service.—Of clerkships those in connection with the Civil Service are perhaps the most important. From the eagerness with which women compete for its posts, indeed, the Civil Service would seem to be a very El Dorado for its employés, a conclusion which is hardly warranted by an examination of its conditions. The work, however, is light, demands only moderate abilities, and is performed on the whole under agreeable conditions. Wages are not high, but pensions are attached to the most important branches, an advantage which hardly any other employment open to women possesses. A woman who has worked for forty years in the Post-office may retire with a pension equal to two-thirds of her salary. Even after ten years of service a pension of one-sixth is available. The respective amounts, in the case of Post-office clerkships (to be described immediately), would probably be about £80 and £15 per annum respectively, and a woman must be earning exceptional wages in any other employment to put by sufficient to bring in an income of even these modest dimensions. It is unfortunate that in this, as in so many other occupations, women are willing to undersell men. The clerks in the Post-office naturally look with anything but favour upon the influx of women clerks at a lower wage, knowing that it means their own gradual supercession. It is sometimes said that the less robust health of women, and their consequently less regular attendance, forms sufficient justification for a lower rate of pay; but the alacrity of the public departments to engage female clerks seems to shew that any disabilities on the score of health are more than balanced by diminished salaries. Where the advantages to the employer are equal there is seldom any eagerness to prefer the labour of women. A similar displacement of men is going on in other Government departments; at the War Office, in Special Commissions, and elsewhere, women are being engaged for routine clerical work, and almost always at a lower rate of payment than men.

The Post-office.—The most important public department with regard to the employment of women is the Post-office. The Postmaster-General’s Report for 1891 shows the total number of officials on the permanent establishment, with sub-postmasters and letter receivers, to be 63,868, of whom 8877 are women. Of these, 906 women are employed as clerks in the chief offices in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, and 3750 as “counter-women” and telegraphists throughout the kingdom, besides others employed as sub-postmistresses and letter receivers. These figures however do not represent the gross total of the Post-office staff, for we are informed that about 54,000 other persons are employed more or less in Post-office work, and of these 16,000 are women. In this estimate are probably included the extra clerks, generally former employés, who come in and help at times of special pressure, as well as the domestic servants and needlewomen whose business it is to keep the buildings and miscellaneous Post-office property in order.

Classification.—An impression prevails that women are only employed by the Post-office in selling stamps and sending off telegrams, that being the only branch of Post-office work of which the general public has cognisance. “Counter-women,” however, as these employés are technically called, are only subordinate officials, and their work is both less agreeable and worse paid than that of some of the other departments. Post-office appointments, as far as women are concerned, may be classified thus:

(1) Clerkships in the four great branches of the Post-office—the Savings Bank, Postal Orders, Returned Letters, and Clearing House.

(2) Sorterships.

(3) Telegraph Learnerships.

(4) Counter-women and telegraphists.

Clerkships.—Of the posts just enumerated the clerkships are the most important and best paid, and are filled by a superior class of women. During some years they were obtained by nomination, and the women chosen generally came from the cultured classes; but now all appointments are thrown open to competition, and anyone within the limits of age (18 to 20) who can pass the not very severe entrance examination is eligible for a vacancy. There is considerable demand for these posts, and it is considered a very small competition if there are only two qualified candidates for every vacancy. The hours of attendance in the office are in most cases seven daily, and a month’s holiday is allowed. Salaries commence at £65 a year, rising by an annual increase of £3 to £80 in the lowest class. There are possibilities however of much higher salaries, as the accompanying table (drawn from the Civil Service Competitor) of numbers and salaries of the female staff at the General Post-office, London, shows—

General Conditions.—Work in the General Post Office is carried on under pleasant conditions. The premises are good, and all reasonable arrangements are made for the comfort of the clerks. Strict privacy is enforced; the clerks never come in contact with the public; and, the routine of the business once mastered, there is a regularity and freedom from worry about Post-office work, which to certain natures is probably attractive. A girl of fair education, but without the special knowledge or aptitude necessary for the teaching profession, may profitably turn her attention to Post-office work, in which the defect of monotony is counterbalanced by regularity of employment and the prospect of a pension in later life. Candidates must be unmarried or widows, and must be duly qualified in respect of character and health. They must further pass an examination in handwriting, spelling, arithmetic, English composition, geography, and English history. A periodical entitled the Civil Service Competitor gives details as to the changes which take place in the regulations from time to time.

Sorterships.—These posts are attached chiefly to the General Post Office in London. Candidates must be “not less than four feet ten inches in height without boots” (a very moderate requirement, surely), and the limit of age is 15 to 18. An examination must be passed in reading and copying badly-written manuscript, handwriting, spelling, arithmetic (first four rules), and the geography of the United Kingdom. Salaries begin at 12s. a week, rising by 1s. a week to 20s., with prospect of promotion to the higher classes. The work chiefly consists, as the title indicates, in sorting the papers of the department. Like the clerkships just described, the occupation is regular and not disagreeable. An advantage in a young girl’s beginning as a sorter is that if she desires to qualify for a clerkship, she may, if she has served for two years, secure an extension of age up to 25. Thus, though she fail to pass the examination at the latest age allowable to outsiders, she may try again, perhaps several times.

Telegraph Learnerships.—The privilege just mentioned is attached to this department also, and appointments as counter-women are now usually filled up from the ranks of the telegraph learners. A preliminary examination must be passed in dictation, handwriting, and arithmetic (first four rules), and successful candidates must attend a Post-office Telegraph School (free) to learn the craft. The course usually takes three months, but pupils who show no aptitude may be discharged. On receiving a certificate from the school the telegraphist begins work in a Post-office at a salary of 10s. a week, rising to 12s. and 14s., as she becomes capable of transmitting messages and taking charge of an instrument; thence, if promoted, to 30s. or 38s. Supervisors may receive from £90 a year to £140. The age for admission in London is 14 to 18, in the provinces 14 to 25.

Counter-women.—This is the only branch of Post-office work which is carried on under the eyes of the general public, the workers serving at the open counters of Post-offices, selling stamps, cashing postal orders, and performing all the miscellaneous duties belonging to a local office. Since the Government took over the management of telegraphs counter-women have been of necessity chiefly recruited from the telegraph learners. A second-class counter-woman receives from 12s. to 30s. a week; a first-class from 30s. to 38s.

Complaints against Women.—It must be acknowledged that women have not altogether distinguished themselves in this branch of employment. Sir James Fergusson, when Postmaster-General, felt called upon to issue a circular to Post-office clerks, with pointed reference to the female clerks, recommending the practice of greater civility in their dealings with the public; and the measure was regarded, I think, with general satisfaction. In some commercial centres similar complaints are made of the indifference and carelessness of the girls in charge of the telephones, who do not seem to realise that important business transactions are dependent upon their promptitude and attention. In a large telephone office which I could name women have been replaced by men to the unconcealed satisfaction of the subscribers. A newspaper editor told me that he always found a great change for the better when evening arrived, and women clerks were replaced by men. It would be easy to make too much of these complaints, but they deserve to be noted in considering the entry of women into new employments.

Commerce.—Leaving clerical work on one side, we may now turn to the wide field of trade and commerce, and examine into the position occupied by women. Here, as in most other departments, their place will be found to be chiefly subordinate. Women rarely enter the higher and more lucrative branches of trade and commerce, while they overcrowd the lower ranks. Isolated cases may be quoted in which the control of large capital is in the hands of women; and as land-owners and managers of large estates they often take an important share in commercial operations. We sometimes hear of women millowners and merchants; but these positions are generally the result of accident rather than choice, and women who have become capitalists by inheritance seldom (except in the case of land) take any active share in the management of their property. There are exceptions, however; and it is possible that if a careful enquiry were made they would prove to be more numerous than was supposed. In a recent lawsuit about a colliery the defendant, a lady coalowner, was asked, “You never go down into the mine, I suppose?” “Indeed I do,” was the reply. “I take the greatest interest in my property, and I frequently go down into the mine.”

Englishwomen lag strangely behind American and French women in the conduct of business enterprise, though whether from lack of talent or opportunity is not clear. Probably they possess neither the talent of the French nor the opportunity of the Americans. In retail trading women take a much larger part, though here their operations, if on any large scale, are generally confined to one or two trades, chiefly those concerned with women’s dress and outfitting. Probably no great number of women are engaged in these enterprises, but in the smaller kinds of shopkeeping they are largely concerned. Very precarious much of this work is. Any decent woman who has saved a little money thinks herself qualified to open a shop and carry on business without preliminary training. The usual result of such experiments is that capital dwindles away before profits have begun to make their appearance. Women do not always realise that the management of even a small business requires knowledge, resource, and an unwearied attention to details.

