nce equals that of the men, and often, in sudden
presses of work, as for a foreign order, work has begun at seven o'clock
on a morning and continued right on through the night and up to four or
five of the next afternoon. The law demands an hour for dinner and half
an hour for tea, but the first is halved or quartered, and the last
taken between the stitches, but with no more stop than is necessary for
swallowing. The penalties for violation of these acts are heavy and the
inspectors work very thoroughly, various convictions having been
obtained in 1886, the penalties varying from two pounds to ten pounds
and costs. But the sweaters, though standing in terror of such
possibility, have learned every device of evasion, and, as before
stated, the women necessarily abet them for fear of losing work
altogether.

Let us see now what the profit of the average sweater is likely to be,
and then that of the workwoman, skilled and unskilled, taking our
figures in every case from the Blue Book containing Mr. Burnett's report
and confirmed by many workers. A small sweater in Brunswick Street
employed a presser and a machinist, with two women for button-holes and
felling, his business being the production of tunics for postmen. For
each of these he received two shillings, or half a dollar a coat, which
he considered a very good price. He paid his presser 4_s._ 6_d._ ($1.12)
per day; his machinist 5_s._ ($1.25); his button-holer 2_s._ 6_d._
(60c.), from which she must find twist and thread; and the feller 1_s._
3_d._ (30c.), a total of thirteen shillings threepence. For twelve coats
he received twenty-four shillings, his own profit thus being ten
shillings and ninepence ($2.68) for his own labor as baster and for
finding thread, soap, coke, and machine. The hours were from seven in
the morning to ten in the evening, less time not sufficing to finish the
dozen coats, this bringing the rate of wages for the highest paid
worker to 4 1/2_d._, or nine cents an hour. For the small sweater the
profit is slight, but each additional machine sends it up, till four or
five mean a handsome return. If work is slack, he has another method of
lessening expenses, and thus increasing profits, arranging matters so
that all the work is done the three last days of the week, starting on a
Thursday morning, for instance, and pressing the workers on for
thirty-three to thirty-six hours at a stretch, calling this two days'
work, and paying for it at this rat