The working-women earned mostly veritable starvation wages. They
received per week:--

Percentage
Marks. of Females.
Under 5 4.62
5--6 5.47
6--8 43.96
8--10 27.45
10--12 12.38
12--15 5.38
Over 15 0.74

In the Thueringer Wald district, in 1891, the workingmen engaged in the
slate works received 2.10 marks a day; the women 0.70. In the spinning
establishments, the men received 2 marks, the women from 0.90 to 1 mark.

Worst of all are the earnings in the tenement industry, for men as well
as for women, but for the women it is still more miserable than for the
men. In this branch, hours of work are unlimited; when the season is on,
they transcend imagination. Furthermore, it is here that the sweating
system is generally in vogue, _i. e._, work given out by middlemen
(contractors) who, in recompense for their irksome labor of
superintendence, keep to themselves a large part of the wages paid by
the principal. Under this system, women are also expected to submit to
indignities of other nature.

How miserably female labor is paid in the tenement industries, the
following figures on Berlin conditions may indicate. Men's colored
shirts, paid for in 1889 with from 2 marks to 2.50, the employer got in
1893 for 1 mark 50 pfennig. A seamstress of average skill must work from
early till late if she means to make from 6 to 8 of these shirts. Her
earnings for the week are 4 or 5 marks. An apron-maker earns from 2
marks 50 pfennig to 5 marks a week; a necktie-maker, 5 to 6 marks; a
skilled blouse-maker, 6 marks; a very skilled female operator on boys'
clothing, 8 to 9 marks; an expert jacket-maker, 5 to 6 marks. A very
swift seamstress on men's shirts may, in the good season, and working
from 5 in the morning to 10 at night, make as much as 12 marks.
Millinery workers, who can copy patterns independently, make 30 marks a
month. Quick trimmers, with years of experience, earn from 50 to 60
marks a month during the season. The season usually lasts five months.
An umbrella-maker, working twelve hours a day, makes 6 to 7 marks. Such
starvation wages force the working-women into prostitution: even with
the very plainest wants, no working-women can live in Berlin on less
than 8 or 9 marks a week.

According to a statistical report on wages, ordered by the Chamber of
Commerce of Reichenberg for its own district,