Trade as a Career.—It is to be regretted that the daughters of shopkeepers, particularly of the wealthier sort, do not more often devote themselves to trade. Their position gives them unrivalled opportunities of learning the business under agreeable conditions, and they would gain thereby an independent position and an occupation of great interest. As forewoman, cashier, buyer, or manager of a department, a girl of superior education with an interest in the well-being of the concern might do good service for the firm. The majority of wealthy shopkeepers’ daughters however usually prefer to dissociate themselves as far as possible from the industry which is the source of their prosperity, while pushing their way into society by its aid. En révanche ladies of the aristocracy, secure of social position, but lacking in means, have recently taken to retail trade; and though not all the aristocratic millinery and dressmaking establishments started a few years ago with a flourish of trumpets have outlived the difficulties of early life, the fact that the attempt has been made has contributed a good deal to change the attitude of society towards retail trading as an occupation for women. A few thoughtful parents, perceiving that such occupations as High School teaching offer but a poor reward for the energies of cultivated women, are training their daughters systematically for trade. The wisdom of such a course deserves to be highly commended, for girls so prepared will enter upon their work with every chance of success, and free from the ignorance which perpetually clogs the steps of women’s enterprise. To parents not themselves in business the matter may present some difficulties; but for girls whose fathers are in trade, the means of training are of course ready to hand. They will do well to get rid, as speedily as may be, of the false sentiment which makes them despise a pleasant and lucrative employment.

Shop Assistants.—When we come to the lower grades of employment, to the work of shop assistants and book-keepers, the proportion quickly alters, and the women far outnumber the men. There are unfortunately no means of ascertaining the number of women so employed, but the total number of both sexes in the retail trade is about one million, and about four-fifths of the assistants in the drapery trade are women. In other trades the proportion is not quite so high, and in the grocery trade about nine-tenths are men. An account of the labour of men and women in shops (for the two sexes cannot be separated in its consideration) must, if truthfully given, be little else than a recital of their grievances. There are, it is true, establishments where the employés are well paid and fairly treated, but their number is small compared to those in which poor pay, ungenerous treatment, and unhealthy surroundings are the lot of the shop assistant of either sex.

Their Grievances.—The chief points upon which complaints centre are:—

(1) Capricious deductions from wages.

(2) Unfair forms of agreement.

(3) Long hours.

(4) Insanitary surroundings.

(5) Living in.

Wages.—First as to wages. We often hear it said that a young woman serving in a shop is better paid than a governess; and it is true that a young woman of business ability and good appearance engaged as show-woman in a millinery or mantle department can earn from £200 to £300 or even £400 a year—far more than women teachers, except in rare cases, can dream of earning. But these are the plums of the profession, and they are few and far between. The wages of shop assistants are exceedingly variable, small shopkeepers only giving a few shillings a week, the proprietors of large establishments being able to afford a better wage. In the larger shops an entrance premium is often demanded, or at least the assistant must serve for several months without wages. Women assistants, for no apparent reason, receive considerably lower wages than men. The former may earn from £10 to £25 a year with board and lodging, the latter from £20 to £40.[7] Generally speaking the wages of female shop assistants are estimated to be 33 per cent. lower than those of male assistants. I have not been able to find any reason for the difference beyond the willingness of women to take less than men. It would be interesting to know whether there is any real difference in efficiency between the sexes. I believe that in purely manual occupations lack of efficiency is enough to account for women’s lower wages; but in clerical and routine work the reason is not so obvious.

[7] It is difficult to obtain an accurate estimate of the average wages of women shop assistants. The figures in the text were given me by the Secretary of the National Union of Shop Assistants. Miss Collet (Report to Labour Commission, p. 86) gives a table of salaries varying from £7 16s. to £75 per annum. Probably about 10s. a week is the average wage, but many who have worked for some years earn, it would seem from the table, about £1 a week, generally without board.

Fines.—The nominal wages of a shop assistant, however, whether high or low to start with, are subject to serious deductions by the way. Few large retail houses are free from a system of vexatious fines, deducted nominally from premiums on sales. I have before me a fine-book belonging to a large London house containing nearly a hundred rules, to the breach of which fines varying from 6d. to 5s. are attached, with threats of even worse penalties behind. Thus for standing on a chair the fine is 6d.; permitting customers to go unserved without calling special attention of buyer or shopwalker, 1s.; second offence reported. Omission of particulars as to filling up duplicate forms and returning change, at discretion up to 5s.; for sending bad coin to cashier, the loss to be made up, and 1s. fine as well. For not having premiums credited on exchange or return of goods, fine 2s. 6d., second offence dismissal. Wrong or insufficient address, 2s. 6d., and so on through a dozen closely-printed pages, until one wonders how human ingenuity could devise so many punishable offences. In another book of rules, more moderate in dimensions, and animated by a less vindictive spirit than the above, a fine of 6d. is levied for taking wrong change, and only half the deficiency is charged when bad coin is presented. Allowing a customer to go unserved without calling the attention of the “buyer,” however, still incurs a fine of 1s. Regulations such as these sufficiently explain the over-eagerness of shop assistants to sell, which is often so annoying to their customers. The unhappy victims of the fine-book have no choice but to cajole or worry the customer into buying, since their very livelihood depends upon success. Where such minute attention to details is necessary as in shop work, fines may be to some extent a necessary evil; but there can hardly be sufficient reason for the endless multiplication of petty exactions which an examination of fine-books reveals. One would gladly see the system exchanged for some plan of profit-sharing which would secure the co-operation of assistants by more agreeable means. It is true that a bonus on purchases is sometimes given during the annual sale, but this apparent boon is again accompanied by a liability to fines which must detract considerably from its advantages.[8]

[8] Miss Collet (Report, The Employment of Women, p. 88) quotes a witness who stated that her fines sometimes exceeded her premiums. “Anyone,” added this witness, “who left the counter on account of illness was fined for absence.”

Agreements.—On entering a situation shop assistants are often obliged to sign agreements which place them practically at the mercy of their employers. In some cases they agree to accept instant dismissal if fault is found with their work or conduct, in which case they bind themselves not to take action in a court of law. A girl may thus be discharged at a moment’s notice, and find herself literally in the streets,[9] The formation of a strong Trade Union among shop assistants is probably the only measure that can avail to check such injustice.

[9] Miss Collet (ibid. p. 88) states that “in the majority of cases a moment’s notice [of dismissal] was the rule. No wages are in the latter case paid in lieu of notice, and the only provision to secure that they shall not be absolutely penniless when they leave is the retention by the employer of the first week or fortnight’s wages, which are paid to them on dismissal. The matron of a home said that in one case a shop assistant who came to her was unable to obtain even this from her former employer. The power to dismiss at a moment’s notice is not merely reserved for grave offences, but seems to be frequently exercised on most trivial grounds,” and the examples given by Miss Collet fully bear out the truth of the statement.

Long Hours.—The most trying feature of a shop assistant’s life, however, is the long hours of labour. Upon this point agitation is at present centred, and rightly, since the length of the working day is not only an evil in itself, but renders the other ills which assistants suffer more difficult to bear and less easy to remove. In order to amend the conditions of their life assistants must have leisure to combine, for nothing breaks the spirit like unceasing toil. At present, as was pathetically remarked by a shop assistant, “counter and bed is the common lot of most of us,” and energies enfeebled by a long day’s work are unequal to grappling with the problem of reform. Both sexes work under the same conditions; women keep the same long hours as men; nor would they regard with approval special legislation in their favour, fearing lest the indirect result of such legislation should be to restrict their employment. How far such a result is really probable it is not easy to say. The Secretary of the Early Closing Association, giving evidence before the Select Committee on the Shop Hours Regulation Bill (1892), expressed himself satisfied that the limitation of women’s hours proposed by the Bill would not prejudice their employment; but though the contention is probably correct as far as the drapery trade is concerned, it is by no means certain that it would hold good of other trades, and women cashiers and clerks would certainly be replaced by men in shops where the latter are most largely employed. On the other hand, the greater cheapness of women’s labour might enable it to keep its place. It is probable, however, that in any case the restriction would be used as an excuse for lowering women’s wages still further.

The act of 1886 limited the hours of children employed in shops to seventy-four; but as no provision was made for inspection to enforce it, the act became a dead letter. The Act of 1892 extended the benefits of restricted hours to “young persons,” but left the appointment of inspectors optional. A few large towns are enforcing the Act by appointing inspectors. As, with these exceptions, each employer is free to do what seems right in his own eyes, shop hours vary indefinitely, and it is impossible to give any figures that are of universal application. An assistant giving evidence before the Select Committee stated that in Chelsea, Fulham, and Hammersmith she had worked from 88 to 90 hours a week, but in Holloway only 63½. Other cases as bad, or even worse, might be cited. A representative of the Early Closing Association estimated the average hours in the southern and eastern districts of London at from 75 to 91 per week, but I am inclined to think this estimate exaggerated.[10] London shops in the poorer districts however are great sinners in the matter of late hours. As a rule hours are shortest in the central districts of large towns, since the exodus of the wealthier classes to the suburbs as evening comes on renders it useless to keep shops open after six or seven o’clock. Saturday afternoon’s holiday is gained in the same manner. As we move towards the suburbs, and towards the working class districts, the hours become longer, and on Saturday, instead of the desired half holiday, toil is prolonged far into the evening, it may be even till midnight. In Manchester, which is said to stand well on the whole from the shop assistant’s point of view, the hours in the central district are about 66 to 68 weekly, in some few cases 50 only, and in the suburbs 80; but in many parts of the city much longer hours are kept, and late Saturday night shopping prevails in the working class districts. To some extent this is inevitable; but in a city like Manchester, where the Saturday half-holiday is general, such extremely late shop hours can hardly be necessary, and with regard to other towns also the necessity of late hours for the shopping of the working classes is probably much exaggerated. It is well known that so long as shops are open customers will come, and if purchases could be made at three o’clock in the morning, individuals would probably be found who preferred that time to any other. The Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Shop Hours Regulation Bill of 1888, reported that they were “satisfied that the hours of shop assistants range in many places as high as from eighty-four to eighty-five hours per week,” and were further “convinced that such long hours must be generally injurious and often ruinous to health, and that the same amount of business might be compressed into a shorter space of time.” Eighty-five hours too, as we have seen, are by no means the extreme limit of weekly work. It is a common thing for shops opened at eight in the morning to be kept open until nine o’clock at night; and what chance, it may be asked, has a girl released at that hour after a long day’s toil of enjoying healthy recreation? A rational life is impossible under such conditions.

