without violent opposition. The
bill originated in the Working-Woman's Society, was drawn up there, sent
to Albany by its delegates, and passed without the aid of money.

There are eleven thousand factories in New York State, and only one
inspector to investigate their condition; while in England, scarce
larger in territory, forty-one inspectors are appointed by the
Government.

The Andrus bill, adding to the power of factory inspectors, raising the
working age of children to fourteen years, and prohibiting night work
for girls under twenty-one and boys under eighteen, was sent with the
Factory Bill to the Central Labor Union, and the women were largely
instrumental in obtaining the passage of the measure.

Why such determined opposition still meets every attempt to bring about
the same inspection for mercantile establishments cannot be determined;
but thus far, though admitted to be necessary, the act has at each
reading been laid upon the table. Another effort will be made in the
coming winter of 1893-94.

In spite, however, of much agitation of all phases of woman's work, it
is only some wrong as startling as that involved in the sweating-system
that seems able to arouse more than a temporary interest. One of the
most able and experienced women inspectors of the United States Bureau
of Labor, Miss de Grafenried, has lately written:--

"It is an open question whether woman's pay is not falling, cost
and standards of living considered. Could partly supported labor
and children be eliminated, shop employees would get higher rates.
Still there are other economic anomalies that affect women's wages.
'Wholesalers' and manufacturers shut up their factories and 'give
out' everything--umbrellas, coats, hair-wigs, and shrouds--to be
made,--they know not in what den, or wrung they care not from what
misery ... Again, wages are depressed by over-stimulating
piece-work; and its unscrupulous use by proprietors who hesitate to
confess to paying women only $3 or $4 a week, yet who scale prices
so that only experts can earn that sum. Many employers cut rates as
soon as, by desperate exertions, operatives clear $5 a week. Then,
underbidding from the unemployed is a fruitful source of low wages.
Massachusetts has 20 per cent of her workers unemployed."

These conditions, while varying as to numbers, are practically the same
for the work of women in all parts of