sent as commissioner of immigration to
Liverpool, visiting England, Ireland and Scotland. Returning in
the steerage of an ocean steamer, she gave one of the finest
reports ever made upon this question. This resulted in the
passage by the legislature of New York of a bill for the better
protection of emigrants on shipboard, and the appointment by the
United States government of an inspector of immigration for every
out-going steamer.

Women were first appointed as clerks in the government
departments in 1861 by Secretary Chase, at the earnest
solicitation of Treasurer Spinner. They were employed at
temporary work at $50 a month--one-half the lowest price paid to
any male clerk--until they were recognized by an act of congress
in which their salary was fixed at $900 a year, in the general
appropriation bill of July 23, 1866. The men doing the same work
were of four classes, receiving, respectively, $1,000, $1,400,
$1,600, $1,800. Treasurer Spinner, in his report of October,
1866, said:

The experiment of employing females as clerks has been, so
far as this office is concerned, a success. For many kinds
of office-work, like the manipulation and counting of
fractional currency, they excel, and in my opinion are to be
preferred to males. There is, however, quite as much
difference in point of ability between female clerks as
there is between the several classes of male clerks, whose
equals some of them are. Some are able to accomplish twice
as much as others, and with greater accuracy. So, too, some
of them incur great risks, being responsible for making
mistakes in count, and for counterfeits overlooked. Such
should, by every consideration of justice and fair dealing,
be paid according to their merits, and the risks and
liabilities they incur.

And in 1868, Mr. Spinner urged the committee of which Mr.
Fessenden of Maine was the chairman, to so amend the bill
providing for the reorganization of the treasury department as to
increase the salary of the female clerks who have the handling of
money, stating that cases had occurred in which women had lost
more than half their monthly pay by reason of being short in
count, or of allowing counterfeit notes to pass their ha