officials, they receive poor pay, and dare
not marry. The women telegraph operators in the central office in Vienna
are paid 30 guldens ($14.46) a month. "The woman telegraph operator can
lay no claims to the pleasures of existence." "These girls starve
spiritually as well as physically."[74] During the past twenty-eight years
salaries have not been increased. Every two years a two-week vacation is
granted. Since 1876 there has existed a relief society for women postal
and telegraph employees.

The woman stenographer, to-day so much sought after in business offices,
was in 1842 _absolutely excluded_ from the courses in Gabelsberger
stenography[75] by the Ministry of Public Instruction. In the courts of
chancery (_Advokatenkanzleien_) women stenographers are paid 20 to 30
guldens ($9.64 to $14.46) a month. They are given the same pay in the
stores and offices where they are expected to use typewriters. They are
regarded as subordinates, though frequently they are thorough specialists
and masters of languages. In the governmental service the women
subordinates that work by the day (1.50 guldens,--73 cents) have no hope
for advancement or pension. The first woman chief of a government office
has been appointed to the sanitary department of the Ministry of the Labor
Department, in which there is also a woman librarian.

It is not easy to imagine the deplorable condition of workingwomen when
women public school teachers and women office clerks are expected to live
on a monthly salary of $9.64 to $14.46. The Vienna inquiry into the
condition of workingwomen in 1896 disclosed frightfully miserable
conditions among workingwomen. Since then, especially through the efforts
of the Socialists, the conditions have been somewhat improved.

In Vienna, efforts to organize women into trade-unions have been
made,--especially among the bookbinders, hat makers, and tailors. Outside
Vienna, organization has been effected chiefly among the women textile
workers in Silesia, as well as among the women employees of the state
tobacco factories. The most thorough organization of women laborers is
found in northern and western Bohemia among the glassworkers and bead
makers. In Styria, Salzburg, Tyrol, and Carinthia the organization of
women is found only in isolated cases. Everywhere the organization of
women is made difficult by domestic misery, which consumes the energy,
time, and interest of the women. The organized Social-Democratic women
la