[10] Miss Collet’s tables give 50 to 74 hours, exclusive of meals, but no attempt is made to find the average hours. And, as Miss Collet remarks, “those working long hours are most inaccessible, from the very fact that they have no time to go to social meetings, and have less courage to complain.” Miss Orme gives the average hours in Welsh shops at 54¾ a week, the highest being 62½ and the lowest 51½.

Standing.—The long hours of standing are of course apt to be injurious to the health of women, and especially of young girls. Physicians give evidence of diseases contracted in this manner, and the report of the “Sanitary Commission” of the Lancet, though moderate in expression, is sufficiently explicit upon this point.[11] It must be remembered, however, that constitutions differ, and I have been informed by a young woman who had served ten years in a shop (where, however, short hours are kept) that while she herself had grown used to the standing, her sister, serving in the same shop, was quite unable to endure the fatigue, and had failed seriously in health. A few years ago some well-meaning persons, urged on by the Lancet, exerted themselves to get seats provided for shop assistants, and their efforts were apparently successful. Subsequent investigations by the Lancet commissioner, however, disclosed a serious flaw in the arrangements. In one shop he found that although seats were provided anyone “found idle” was fined 6d. “At another very large establishment,” reported the commissioner, “which boasts of the seats it provides, anyone found using them is reprimanded the first time, and dismissed on a repetition of the offence.” The episode is instructive as showing how impossible it is for outsiders to reform trade abuses. Shop assistants must themselves combine for the removal of their grievances if any improvement is to be effected. In the same way “consumers’ leagues,” for the avoidance of late shopping or for boycotting shops where sweating is carried on, are doomed beforehand to failure. Combination among the workers, backed by judicious legislation, is the only sure method of securing reform.[12]

[11] The Report of the Lady Assistant Commissioners fully confirms the same opinion.

[12] An ingenious method in use in some Welsh towns deserves notice. Shops which are kept open late are picketed by men carrying cards, on which is printed, “You are requested to do your shopping before 7 p.m.” Miss Orme had such a card handed to her at Swansea, and on enquiry found that the agitation thus raised by the National Union of Shop Assistants had been very successful in shortening hours.

Insanitary Conditions.—An evil almost as great as the long hours of labour is the insanitary condition of many shops. In large establishments proper arrangements are usually made, though it often happens that the building is draughty or ill-ventilated. But in small shops there is sometimes no sanitary provision whatever, and assistants must have recourse to the nearest public house, the only lavatory available. Shops that are merely “fronts” have of course no offices attached, and in those built on to private houses the proprietor often reserves the house premises entirely for his own family. The abuse is a crying one, and from its nature it is difficult to expose. Small shops are also often close, ill-ventilated, and full of foul odours, though perhaps women do not suffer from the latter cause as much as men, being less employed in provision shops, pawnbrokers’, or fur shops. Women cashiers, however, who are confined all day in the elevated boxes rendered necessary by the rolling ball system of giving change, suffer severely from the accumulation of gas and bad air towards the ceiling.

Living-in.—Another matter with regard to which discontent is rapidly spreading is the system of compulsory “living-in,” which prevails widely in drapery and large outfitting establishments. This custom is, I believe, unknown in Scotland. A drapery firm in the North of England, for example, employs 300 assistants of both sexes, and all are obliged to live in the house provided by the employer. In shops where “living-in” is compulsory board and lodging is usually valued at £40 per annum. It is a common complaint, however, among assistants that if after some years’ service they obtain the privilege of living “out” they only receive an allowance of £15 or £20 per annum. This statement has been made over and over again, and its truth can hardly be doubted. For the sum charged by the employer the inmates of a large house ought to be comfortably fed and housed; but though in some cases the arrangements are all that could be desired, yet against the majority grave accusations are made with regard to over-crowding, bad food, and uncomfortable household arrangements.[13] The bedroom accommodation is said to be insufficient, and the furniture scanty; the food provided is often poor, and sometimes uneatable. Sundry small filchings in the shape of charges for blacking boots, use of piano and library, are also strongly resented. There is seldom any provision for social life, perhaps because there would be no time to enjoy it. Usually the two sexes are lodged apart, but some boarding houses are apparently mixed, for in one set of house rules it is stated that talking in the dining-room during meals is “strictly prohibited,” that the young men are not permitted to enter the young ladies’ sitting-room, and visitors are not allowed in the house. At most establishments only twenty minutes or half-an-hour is allowed for dinner, and the assistants are liable to be called off if required in the shop. On this system meals must be simply bolted, to the no small injury of the digestion; and it is not surprising that dyspeptic derangement is a common ailment of shop assistants.

[13] The Lady Commissioners’ reports are full of these complaints.

Sundays.—When Sunday comes round a diametrically opposite policy is followed, and after being kept in close confinement during six days of the week the unhappy assistant finds himself or herself put outside the door on the seventh. Either the boarders are given to understand that their presence is not desired within doors, or else no meals are provided, and the assistants are left to shift for themselves as best they may. No doubt the best-conducted houses are careful of their assistants’ comfort on Sundays. Extreme cases, in which the assistants are absolutely shut out, are probably rare; but some are known to exist, and the tendency to make Sunday an uncomfortable day for those who remain indoors appears to be pretty general. The disastrous consequences of throwing female assistants—often mere girls—upon their own resources on the day in the week when respectable means of shelter or refreshment are least accessible can easily be imagined. Here again a strong Trade Union seems to afford the only possible chance of dealing with the evil. The stress of competition is ever at work, driving employers to diminish their expenses in every possible way in order to sell their wares at the cheapest rate; and it is so easy to effect the needful economies out of the domestic establishment of their assistants. It will be readily perceived too that the system of compulsory “living-in” places the assistants more completely in the power of their employers than is desirable for any body of workers, and the assistants themselves do not hesitate to affirm that this is the chief cause of its maintenance. Incidentally also it disfranchises the men, who are not able to claim even the lodgers’ franchise. Attempts are made in some places by philanthropic societies to provide homes for girls employed in shops where living-in is not compulsory. These may be useful in some cases, but their usual defect is a too maternal government, which the girls resent.

Personal Narratives.—In support of what has been here stated as to the general conditions of shop work, I may add some particulars gleaned from one or two lady shop assistants who have been kind enough to tell me frankly their experience. Both are now employed in shops with whose management they are perfectly content, but their previous experiences were of a far less agreeable nature. Miss Smith served for some time in a drapery establishment in a second-rate quarter of a large town. The hours were from 9 a.m. to 9.30 p.m., and to 10, 10.30, or later on Saturdays. No annual holidays were given; the assistants were supposed to have one free day a month, but often they did not get it. An hour was allowed for dinner, which the assistants had to provide either in or out of the building. As my informant’s home was half an hour distant she brought her own dinner, and thus was unable to have warm food. When engaged in the millinery department she divided her time between the showroom and the workroom, and was often kept until 12.30 on Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, finishing orders. Her sister had been similarly employed in a small country town for eighteen months, during most of which time the working hours were so long that from Monday morning until Sunday morning she only left the counter for bed. “At the end of the time,” added Miss Smith, “she was carried home in blankets,” having broken down completely under the hard conditions of her life. “Country shops,” remarked Miss Smith, “are the worst of all; the work is never at an end.” Asked if she had ever found deficient sanitary arrangements, she stated that in an otherwise well-managed shop the housekeeper had at one time, from some whim, taken to locking the lavatories, opening them only at certain intervals. The rebellion that ensued, however, had forced her to relinquish the practice. Some small shops, it was added, were “merely square rooms,” and were unprovided with offices.

Miss Jones had had a varied experience. In her first situation—a suburban shop, where she lived in the house—the hours were from 8.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m., with the usual additional hours on Saturday. “I always went straight to bed after my work,” she said, “for there was only the kitchen to sit in, and one could not go out at that time of night.” A large second-class shop in a provincial town was not much better. The hours were from 8.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m., twenty minutes being allowed for dinner, and a quarter of an hour for tea. A week’s holiday was given in summer. The assistants lived in the house; no talking was allowed at meals; and if, as was not unnatural among a gathering of young people of both sexes, the place of conversation was supplied by giggling, the “governor” seated at the head of the table growled his disapprobation. “Our only amusement was to kick each other under the table to make one another laugh,” observed Miss Jones; “but where I am now we talk as much as we like, and enjoy ourselves.” In the first-named establishment there were many fines, in the house as well as in the shop. Four girls slept in a bedroom, two in each bed; if the gas was left lit after a certain hour, the room-mates were all fined 6d. a head, innocent and guilty alike.

