on of women, the women textile workers earn
about 18 cents a day; under favorable circumstances $1.25 to $1.50 a week.
A skillful woman tobacco worker will earn 32-1/2 cents a day. The average
daily wages for Russian women laborers are 18 to 20 cents.

Hence it is not astonishing that in the South American houses of ill-fame
there are so many Russian girls. The agents in the white slave trade need
not make very extravagant promises of "good wages" to find willing
followers.[102] A workingwomen's club has existed since 1897 in St.
Petersburg. There are 982,098 women engaged in industry and mining;
1,673,605 in domestic service (there being 1,586,450 men domestic
servants). Of the women domestic servants 53,283 are illiterate (of the
men only 2172!). In 1885 the women formed 30 per cent of the laboring
population; in 1900 the number had increased to 44 per cent. Of the total
number of criminals in Russia 10 per cent are women.

The legal status of the Russian woman is favorable in so far as the
property law provides for property rights. The Russian married woman
controls not only her property, but also her earnings and her savings. As
survival of village communism and the feudal system, the right to vote is
restricted to taxpayers and to landowners. In the rural districts the
wife votes as "head of the family," if her husband is absent or dead. Then
she is also given her share of the village land. She votes in person. In
the cities the women that own houses and pay taxes vote by proxy. The
women owners of large estates (as in Austria) vote also for the provincial
assemblies. Although constitutional liberties have a precarious existence
in Russia, they have now and then been beneficial to women.

With great effort, and in the face of great dangers, woman's suffrage
societies were formed in various parts of the Empire. They united into a
national Woman's Suffrage League. The brave Russian delegates were present
in Copenhagen and in Amsterdam. They belonged to all ranks of society and
were adherents to the progressive political parties. Since the dissolution
of the first Duma (June 9, 1906) the work of the woman's suffrage
advocates has been made very difficult; in the rural districts especially
all initiative has been crippled. In Moscow and St. Petersburg the work is
continued by organizations having about 1000 members; 10,000 pamphlets
have been distributed, lectures have been held, a newspaper has been
established, and