inutest system of subdivided labor now
rules here as in all trades. When a coat is in question, it is no longer
the master-tailor, journeyman and apprentices who prepare it, but a
legion of cutters, basters, machinists, pressers, fellers, button-hole,
and general workers, who find the learning of any one alone of the
branches an easy matter, and so rush into the trade, the fiercest and
most incessant competition being the instant result.

In 1881 a census was taken in the East End of London which showed over
fifteen thousand tailors at work, of whom more than nine thousand were
women. The number of the latter at present is estimated to be about
twelve thousand, much increase having been prevented by various causes,
for which there is no room here. As the matter at present stands, every
man and woman employed aims to become as fast as possible a sweater on
his or her own account. For large employers this is not so easy; for the
small ones nothing could be simpler, and here are the methods.

If the trade is an unfamiliar one, there is first the initiation by
employment in a sweater's shop, and a few months, or even weeks, gives
all the necessary facility. Then comes the question of workroom; and
here it is only necessary to take the family room, and hire a sewing
machine, which is for rent at two shillings and sixpence, or sixty
cents, a week. To organize the establishment all that is necessary is a
baster, a machinist, a presser, and two or three women-workers, one for
button-holing, one for felling, and one for general work, carrying home,
etc. The baster may be a skilled woman; the presser is always a man, the
irons weighing from seven to eighteen pounds, and the work being of the
most exhausting description, no man being able to continue it beyond
eight or ten years at the utmost. The sweater-employer often begins by
being his own presser, or his own baster; but as business increases his
personal labor lessens. In the beginning his profits are extremely
small, prices varying so that it is impossible to make any general table
of rates. Even in the same branch of trade hardly any two persons are
employed at the same rate, and the range of ability appears to vary with
the wage paid, subdivision of labor being thus carried to its utmost
limit, and the sections of the divisions already mentioned being again
subdivided beyond further possibility. So tremendous is the competition
for work that the sweaters are played off aga