My informants laid stress upon the time taken up by straightening the shop after closing hours, an extra burden which is sometimes unavoidable. In a shop which closed at 6.30 Miss Jones had sometimes been busy “straightening” gloves (i.e. arranging them in their boxes and sorting the sizes) till 10 o’clock or even later. At sale times such extra work is frequent. Neither speaker objected to the system of fines if reasonably administered, but they thought it hard to be fined for not making a sale when the article demanded was actually not in stock. About the pressure put upon assistants to effect sales they had some amusing stories. On one occasion a buyer brought a lady customer to the counter where Miss Jones was serving, with the request that she would show her “furniture fringes,” adding in a low tone, “And see that she gets them.” Miss Jones, who knew that furniture fringes were not in the shop, was at her wits’ end. “I showed her everything I could think of,” she said, “and kept her there until I saw the buyer move away, when I whispered hastily, ‘We haven’t got any furniture fringes,’ and the lady took her departure. Fortunately the buyer forgot to ask me any questions afterwards. Another time a lady asked for a kind of beaded dress front which we did not keep; but because I let her go without calling up the buyer I was fined 2s. 6d.”

The details here given from personal experience amply bear out what has been said about the difficulties and disagreeables of a shop assistant’s life, and they may be multiplied ad infinitum by anyone who cares to make personal investigation into the subject.

Warehouses.—The conditions of life in warehouses are much the same as in shops, but some of the special grievances of the latter are absent. Fines, though not wholly unknown, are not customary, and “living-in,” though practised to some extent, especially among London city firms, is not general throughout the country. Women are much employed in furriers’ and trimming warehouses. Wages are poor—often only from 7s. to 10s. a week; but a good saleswoman in a wholesale house may earn as much as £1 a week. Long hours, poor wages, and insanitary conditions are the chief grievances of warehouse assistants, and they are making common cause with workers in shops for their removal.

Combination among Assistants.—Strenuous efforts are now being made to secure combination among shop assistants, but the task is not easy. Shop assistants are apt to regard such measures as suitable only to artisans and labourers, failing to perceive that from lack of combination they themselves are often much worse treated than the labourers whose methods of self-defence they despise. No artisan would think for a moment of enduring the conditions with regard to fines, forms of agreement, and method of living, which are imposed upon shop assistants, whose hours of labour are also, as I have shown, far beyond those worked by factory “hands.”[14] The fear of dismissal is a more real cause for hesitation; but if the union is carefully organised, and causes of offence are avoided during its early days, there seems no reason why this objection should not gradually disappear. There are now in existence the “United Shop Assistants’ Union,” the “National Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen, and Clerks,” with head-quarters in London, and branches in most of the large towns, and the “National Union of Clerks”; besides an outside society, the “Early Closing Association,” which works for one special object—the shortening of shop hours. The others are unions for mutual help and defence, and the “National Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen, and Clerks,” which has about 2,000 members, is constituted upon genuine Trade Union lines, giving sick benefits and out-of-work pay upon a graduated scale for payments of 1s. 2d. to 2s. a month.

The passing of the Shop Hours Regulation Act can hardly be expected to effect any general improvement in shop hours; but if efficiently carried out it should do something to shorten the working hours of those for whom it is specially designed—children and young persons. It is satisfactory to note that several towns are appointing inspectors, without whose aid the Act would remain nugatory, and that a number of women are among those appointed. It is highly improbable that public opinion will rest content with such a very imperfect piece of work as the Act of 1892; and before long we may expect to see the working hours of all shop assistants limited by law. If the coming legislation affects all shops alike (with necessary exceptions for special trades, such as chemists), it is not likely to meet with strong opposition, since it is the competition of one shopkeeper with another which forms the chief obstacle to a voluntary change. Often the refusal of a single shopkeeper prevents the adoption of early closing in a whole district. If all are obliged to close no injury is done, and large employers of labour gave evidence in this sense before the Select Committee. Happily, in this case, the question admits of being considered upon its own merits, and we need not fear the appearance of that familiar hindrance to labour reform, the bugbear of foreign competition.

[14] Miss Collet’s tables of factory and shop hours (Report, p. 85) corroborate this statement.

ADDENDUM.

This chapter was written before the publication of the Blue Book on “The Employment of Women,” which contains detailed and valuable reports upon the work of shop assistants by Miss Orme and Miss Collet. As the evidence given above is fully confirmed by the Commissioners’ Reports, I have left the chapter as it stood, with the addition of a few foot-notes, as an independent contribution to the study of the question. Those who wish to pursue the matter further may do so profitably by reading the Reports in full. I cannot leave the subject, however, without quoting Miss Collet’s impressive summary of the effects of shop work and life upon the health of those employed (p. 88).

“The constant supervision of the shop walker, the patience and politeness to be shown to the most trying customers, the difficulty of telling the truth about the goods without incurring the displeasure of the managers, the long standing, the close atmosphere even in well-ventilated shops when crowded with customers, the short time for meals, the care required to keep things in their right places and to make out accounts correctly, the long evenings with gaslight, and the liability to dismissal without warning or explained reason, all tend to render the occupation of the shop assistants most trying to the nerves and injurious to health.” And she adds: “It is a significant fact that whereas large numbers of factory girls cannot be prevailed upon to give up their factory work after marriage, the majority of shop assistants look upon marriage as their one hope of relief, and would, as one girl expressed it, ‘marry anybody to get out of the drapery business.’”

CHAPTER III.
WOMEN AND TRADE UNIONS.

No existing combination outside Manual Labour—Beginning of Unionism among women—Emma Paterson—Sketch of her life—She advocates combination—Conference—Women’s Protective and Provident League, formed 1874—First Women’s Union, Bookbinders, 1874—Approval of Trades Congress, 1874—Women Delegates to Congress, 1875—Other Unions formed up to 1879—Army Clothing Factory—Liverpool Tailoresses—Nailmakers—Women’s Union Journal—Death of Mrs. Paterson, 1886—The Match Girls’ Strike, 1889—Public Sympathy—New Organisations—Unionism in the Provinces—Mixed Unions—Tours undertaken by League Officials—Method of Proceeding—Difficulties of Unionism—Fines and deductions—Attitude of Men’s Unions—Increased Support—Established results and Future Prospects—Factory and Home-work—Working for Pocket-money—Foreign Competition—“Consumers’ League”—Self Help—Directory of Women’s Unions.

The history of combination among women lies within a narrow compass. Its action has been confined entirely to the working classes, and even among them the period of its existence is as yet but short. No organization fulfilling the purposes of a Trade Union is to be found among women of the cultured classes, and the corporations by which professional and commercial men secure the maintenance of a definite system of employment and a fixed standard of payment have no parallel among workers of the other sex. So far as women join the ranks of a profession already thus guarded—as, for instance, the medical profession—they share its privileges, and we are thus spared the spectacle of women doctors underselling their male colleagues, and earning their maledictions thereby. There are various associations of women engaged in teaching, but these as a rule are formed purely for educational purposes, and are powerless to defend or protect their members in any way. Indirectly, however, they may serve some of the purposes of a Trade Union. Thus the Association of Assistant Mistresses in secondary schools, though carefully disclaiming all title to be called a Trade Union, is able, by means of friendly conferences with headmistresses as well as by the information it disseminates among its members, and the publicity which it is able to give to matters in which their interests are concerned, to confer upon its members some of the minor benefits of combination. The National Union of Teachers in elementary schools (men and women) comes much nearer to the Trade Union type; but though affording its members valuable aid, and able through its Parliamentary Committee seriously to influence legislation, it is not constituted upon a Trade Union basis, and does not profess to fulfil its functions. The associations recently formed among men and women employed in shops are, however, Trade Unions, both in intention and in fact; but with this solitary, though important, exception, the progress of unionism among women has been entirely confined to the classes engaged in strictly manual labour.

Emma Paterson.—There is no difficulty in fixing the date of the first beginnings of Trades Unionism among women, or in assigning the credit of its foundation to the right quarter. The date was 1874, and the founder was Emma Paterson, née Smith. I am here speaking of purely women’s unions, for it must not be forgotten that large unions of men and women had existed for many years in the textile trades of the North of England. Emma Smith was the daughter of a schoolmaster, and was carefully educated by her father. She gained early practice in organisation in connection with the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union, and gave such evidence of talent in this direction that when only nineteen she was appointed assistant secretary. After five years’ service Emma Smith became Secretary of the Women’s Suffrage Association, and her early practical experience, combined with the theoretical discussions upon the position of women to which she was now introduced, led her to think seriously about their industrial position also. In 1873 Miss Smith became Mrs. Paterson, and with her husband, a former hon. secretary of the Institute previously mentioned, and hardly less interested than herself in labour questions, she started for a tour in America, undertaken partly with a view to studying the operations of Friendly Societies in that country. She had been deeply struck with some remarks that had fallen from an American lady lecturer upon this subject, and the idea of a similar organisation at home for women took root and germinated in her thoughtful mind. In America she learnt with interest that experiments in women’s unions had already been made, and showed some prospect of success. On her return to England Mrs. Paterson wrote a paper, which was published in the Labour News, advocating the formation of a national union for improving the position of working women. The article contained a careful resumé of the question, and showed that the writer possessed a thorough insight into her subject. It was pointed out that women are almost always worse paid than men, even when equally skilled; that their isolation as workers exposes them to reductions of wages from unscrupulous employers, which their more honourable rivals are compelled to imitate. In support of the “benefit” side of Unionism Mrs. Paterson cites a curious case. “At a time of great slackness of trade among the bookbinders, in 1871, caused by a delay in passing through the House of Commons the revised Prayer Book, it was stated that during sixteen months two of the men’s unions had paid £2,500 in relieving their unemployed members, but that the women in the trade, having no union to fall back upon, had suffered the greatest distress.” Mrs. Paterson then deals with the popular scepticism as to women’s powers of combination. “At three successive annual congresses of leaders and delegates of Trades Unions the need of women’s unions has been brought before them, and each time someone present has asserted that women cannot form unions. The only ground for this assertion,” adds Mrs. Paterson courageously, “appears to be that women have not yet formed unions. Probably they have not done so because they have not quite seen how to set about it.”

