ation.[47] These are as follows:--

Hours are often excessive, and employees are not paid for over-time.
Many stores give no half-holiday, and keep open on Saturdays till ten
and eleven o'clock in the evening, and at the holiday season do this for
three or four weeks nightly.

Sanitary conditions are usually bad, and include bad ventilation,
unsanitary arrangements, and indifference to the considerations of
decency. Toilet arrangements in many stores are horrible, and closets
for male and female are often side by side, with only slight partition
between. One hand-basin and towel serve for all. Often water for drink
can be obtained only from the attic.

Numbers of children under age are employed for excessive hours, and at
work far beyond their strength, an investigation having shown that over
one hundred thousand children under the legal age of fourteen were at
work in factories, workshops, and stores.

Service for a number of years often meets with no consideration, but is
regarded as a reason for dismissal. It is the rule in some stores to
keep no one over five years, lest they come to feel that they have some
claim on the firm; and when a saleswoman is dismissed from one house,
she finds it almost impossible to obtain employment in another.

The wages are reduced by excessive fines, employers placing a value upon
time lost that is not given to services rendered. The fines run from
five to thirty cents for a few minutes' tardiness. In some stores the
fines are divided at the end of the year between the timekeeper and the
superintendent, and there is thus every temptation to injustice.

The report concludes:--

"We find that, through low wages, long hours, unwholesome sanitary
conditions, and the discouraging effect of excessive fines, not
only is the physical condition injured, but the tendency is to
injure the moral well-being. It is simply impossible for a woman to
live without assistance on the low salary a saleswoman earns,
without depriving herself of real necessities."

These were the conditions which, in 1889, led to the formation of the
little society which, though limited in numbers, has done admirable and
efficient work, its latest effort being to secure from the Assembly at
Albany a bill making inspection of stores and shops as obligatory as
that of factories.

It was through the concerted effort of its members that the Factory
Inspection Act became a law, though not