felt, and a certain number of hands are sure of employment. In direct
association with this trade must be considered that of artificial
flowers and feathers, in which there is perpetual see-saw. If feathers
are in vogue flowers are down, and _vice versa_. Five thousand women are
employed on feathers, and the establishments, which in 1871 numbered but
twelve, now number over fifty; but those for flowers far exceed them.
Learners work for three dollars or less per week, the highest wages
attainable in either being fifteen dollars, the average being about
nine. The demand for one or the other is continuous, but when fashion in
1886 called for scarfs and flowers, four thousand feather-workers were
thrown out and lived as they could till another turn in the wheel
restored their occupation.

"One or the other of 'em is always steady" said a woman who had learned
both trades, and thus stood prepared to circumvent fate. "The trouble
is, you never know a week ahead which will be up and which down. Lots of
us have learned both, and when I see the firm putting their heads
together I know what it means and just go across the way to
Pillsbury's, and the same with them. It's good pay and one or the other
steady, but the Lord only knows which."

"If you want steadiness you've got to take to jute," said a girl who
with her sister lived in one of the upper rooms. "There ain't many
jute-mills in the country, and you go straight ahead. We two began in a
cotton-mill, but there's this queer thing about it. Breathe cotton-fluff
all day and you're just sure to have consumption; but breathe a peck of
jute-fluff a day and it didn't seem to make any difference. That isn't
my notion. Our doctor said he'd noticed it, and he took home some of the
fibre to examine it. For my part we're called a rough lot, but I'd
rather take that discredit and keep on in the mill. You can stir round
and don't have to double up over sewing or that kind of thing. I can
earn seven dollars a week, and I'd rather earn it that way than any
other."

An hour or two in the mill, which included every form of manufacture
that jute has yet taken, from seamless bags of all sizes and grades up
to carpets, convinced one that if nerves were hardened to the incessant
noise of machinery, there were distinct advantages associated with it.
The few Scotch in the mill, men and women who had been brought over from
Dundee, the headquarters of the jute industry abroad, insisted that jute