Women’s Protective and Provident League.—The first result of Mrs. Paterson’s paper was that a conference was convened to consider her proposal. Many friends outside the ranks of labour attended the meeting held in the Quebec Institute on July 8th, 1874, at which Mr. Hodgson Pratt presided. Resolutions were passed to the effect—

1. That a Committee be appointed, to be entitled the Women’s Protective and Provident Committee.

2. That one of the objects of the Association shall be to enable women earning their own livelihood to combine to protect their interests.

3. That it shall be one of the objects of the Association to provide a benefit fund for assistance in sickness and other contingencies.

A committee was elected, and Mrs. Paterson was appointed honorary secretary, a post which she held until her death in 1886.

The resolutions here quoted indicate sufficiently clearly the objects of the Association. It was considered necessary, however, not to proclaim these too loudly to a world unprepared for their reception, and accordingly the use of the term “Trade Union” was carefully avoided. Public opinion had not then been enlisted in favour of the principle of combination for either men or women; employers were not likely to regard amicably a further extension of the methods against which they had already fought so obstinately, and working men as a class had not yet grasped the importance, in the interests of labour generally, of the complete adoption of unionism by workers of both sexes. Their attitude was to some extent one of suspicion towards women, on account of their readiness to undersell the labour of men. It behoved the friends of the movement to walk guardedly, and to disarm suspicion until their cause had gained strength. The cumbrous title “Women’s Protective and Provident League” first adopted, directed attention accordingly to one side only of the work—that of insurance against sickness—while veiling its trade union aspect under the vague adjective “protective.” More stress was laid than would perhaps now be the case upon the advantage to be derived from the sick benefit funds of the unions. The courage and hopes of the women were hardly raised to the point of making sacrifices for an organization of whose powers as a bulwark against oppression they were ignorant, but the prospect of receiving payment when out of work was something that the most timid could appreciate.

Bristol Association.—A Working Women’s Association was founded in Bristol in 1874 upon similar lines to those of the League, and under the influence of the same inspiration, Mrs. Paterson having circulated her paper and attended a conference in that city. The society is still in existence.

Bookbinders’ Union.—The progress made during the first year of the League’s life was slow; but, as all who have watched the growth of social organisms are well aware, a period of struggle and slow progress is the unavoidable preliminary of growth in any movement which is firmly grounded. The Union of Women employed in Bookbinding was formed in 1874, and was followed next year by that of the Upholsteresses and the Shirt and Collar Makers, societies which are all still alive, though not large in numbers. The bookbinding trade was selected for the first experiment, partly because a recent period of trade depression had made the want of a provident society severely felt, but still more because Mr. King, the secretary of the London Consolidated Society of Bookbinders, undertook to give the women all the help in his power in the work of forming a trades union. “There is no provision,” remarks the Report of the League’s work for 1874, “for the admission of women as members of the men’s societies either in bookbinding or other trades, with some few exceptions in the North of England. Nor would the women be able to avail themselves of such provision, as they could not pay the same subscription, their wages seldom being more than half those of the men.” Here we have the whole case in a nutshell—women completely unorganized, and disabled by their poverty from making use of the levers by which men had raised their position. It is gratifying to be able to add that several of the men’s unions have recently admitted women at a lower rate of contribution. About the same time unions of women were formed in Dewsbury and also in Leicester, where, it was stated, the stitchers and seamers in the hosiery trade received only 5s. a week. A meeting was called by some gentlemen of the town who recognised the mischief of allowing wages to diminish unchecked, and a union was formed, which was able almost immediately to obtain for its members a small advance of wages.

Trades Congress, Liverpool.—In January, 1874, the Trades Congress met in Liverpool, and Mrs. Paterson addressed a letter to the members upon the subject of combination among women. The letter was read by the President (Mr. Julian), and the Congress expressed hearty approval of the movement. Meanwhile the Committee of the League busied itself in stimulating the young societies by means of social gatherings and entertainments, and by holding meetings and endeavouring to arouse public interest. A room was rented in Holborn, and was used for small meetings and as a house of call for women out of work.

Provincial Unions. Women Delegates to Congress.—In 1875 and the following year efforts were made by the League to organise working women in the provinces. Meetings were held in Glasgow, Manchester, and Sheffield, and unions were formed in various trades; but though the co-operation of the local Trades Council was enlisted, not many of the societies then formed have survived. An event of more import was the admission of women to the Trades Congress at Glasgow in 1875, where Miss Simcox represented the Shirt and Collar Makers, and Mrs. Paterson the Bookbinders and the Upholstresses. A resolution pledging the members of the Congress to promote trades unions among women was moved by Mr. Shipton, of the London Trades Council, and carried unanimously. Since 1875 women have been present at each annual meeting of the Trades Congress, and have invariably been received with courtesy and goodwill. During the next few years unions of women were formed in London as follows:—

The societies thus formed were for the most part small, the total membership only reaching about 1,300 in 1879; but they held well together, and their financial position was sound. In 1879 the Society of Women employed in Bookbinding was able to report that after paying during the year benefits amounting to £37 10s. 6d., a balance of £218 12s. remained in hand. The Upholsteresses’ Society had paid £23 15s. in benefits, and had a balance of £98 18s. 6d. In all cases the societies had paid their own working expenses, the funds of the League being only employed in giving them a fair start.

Army Clothing Factory.—In 1879 the good offices of the League were employed in bringing the grievances of the women working in the Royal Army Clothing Factory at Pimlico under notice of the House of Commons, and in obtaining the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry. This is probably the first case in which the conditions of women’s labour have been investigated at the request of the workers themselves. Similar grievances cropped up in 1882, and once more in 1885-6. The League, as before, took up the women’s case, holding conferences and attracting public attention to the matter. The result was a searching inquiry into the management of the factory, undertaken by Mrs. Fawcett, at the request of Mr. Woodall, Surveyor-General of Ordnance. Mrs. Fawcett received the thanks of the Department for her labours, and the grievances of the women were in great part redressed.

Two trade societies were formed in Leicester in 1878-9—the Cigar Makers’ and the Worsted Spinners’. Members of the Trades Council again gave their aid, and the unions thus formed still carry on, under changed names, a flourishing existence. In the autumn of 1878 five women attended the Trades Congress held in Bristol, at which a proposal for the appointment of working men and women as sub-inspectors of factories was carried unanimously. The question was brought up again at the Congress of 1881, and at the instance of the League Parliament was approached on the subject.[15]

[15] It was not until 1893 that two ladies—Miss Abraham and Miss Muirhead Paterson—were appointed factory inspectors. No working women have yet been appointed.

Results in 1882.—For some years the work of forming Women’s Unions went on but slowly, and in London, though persistent efforts were made, no new societies were permanently established between 1879 and 1888. By 1882 it was found that the seven London unions had received £1210 in members’ subscriptions, and had paid away £475 in sick benefits and grants at death. The total number of unions formed by the League was stated in 1883 to be nineteen, ten in London, and nine in the provinces. Meetings were held in many towns, and a few unions were formed, among which may be mentioned a Working Women’s Society in Oxford, founded in 1881. In Liverpool the Tailoresses’ Union would have collapsed but for the help of the League, and the case affords a good example of the dangers with which the work of combination is beset. The union was not constituted in a business-like manner, and the member of the men’s union (afterwards expelled), who was allowed to act as secretary and treasurer, “neglected,” as the report euphemistically puts it, to place the funds in a bank. Suspicion at once took possession of the society, and subscriptions ceased. The League promptly came to the rescue, deposited a sum equal to the subscriptions in a local bank on behalf of the society, and took means, which were eventually successful, for obtaining repayment from the secretary.

Nailmakers.—Attention was drawn in 1883 to the wretched wages earned by women in the nailmaking trade, by Mr. Broadhurst’s bill (promoted by the Parliamentary committee of the Trades Congress), prohibiting the employment in that trade of girls under 14. The bill was thrown out, but the fact of its having been brought in roused the women to a sense of their position, and an effort was made to form a union under the auspices of the League. Wages were then quoted at 3s. to 5s. a week. A large number of women nailmakers are now enrolled in the Midland Trades Federation, which contains altogether 1500 women. Unionism in the nail and chain trades has fluctuated greatly, for the difficulties in the way of combination are very great. Both Mr. Burnett’s Report to the Board of Trade and Miss Orme’s to the Labour Commission, show a wretched condition of life and labour in these districts.

It will be seen that the record of combination among women, where the support of men’s unions has not been available, is to some extent a history of abortive attempts. The experience thus gained, however, has not been wholly thrown away. It has shown where the attempt is likely to succeed, and where it is not. As a result, effort is now being concentrated on the most favourable fields, and recent events have shown the wisdom of this course. In spite of many failures, the examples of successful combination are sufficiently numerous to prove that the task of organising women’s labour, if difficult, is by no means hopeless.

