s are
practically identical with those of women-workers in Silesia, or at any
or all of the points on the continent where women are employed.
Philanthropists have cried out; political economists have shown the
suicidal nature of non-interference, and demonstrated that if the State
gains to-day a slight surplus in her treasury, she has, on the other
hand, lost something for which no money equivalent can be given, and
that the women who labor from twelve to sixteen hours in the mines, or
at any industry equally confining, have no power left to shape the
coming generations into men, but leave to the State an inheritance of
weak-bodied and often weak-minded successors to the same toil. For
France and Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, at every point where women are
employed, the story is the same; and the fact remains that, while in the
better order of trades women may prosper, in the large proportion,
constant and exhausting labor simply keeps off actual starvation, but
has no margin for anything that can really be called living.

For Paris and Berlin, but in greater degree for Paris, a fact holds true
which has almost equal place for New York. Women-workers, whose only
support is the needle, contend with an army of women for whom such work
is not a support, but who follow it as a means of increasing an already
certain income. For these women there is no pressing necessity, and in
Paris they are of the _bourgeoisie_, whose desires are always a little
beyond their means, who have ungratified caprices, ardent wishes to
shine like women in the rank above them, to dress, and to fascinate.
They are the wives and daughters of petty clerks, or employes of one
order and another, of small government functionaries and the like, who
embroider or sew three or four hours a day, and sell the work for what
it will bring. The money swells the housekeeping fund, gives a dinner
perhaps, or aids in buying a shawl, or some coveted and otherwise
unattainable bit of jewelry. The work is done secretly, since they have
not the simplicity either of the real _ouvriere_ or of the _grande
dame_, both of whom sew openly, the one for charity, the other for a
living. But this middle class, despising the worker and aspiring always
toward the luxurious side of life, feels that embroidery or tapestry of
some description is the only suitable thing for their fingers, and busy
on this, preserve the appearance of the dignity they covet. Often their
yearly gains ar