n. It is sufficient
now to say that the two may be regarded as summarizing all phases of
work for women, and as an index to the difficulties at all other points
in the country.

The Bureau of Labor for Connecticut sent out its first report in the
same year (1885), and included investigations and statistics in the same
lines, though, for reasons specified, in much more limited degree. That
for 1886 for the same State took up in detail some points in regard to
the work of both women and children, which, for want of both time and
space, had been omitted in the first, their returns coinciding in all
important particulars with those of the other bureaus.

In 1886 the California Bureau of Labor touched the same points, but only
incidentally, in its general analysis of the labor question. In the
following year, however, the report covering the years 1887 and 1888
took up the question under the same aspects as those handled in the
special reports on this topic, and gave full treatment of the wages,
lives, and general conditions for working-women. It included, also, the
facts, so far as they could be ascertained, of the nature, wages, and
conditions of domestic service in California,--the first attempt at
treating this difficult subject with any accuracy. The apprentice
system, and an important chapter on manual training and its bearings
make this report one of the most valuable, from the social point of
view, that has been given, though where all are invaluable it is hard to
characterize one above another.

Mr. Tobin, for California, and Mr. Hutchins, for Iowa, seemed moved at
the same time in much the same way,--the Iowa report for 1887 treating
the many questions involved with that largeness which has thus far
distinguished work in this direction. Kansas, in the report for 1888,
gave general conditions, women being treated incidentally; and
Minnesota, in the report for the years 1887 and 1888, gave a chapter on
working-women, wages, etc.

Colorado followed, giving in the report for 1887 and 1888, under the
management of Commissioner Rice, a chapter on women wage-workers, in
which space is given to certified complaints of the women themselves, as
to what they consider the disabilities of their special trades. Domestic
service, with some of its abuses, was also considered, and is of much
value. These reports sum up the work so far done in the West, where
labor bureaus are of recent growth. The spirit of inquiry is, however,