Women’s Union Journal.—Among other agencies promoted or encouraged by the League during its early years were a monthly paper called the Women’s Union Journal (now issued quarterly as the Women’s Trades Union Review), a reading-room, where women out of work could consult advertisements, and employers send notices of vacancies, a swimming club (which owed its formation to the horror caused by the sinking of the Princess Alice in the Thames), a small co-operative society, and contributions towards a seaside house for members of the Unions.

Death of Mrs. Paterson.—At the end of the year 1886 the unions suffered an irreparable loss in the death of Mrs. Paterson. Her husband, who had been one of the earliest members of the League, and took the warmest interest in its progress, had died a few years before. Almost since her girlhood, as we have seen, Mrs. Paterson had striven hard for the advancement of working women, and her death, at the early age of thirty-eight, was attributed by her friends to her unwearying labours. She had been honorary secretary of the League from its foundation, and since 1875 had attended every meeting of the Trades Congress but one, besides giving unremitting attention to the affairs of the individual unions. Mrs. Paterson exercised a great influence over the working women with whom she came in contact, and she possessed two qualities which are not always found together—enthusiasm for an ideal and great business powers. To her quiet yet persistent efforts it is due that the movement did not collapse amid the many difficulties of its early years, and that the idea of Trades Unionism among women has been steadily kept alive. For a short time after Mrs. Paterson’s death, Miss Clementina Black held the post of secretary to the League, but resigned in 1889, and became connected with a new organization, similar in aim, called the “Women’s Trades Union Association.” Her place was taken by Miss Emilie Holyoake, daughter of the well-known co-operator, Miss Florence Routledge, B.A., becoming honorary secretary.

Match-Girls’ Strike.—The years 1888 and 1889 marked a great upheaval in the labour market. The first saw the match-girls’ strike, the second the dockers’ strike. The great silent mass of struggling, starving, unskilled labour then for the first time found voice, and its utterance, expressed in the unmistakable terms of a deadly struggle, and following hard upon the revelations made before the Commission on the Sweating System, brought home to the outside world the real state of things prevailing in the lower ranks of labour. Thus the public mind was prepared to show something more than passive sympathy with the rebellion which broke out soon afterwards among unskilled labourers. The strike of the girls in Messrs. Bryant and May’s factory, though dwarfed in interest by the dockers’ strike which followed, was still a remarkable episode, unique indeed in the history of combination among women. The beginning of the strike found the girls entirely without organization, its close left them with increased wages, a union nearly a thousand strong, and for some time afterwards considerably in excess of that figure. The strikers were ably and courageously led by Mrs. Annie Besant and Mr. Herbert Burrows, and their success was also due in no small degree to the support of the London Trades Council, which took the part of the girls, and sent a deputation to press their claims upon the firm. By thus gaining over public sympathy and winning the open countenance of the official element in Trades Unionism the match-girls’ strike may be said to have marked a new departure, for, though similar help had often been rendered by Trades Councils before, the publicity attached to this occasion made it specially noteworthy. Public opinion, too, though a fickle friend, is still a friend worth having, and whilst its frown is a penalty which employers do not willingly incur, its restraining effect upon hasty action on the other side is also not without benefit. A certain vague sentiment with regard to the physical weakness of women and their patience under poverty and suffering helps to keep public opinion favourable on the whole, while their disorganized condition prevents them, as a rule, from adopting the aggressive measures which shock and terrify society. So for the present the outside world looks kindly upon women’s unions, the more so as these organisations make no demands upon its purse.

New Unions. Women’s Trades Union Association.—Between 1888 and 1890 a number of new unions, including the Amalgamated Laundresses with several branches, Matchbox-makers of Shoreditch and Bow, Box-makers and Confectioners, were formed in London. Of these some were formed under the auspices of the new association mentioned above, the Women’s Trades Union Association. This society aims at promoting unions whose funds shall be devoted solely to trade purposes, contributions for sick and out-of-work benefits being either optional or non-existent. In the opinion of those who formed the new society the starvation wages paid to women in many trades render it difficult, if not impossible, to secure subscriptions upon a scale high enough to allow for sick benefits, and they consider it best therefore to devote attention entirely to strengthening the workers’ position in their respective trades. There is something to be said for this view of the question, and it is possible that, following the lines of the “new unionism,” women’s societies may come into existence which would hardly have been formed upon any other method. Some belonging to the older organisation, as, for instance, the Matchbox-makers’ Union, have already adopted a purely trade basis for combination. The majority however give sick and out-of-work benefits, and in many districts the “club” aspect of a union is that which appeals most strongly to women unexperienced in combination. The question is one with which men’s unions are much occupied at present, and its final solution cannot be foretold as yet.

Mixed Unions in the Provinces.—Meanwhile unionism has been spreading in the provinces, which offer a better field for combination than the ill-paid trades of East London, to which the efforts of the League had hitherto been directed. Some of the larger unions of men in the textile trades, as already mentioned, had long admitted women as members, such as the Northern Counties Weavers’ Association with 43,000 women members, and the Card and Blowing-room Operatives with 21,000 women. The Amalgamated Hosiery Union of Leicester has 2500, and the Scottish Mill and Factory workers the same number. The Notts and Leicester Cigar-makers’ union is an admirable example of a purely women’s society which early learned to stand on its feet, and was able to gain signal advantages for its members. It has a membership of 800, and is said to contain a larger percentage of those engaged in the trade than any other society. There are unions of women, either of a general or special kind, in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Wakefield, Denton (where a union in the hat trade contains 4290 members), Glasgow, Belfast, and other towns. Particulars of their membership are given in an appendix. It will be seen that by far the largest number of women unionists are enrolled in the mixed societies of the textile trades. These constitute the models to which in time unionism will probably more generally conform in the future, since an organisation which includes both men and women is free from the sources of weakness attaching to unions of either sex singly. When the women of a trade are not included in the union, they are liable to undersell the men, and unions of women alone are necessarily weaker than the better equipped organisations of men. For the present, however, it is necessary to be content with imperfect forms of combination, and if women are ever to win a place in the older and stronger societies of men they must first give evidence of their quality by forming and managing their own unions. Every year those who make the effort are gaining increased support from the men’s unions, and in time there can be no doubt that the cause of labour will be seen to have no distinction of sex.

System of Tours.—The growth of provincial unions has been much quickened by the policy recently adopted by the League,—now called the Women’s Trades Union League. A scheme of annual tours has been mapped out, by which the officials of the League are enabled to visit periodically districts in which unions are forming, or are likely to be formed. Sometimes the men’s unions send to ask for the help of the League to organise the women, whose readiness to accept lower wages they recognise as a serious danger to the position of labour as a whole. Often the women themselves send a request for help, and occasionally outsiders have invited the League to come and rouse the impoverished and helpless workers of a district. Interest in the subject is sometimes awakened by a discussion at a political meeting, and various clubs and associations have from time to time invited a member of the League’s Committee to give an address upon women’s unions. If after some such beginning the ground seems ready for working, and especially if the local Trades Council advises, a meeting of women is called, and the officials of the League, aided by such friendly supporters as the district may afford, explain the advantages of combination. Afterwards the names of those willing to join a union are taken down, and a date is arranged for a business meeting, at which officers are chosen and rules formed. Members of the Trades Council are generally present at the second meeting, to put the women in the way of arranging their affairs. The society is now formed, and it may seem that everything is going well; but the difficulties in the way of successful unionism among a class so poor and so unaccustomed to the methods of combination as the majority of working-women are very great, and it is often found that in a few months membership has dwindled to a small number, and the hopeful prospects of the opening weeks have entirely disappeared. Often the committee is not up to its work, accounts are badly kept, or the collectors are unable to arrange a good working method for getting in subscriptions, a matter which is by no means easy when the employers or their managers and foremen happen to view the formation of the union with disfavour. Then again, if, as sometimes happens, suspicion arises that the hard-earned funds are being mismanaged, the union will melt away as if by magic, to be re-organised only with great difficulty. In order to avoid this danger as far as may be, and to give the newly-formed union an incentive to perseverance, the League promises a second visit at the end of a year to those societies which affiliate themselves to the central body. A plan of spring and autumn tours has been arranged, and by grouping a number of industrial centres in one part of the country the emissaries of the League have been enabled to cover much more ground than would have been possible in a series of detached visits. In this manner Lady Dilke, Miss Routledge, Miss Holyoake, and others, have visited most of the manufacturing districts of England and Scotland, and have even carried their missionary enterprise as far as Belfast, where, since the Trades Congress of 1893 great efforts have been made to organise the labour of the women working in the linen and flax mills. Many of the unions thus formed are affiliated to the League, including a number in Scotland and the large mixed union of West Riding Power-Loom Weavers, who have joined the League as far as their women members are concerned. Recently a further step has been taken, by sending out working women who have had experience in their own unions, as organisers into districts where new unions are being formed; and it is expected that this plan will be found extremely useful, as women who are already overworked and underpaid have little strength or leisure for arranging the preliminaries of organisation.

