the
work. In one factory on the west side, employing some one hundred and
fifty girls, and where everything had been brought to almost
mathematical accuracy, the price paid per dozen for shirts was $2.40.
But one of the operatives was able to make a dozen a day, her usual
average being about nine, or five dozen per week of sixty hours. Here
every condition was exceptionally favorable. The building occupied the
centre of a small square, and thus had light on all sides; ventilation
was good; and the forewoman, on whose intelligence and good disposition
much of the comfort of the operatives depends, was far beyond the
average woman in this position. The working day was ten hours, with half
an hour for dinner, and the sanitary conditions more favorable than in
any other establishment of the same size. Many of the operatives had
been there for years, and the dull season, common to all phases of the
clothing trade, was never marked enough here to produce discharges or
materially lessen production. The wages averaged seven dollars per week,
though the laundry women and finishers seldom exceeded five. No
middle-men were employed, and none of the customary exactions in the way
of fines and other impositions were practised. Piece-work was regarded
as the only secure method for both employer and employed, as in such
case it rested with the girl herself to make the highest or the lowest
rate at pleasure. There were no holidays beyond the legal ones, but all
the freedom possible to constant labor was given, the place representing
the best conditions of this special industry. Another firm quite as well
known and employing equal number of workers had found it more expedient
to give up the factory system, and simply retained rooms for cutting and
general handling of the completed work, giving it out in packages to
workers at home. One woman employed by them for seven years had never
made anything but the button-holes in the small piece attached to the
bosom, and such fine lettering as was ordered for custom shirts, her
wages in the busy season being often twelve dollars a week, the year's
average, however, bringing them to seven. She worked exclusively at
home, and represented the best paid and most comfortable phase of the
industry.

Descending a step, and turning to establishments on the east side, one
found every phase of sanitary condition, including under this head bad
ventilation, offensive odors, facilities for washing, quality