in the
_Report_, the following are typical:--

Ernestine is an eighteen-year-old Canadian girl, very pretty and
neatly dressed. Her parents both died several months ago and left her
utterly alone, without living relatives. She worked as a stock girl at
$4.50 a week for two months, was laid off, and went to a summer hotel
as waitress for $3 a week, room and board. She worked there for two
months, or until the season was over, and then came to another store
for $5 a week. She pays $1.50 for her room, including light and heat,
has no carfare, does her laundering, except for shirt waists which
cost her $.30 during the summer. She goes without breakfast or eats
only a banana, gets her lunch for ten or fifteen cents, and her
dinners for twenty or twenty-five cents. She has never paid more than
twenty-five cents for a meal since she started to work. She is just a
child, and is quite bewildered over the problem of facing life on $5 a
week, and is terribly afraid of debt. She is intelligent and
clever.[12]

Jennie is a frail little body, about 40 years old. After working 16
years in a Boston department store her wage was $5 a week.... For
eleven years Jennie's little $5 a week had been the sole support of
herself and her aged mother.... When her astonished employer learned
that she had worked 16 years in his store and attained a wage of only
$5 a week, he raised it $1. So the wage is supplemented by the girls
(in the store) underpaid themselves, but comprehending the woman's
need.... Thus seventeen years of faithful service to one master has
won for Jennie this position of semi-dependence upon charity,
increasing anxiety over an unprovided-for future, and declining health
as a result of her pitiless struggle to stretch a miserable $5 over
the cost of support of herself and mother.[13]

The most comprehensive report has been made by the Federal Government, and
includes a survey of conditions among women in stores and factories in
seven cities[14]. According to this report the average earnings of the
women in retail stores of these cities is $6.88 in the case of those who
live at home, and $7.89 in the case of those who are "adrift."[15] Among
the factory women of these cities the average wage of those who live at
home is $6.40, and of those who are "adrift," $6.78. The Boston
investigation shows that from 11,000 to 12,000