Difficulties of Combination.—The difficulty of forming unions among women is undeniably great. Women are inexperienced in combination, and they entertain a lively and by no means groundless fear of the resentment of their employers. Unionism does not, it is true, often meet with opposition from the better class of employers, who recognise in it a salutary check on the efforts of unscrupulous rivals to force down both prices and wages. Experience shews them, too, that unionism discourages rather than fosters strikes, and in cases of difficulty they would often prefer to deal with the accredited representatives of the workpeople. But in many cases the attempt to form a combination among women meets with the open hostility of their employers. It is not uncommon for a woman who has undertaken the secretaryship of a union to be summarily dismissed. The manager of a confectionery factory in a large provincial town recently attempted to turn away all those who had given in their names to a newly-formed union. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that women, especially in the worst paid trades, are afraid to join a trade union, and that even after joining they readily fall away from an undertaking which may possibly involve so serious a risk. If working women throughout the country were dominated by this fear the cause of unionism would be hopeless; but fortunately this is not the case, and we can only admire the courage which enables women earning a miserable pittance to risk its loss by identifying themselves with an unpopular movement. If the union were strong it would of course set its face against arbitrary dismissals, which are in themselves a powerful argument in favour of organisation; but the difficulty is to prevent their occurrence during the early years of the union. On this account it is useful, where possible, to collect a fund for the relief of women who may be temporarily thrown out of work owing to their active connection with a trade union; and the knowledge that such a fund exists helps in itself to prevent the occasion for its employment arising. The general public has little idea of the extent to which unscrupulous employers take advantage of the helpless position of working women. So widely separated are classes in this country that a man may grind the faces of the poor and pass for a saint among those of his own class. An employer remarked recently to a friend who was advocating unions for women that they were not necessary in his factory, as the women had already a fund to which they subscribed. Further questioning elicited the fact that the “fund” was derived from fines wrung from the women, and was managed entirely by the employers. The firm is known for zeal and munificence in connection with religious bodies, and the case is by no means an isolated one.

It is impossible to read the Report of the Lady Assistant Commissioners without becoming convinced that combination is absolutely necessary, if working women are to secure a reasonable modification of the scandalous fines and deductions to which their wages are subjected. The extent to which these iniquities prevail is now fully revealed for the first time, and if the unions could attack this one point alone with success they would have done much to raise the economic status of working women.

Attitude of Men’s Unions.—Much may be hoped for the future of unionism among women, from the increased support which it receives from the leaders of men’s unions; indeed, it is not too much to say that herein lies the key to the position. It has often been cast in the teeth of Trades Unionists that while struggling for freedom for themselves they have regarded with indifference the economic position of their working sisters, and have exerted their influence rather for the restriction of women’s labour than for the improvement of its conditions. It is a question, however, whether unionism in its early years, struggling hard to maintain its existence, could have undertaken the additional burden of organising the women. Sometimes the objections raised to women’s work were exceedingly flimsy, and it is small credit to a section of working men that they have shown themselves ready to raise the cry of impropriety, and even immorality, against women upon grounds which cannot bear the test of examination. Even were the conditions of women’s work such as ought not to be tolerated (and no one who knows the facts would say that this is never the case), the true cure lies in the formation of unions among the women, since one of the first things which a strong union would do is to stand out for decent arrangements and reasonable conditions of work. The general public often joins in and swells the cry against some particular employment for women, instead of casting about to see if its defects cannot be remedied. Thus, when the agitation was raised a few years ago against the employment of women at the pit brows in Lancashire, the charge of immorality was most unjustly raised against them, and even their peculiar but necessary costume was made the ground of serious indictments. The force expended upon this agitation might, if more wisely directed, have secured for the women improved arrangements for their comfort, which in some cases were much needed; but nobody thought of this. Wider views, however, are now beginning to prevail, and the generous support which is given to the claims of women by the responsible leaders of working men may be expected gradually to disarm the hostility which undoubtedly exists among a section of their class.

Of late years Trades Councils have repeatedly come forward with both money and personal help to organise the labour of women—notably the Councils of Aberdeen, Liverpool, Oldham, Huddersfield, Leicester, and the Midland Counties Trades Federation. The Manchester and Salford Trades Council has also taken the matter up, and is engaged upon a systematic attempt to organise the female labour of the district. The result of the experiment will be watched with interest.

Results Established.—The history of unionism among women, brief though it be, may claim to have established the following points:

(1) That unions can be formed and carried on upon a firm financial basis even in trades in which wages are very low.

(2) That the demands of a trade union are often sufficient to secure for the workers a rise in wages or equivalent advantages, such as shorter hours or the abolition of fines. Miss Collet, in her report of the Liverpool district, mentions a union of tailoresses which succeeded in obtaining a shortening of eleven hours in the working week. In the lace trade Miss Abraham notes that “In two instances where fines seem to have been heavy, the formation of a trade union among the workers has had the effect of checking the system.” Many other examples might be given.

(3) That unless unions are established, wages, especially in the less-skilled trades, tend to fall. The competition of one employer against another is generally sufficient in itself to bring about this result, unless the workers oppose a solid front to the pressure from above. The older members of badly-paid trades know this well, and it is among them that the keenest advocates of combination are found.

Factory and Home Work.—Trades carried on wholly in factories have hitherto proved the most amenable to combination. Low wages and irregular employment, though sufficiently serious obstacles, are not so prejudicial as the division of a trade into factory and home work, or the existence of domestic workshops. In those of Cradley Heath, near Birmingham, the isolation of the workers keeps down wages, and the home, instead of being saved by the workshop, as some would have us believe, is, upon the testimony of Miss Orme, Senior Assistant Commissioner, almost always “desolate.” Where work is done wholly at home it is difficult to bring influence to bear upon the women to induce them to combine, and yet it is here that combination is most necessary, since the workers have neither the support of companionship nor the protection of the Factory Acts. With regard to domestic workshops, it seems probable that legislation will in time bring these irregular divisions of the labour army into line with the main body. The first step has already been taken in the regulation which compels employers to post up a list of their outworkers. All progress in this direction is an aid to combination. In the joint influence of legislation and unionism, aided where necessary by a more efficient system of inspection, lies the chief hope of improvement in the less fortunate branches of labour.

An evil which appears to belong exclusively to women’s labour is the custom, prevalent among girls whose parents are fairly well off, of working for pocket-money. Even where the parents are poor the cheapness of boarding at home often induces girls to work for a rate of wages which would be cruelly low for those who have to maintain themselves entirely. Miss Collet’s report to the Labour Commission lays great stress on this point. In Bristol, girls working in a cigar factory often earn no more than 7s. 6d. or 9s. a week, pay 4s. or 5s. to their parents for weekly board, and seem “quite content” with their low wages. The disastrous effect of this policy upon the general standard of women’s wages needs no explanation. It is sufficient to point out here that the practice forms a serious obstacle to successful combination among women.

Foreign Competition.—Foreign competition is often advanced as an argument against raising wages, and it cannot be denied that in some cases it has force. It is safe, however, to say that there is little warrant for its employment in wholesale condemnation of attempts to raise wages in the worst-paid trades. We are told, for instance, that matches made in the east end of London are undersold by the still cheaper products of Sweden; yet match factories often pay high dividends, and it is well known that the profits in a trade bear little relation as a rule to the rate of wages paid to the workers. It is generally found that where work is concentrated in large factories under employers possessed of considerable capital fair wages are obtainable, and the wretched rate of payment which prevails in many of the East London trades is probably due more than is supposed to the hole-and-corner manner in which the business is carried on. Where foreign competition is not pressing, the necessity for producing cheap goods is often urged as a valid reason for abstaining from any efforts to secure reasonable wages for the producers. Desirable, however, as cheapness may be, it is possible to purchase its advantages too dearly. If the effect of combination among workers were to be a rise in the price of matches, slop clothing, or fancy boxes, the consumer would have little cause of complaint, and would soon acquiesce philosophically in the altered condition of things. Nor can purchasers, however well disposed toward the working classes, effect any change on their own account. Such devices as a “Consumers’ League,” whose members would bind themselves to deal only with firms paying a fair rate of wages, must obviously fail, or if conceivably successful must do as much harm as good until our means of obtaining information are much more perfect than they are at present. No such rough-and-ready way of forcing on reforms is of the slightest use; the workers themselves must improve their condition by slow and patient effort. Outsiders may aid and stimulate, but they cannot do the work.

DIRECTORY OF WOMEN’S TRADES UNIONS,
WITH NUMBER OF MEMBERS, WHERE KNOWN.

Unions marked with an asterisk enrol both men and women. The numbers refer to women only.

LONDON UNIONS.

The Women employed in Bookbinding.—Secretary, Miss E. Whyte. 280.

Shirt and Collar Makers’ Society.—Secretary, Mrs. Houlton. 50.

Upholsteresses’ Society.—Secretary, Miss Mears. 35.

Office for the above Societies, Club Union Buildings, Clerkenwell Road, E.C.

Tailoresses’ Trade Union.—Westminster and Pimlico Branch. Secretary, Mrs. Cooper, 7, Carnaby Street, W.

Tailoresses’ Auxiliary to the Amalgamated Society of Tailors.—Secretary, Miss Hicks. 260.

Dressmakers, Milliners, and Mantle-makers.—Secretary, Miss Addis, 129, Marylebone Road, N.W. 30.

Cigar Makers’ Union.—Secretary, Mrs. Stanmore. Office, Lockhart’s Cocoa Rooms, Commercial Street, Whitechapel. 800.

Matchbox Makers’ Union.—Shoreditch. Hon. Secretary, Mrs. Reilly, 63, Gloucester Street, Belgrave Road, S.W. 40.

