e is a governess or other educated employee in the
household, she has no companionship. The salary varies from L30 to
L120 and sometimes more. There is apparently no fixed rate. One lady
writes:

"For two years I lived in the house of Sir----, the most hopelessly
isolated and uninteresting existence, within the four walls of his
study. A secretary should certainly stick out for a free week-end once
a month when living in. Isolation is horribly bad for one."

The secretary living in with congenial literary or medical people,
where she is made one of the family circle, has a happier time, but
the payment is not high.

Apart from salary, the conditions in which the woman clerk works are
by no means ideal.

Twenty years ago, in a far northern city, there was a flourishing new
school where over thirty girls of from fifteen to twenty were being
taught shorthand, typewriting, book-keeping, and all that goes to the
making of a fully-equipped clerk. This school was the first experiment
of the kind in an enterprising community. As the pupils qualified,
with Pitman certificates of varying degrees of speed, at the end of
six months or longer, the way in which old-fashioned lawyers accepted
the innovation of attractive young women on their clerical staff,
seemed almost magical. Decorum relegated the young women to separate
rooms from the rest of the employees, and the formality in the bearing
of heads of departments towards these pioneer females must have been
gratifying to Mrs Grundy. So superior to human exigencies seemed these
dignified men, that the subject of lavatory accommodation for young
women, mewed up from 9 to 1 and from 2 to 5.30, was not mentioned.
Woman's modesty, if it were to reach the high standard made for her by
man, had to come before her health or comfort. Although typists of
all grades have multiplied by thousands[1] during the past twenty
years--in London alone there are over 25,000 women clerks and
secretaries--there is still need for adequate inspection of sanitary
accommodation for women workers of this class. Apart altogether from
sanitary accommodation, common sense would seem to suggest that,
in the case of any one who has to turn out decent typing, a regular
supply of hot water is a necessity for washing hands that may have to
change a ribbon or do the many little messy jobs that typing involves.

In a lecture before the Fabian Women's Group in February 1912, Miss
Florence, of the Association of