here is a fifteen or twenty-minute rest in the
morning and in the afternoon, when milk, tea, and bread and butter are
served. These oases of rest and nourishment were of extraordinary value
to us in resisting fatigue. Their efficiency in keeping workers in
condition is a humane and practical feature of the laundries which should
be sharply emphasized.

"There was little variation in wages between the different grades of
workers. As a rule, only two prices obtained--one for all the manglers
and plain ironers, another for the starchers and shirt and fancy ironers.
In one laundry the wage fell as low as $10 a month. In the others it was
$14 and $15 for the lower grade of work, and $16 and $20 for the higher.
One of the laundries gave board, but no room, and here the universal
price was $20 a month.

"As to hours, three of the hospitals had an eight-hour day; four had a
nine-and-a-half-hour day. In one of these there was no work on Saturday
afternoon, so that the weekly hours were forty-four. Another hospital
worked seventy-two hours a week, with no recompense in the form of
overtime pay. Generally the catchers at the mangles sat at their work. In
one hospital the feeders also sat, using high stools. We wondered why
this was not more often the custom. The difference in vigor in our own
cases when we worked sitting was marked. Sitting, we escaped unwearied;
standing all day left us numb with fatigue. In only one hospital was
artificial light necessary in the work-room. The rooms, as a rule, were
well ventilated and the air fresh when one came into them.

"We often noticed that the workers in the hospital laundries were far
less contented than those in the other classes of laundries. It was not
surprising that they lacked enthusiasm for their work, for laundering is
not an interesting task; but, with conditions far beyond any other type
of laundry, it was strange that the hospital workers should be the most
shifting, faultfinding, and dispirited laundresses we encountered. Part
of this we attributed to the depressing effect of an atmosphere of
sickness, part to the fact that workers living out are doubtless
stimulated by the diversion of having a change of scene--of seeing at
least two sets of people, and, above all, generally by some special
sympathy and concern for their individual fortunes. In the last hospital
laundry where we worked, one conducted by the Sisters of Charity, though
the hours were long and the wages were