Matchmakers’ Union.—Hon. Secretary, Mrs. Besant, Avenue Road, N.W.

Ropemakers’ Union.—Secretary, Mrs. Hicks, 28, Lyme Street, N.W.

PROVINCIAL UNIONS.

Aberdeen: *Workmen and Workwomen’s Society. Secretary, W. Johnston, 47, Belmont Street, Aberdeen. 100.

Alva, N.B.: *Society of Associated Weavers. Secretary, John Jack, Town Hall, Alva. 220.

Birmingham: Women employed in the Bedstead Trade. Secretary, W. Mills, 3, Ford Street, Hockley.

Birmingham: Women’s Trade Society. Joint Secretaries, Mrs. Steele, 93, King Edward’s Road, and Mrs. Thomas, 112½, Govet Street.

Brighton: Laundresses. Secretary, Mrs. Ford, 78, Livingstone Road.

Bristol Association of Working Women. Secretary, Miss Talbot, Oakfield Grove, Clifton. 39.

Card and Blowing Room Operatives, Amalgamated Association of. General Secretary, W. Mullin, White’s Chambers, Blue Boar Court, Market Place, Manchester. (21 branches.) 21,000.

Denton: Association of Hat Trimmers and Wool Formers.—Secretary, G. Wilde, 27, Seymour Street, Hyde. 4290.

Dundee: Mill and Factory Operatives’ Union. Office, 4, Mid Street.

Edinburgh: Women’s Union.

Heywood Branch of N.C.A.W. Secretary, J. W. Ogden, Argyle Buildings.

Leicester: *Amalgamated Hosiery Union. Secretary, J. Holmes, Exchange Buildings. 2,500.

Leicester: *N. U. of Boot and Shoe Operatives. Secretary, W. Inskip, 17, Silver Street. 3,200.

Leeds: Tailoresses. Secretary, Mrs. Panther, Exeter Street, Woodhouse Lane. 140.

Leek: Union of Women Silk Workers. Secretary, William Stubbs; Assistant Secretary, Miss N. Shenton, 6, Haton Street.

Liverpool: Bookfolders. Secretary, Margaret McConnell, 25, Bewley Street.

Liverpool: Tailoresses’ Coatmaking Union. Secretary, Mrs. Walker, 15, Jessamine Street.

Liverpool: Tailoresses’ Trade Society. Secretary, Mrs. Skelley, 28, Aber Street.

Liverpool: Upholsteresses’ Union. Secretary, Miss Owen, Cocoa Rooms, St. Luke’s Place, Bold Street.

Liverpool: *Cloth Cap and Hat Makers’ Union.

Manchester: Shirtmakers’ Union and Federation of Working Women. Secretary, Mrs. M. Stretton, 24, Nelson Terrace, Brooks Bar. 300.

Midland Counties Trades’ Federation. General Secretary, R. Juggins, 20, New Street, Darlaston, Wednesbury. (9 branches.) 1,500.

Nottingham: Cigar Makers’ Union. Secretary, Mrs. Briant, 5, Birchin Street, Carrington. 800.

Nottingham: Women’s Hosiery Union. Secretary, S. Bowers, East Street Schools.

Nottingham: Tailoresses’ Union. Secretary, G. Noble, 11, St. Saviour’s Street.

Nottingham: Women Lace Makers’ Union. Secretary, H. Bartellot, Great Freeman Street. 370.

Oxford: Protective and Provident Society of Women working in Trades. Secretary, Miss Farrant, 13, The Crescent. 80.

*Scottish Mill and Factory Workers Federal Union. Secretary, A. Whyte, Templars’ Hall, Kirriemuir. 2,500.

Staffordshire: Hanley. Women’s Pottery Union. Secretary, James Bentley, Mission Hall Buildings, High Street, Hanley.

Staffordshire: Burslem. Women’s Pottery Union. Secretary, Mrs. Platt, 38, Brindley Street. 200.

Sunderland: Paper Mill Workers Union. Secretary, R. Dale, 5, Albany Terrace, Commercial Road.

Shop Assistants’ Union, National. W. Johnson, General Secretary, 55, Chancery Lane, E.C. (30 branches.) 300.

*Weavers, Northern Counties Amalgamated Association of. General Secretary, W. H. Wilkinson. Head Office, Endbank Chambers, Accrington. (29 branches.) 43,000.

*Weavers, West Riding of Yorkshire Power Loom Association of. Secretary, Allen Gee. Head Office, Friendly and Trades Societies Club, Huddersfield. (20 branches.) 2,000.

*Weavers, Union of. Secretary, Edwin Hill, 55, Park Street, Trowbridge.

*Weavers. Yeadon, Guiseley, and District. H. Lockwood, North Terrace, Yeadon. 276.

Whitworth Vale Branch of N.C.A.W. Secretary, Ralph Earlwood, Market Street, Shawforth.

CHAPTER IV.
THE TEXTILE TRADES.

Centres of Textile Industry: Lancashire and Yorkshire—Changes in general conditions—Reforms not final—Extent of Combination: Mixed Unions—Equal wages paid to weavers in the cotton trade—Contrast between Lancashire and Yorkshire—Lower scale for women in Yorkshire—Fines—Supervision: Immorality—System of Fines: Deductions from wages—Sanitation: Defective arrangements—High temperature in cotton mills—Dangerous machinery—Labour of Married Women: Child labour—Reforms needed—Other Textile Trades: Crape—Silk—Ribbons—Carpets—Hosiery—Lace—Linen—Unhealthy Conditions—Wages.

Centres of Textile Industry.—By far the largest demand for women’s labour, next to household service, comes from the textile industry; and it is in Lancashire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire, where the cotton and woollen trades are carried on, that women’s labour under the Factory system can best be studied. There are several departments of the textile trades, such as the silk industry, crape manufacturing, and carpet making, in which women are also largely employed; but it is in the great cotton mills of Rochdale, Oldham, Burnley, and Blackburn, the woollen mills of Huddersfield and Dewsbury, and the worsted mills of Bradford, that the great majority of women are to be found.

Changes in General Conditions.—The grievances of the women and children employed in the mills in the cotton trade were the subject of general discussion fifty years ago, and it was the exposure of the terrible conditions under which they worked, the excessive hours, the insanitary conditions, and their complete helplessness, that forced the hand of the various governments of the day, and enabled Lord Ashley to introduce his factory legislation. Since that time the country has heard but little of the lot of the mill operatives, but from time to time it appears that all is not as it should be. For instance, evidence was laid before the Labour Commission which shewed that the currently-accepted picture of the prosperity and comfort of the mill operatives was much too highly coloured. The representatives both of the women and of the men brought forward a mass of evidence shewing that the grievances to which the workpeople were exposed were of the most real and vital kind. The wages in certain districts and departments might be good, but the over-driving, the speeding up of machinery, the high temperature maintained in the mills, the utterly inadequate provision made for the health of the workpeople, and the prevalence of fines, all pointed to the conclusion that the factory legislation contemplated by Lord Ashley and his successors, and followed up from time to time almost to the present moment, presented no finality. The conditions of labour have, it is true, been transformed since those early days when we read of the operatives’ deputation to Lord Palmerston. In order to demonstrate that working a mule was not an easy matter the operatives induced the Prime Minister to push a chair up and down the room in imitation of a spinner’s motions. The hours of labour have been shortened, but the intensity of labour has increased at an even higher rate. The strain upon the muscle and bodily strength may be less, but the nervous wear and tear, the mental strain, the storm and stress of the mill, have been also steadily increasing. The history of the troubles of the Lancashire and Yorkshire operative is not then a closed chapter; for that matter no department of industry in these days is or can be. Changes and improvements in manufacturing processes and machinery are so constant and sweeping that the worker is ever face to face with new problems, many of which, indeed, are directly due to the rising standard of his own life.

Extent of Combination.—Whilst Lancashire and Yorkshire afford the most instructive field for studying the influence of factory legislation upon labour, the information that may be gleaned there respecting combination as an element in the economic and social life of women is no less instructive. Side by side with one another you find two great kindred industries—the woollen and the cotton—and the level of one, so far as women are concerned, is far below that of the other. No explanation based on competition, either in commercial or labour markets, can account for this difference. The explanation must be sought, not in the ability of the individual or the working of the market, but in the extent and direction of the combination which exists among the operatives. It is certain that the operatives of Lancashire and Cheshire have shewn themselves far more alive to the benefits of combination than those of Yorkshire. The worker in the cotton mill, whether male or female, is a Trade Unionist almost as a matter of course, and though, as in the best organized of trades, a certain number still remain outside the pale of the union, those who are inside are sufficiently strong, both in numbers and in practical effectiveness, to formulate the labour policy of the trade. There is a wide difference between formulating a policy and carrying it out in practice, but the organizations of the spinners, weavers, and cardroom-workers have been successful in making the two very nearly synonymous. Their leaders have been fully alive to the absurdity of attempting to carry through an heroic policy in the absence of effective co-operation on the part of the majority. To ignore the women workers would have been fatal in an industry which numbers them by tens of thousands. Accordingly the policy of the Unionists has been to bring men and women together into the same organization; to treat their labour as one and the same; and to provide equal rules for the remuneration and protection of all. The most notable result has been that women weavers in the cotton trade are paid precisely the same wages as the men; though indeed the fact is scarcely second in importance that the co-operation of the women workers in every branch of the cotton industry is absolutely secured for every trade movement.