e. If they work fractions of a day,
eight hours is called a half and four a quarter day, and the men submit
with the same patience as the women.

For the former this is in part a question of nationality, the sweater's
workmen being made up chiefly of German and Polish Jews and the poorer
foreign element. An English worker has generally learned the trade as a
whole, and is secure of better place and pay; but a Polish Jew, a
carpenter at home, goes at once into a sweater's shop, and after a few
weeks has learned one branch of the trade, and is enrolled on the list
of workers. For the women, however, there is a smaller proportion
comparatively of foreigners. The poor Englishwoman, like the poor
American, has no resource save her needle or some form of machine work.
If ambitious, she learns button-holing, and in some cases makes as high
as thirty shillings per week ($7.50). This, however, is only for the
best paid work. Out of this she must find her own materials, which can
never be less than two and sixpence (60c.). A woman of this order would
do in a day twelve coats with six button-holes each, for the best class
of work getting a penny a hole, or two cents. For commoner kinds the
prices are a descending scale: three-quarters of a penny a hole, half a
penny, eight holes for threepence, and the commonest kinds three holes
for a penny. These are the rates for coats. For waistcoats the price is
usually a penny for four button-holes, a skilled worker making sixteen
in an hour. Many of these button-hole makers have become sweaters on
their own account, and display quite as much ingenuity at cutting rates
as the men at whose hands they may themselves have suffered.

For the machinists and fellers the rates vary. A good machinist may
earn five shillings a day ($1.25), but this only in the busy season; the
feller, at the best, can seldom go beyond three or four, and at the
worst earns but six or eight per week; while learners and general hands
make from two to six shillings a week, much of their time being spent in
carrying work between the shops and the warehouses. Six shillings a week
represents a purchasing power of about forty cents a day, half of which
must be reserved for rent; and thus it will be seen that the English
workwoman of the lower grade is in much the same condition as the
American worker, hours, wages, and results being nearly identical. The
Jewish women and girls represent a formidable element to contend with,