just above her in grade. It is by these last
that some of the chief frauds on women are perpetrated, and here we find
one source of the supplies that furnish the bargain counters.

We read periodically of firms detected in imposing upon women, and are
likely to feel that such exposure has ended their career as firms once
for all. In every trade will be found one or more of these, whose
methods of obtaining hands are fraudulent, and who advertise for "girls
to learn the trade," with no intention of retaining them beyond the time
in which they remain content to work without pay. There are a thousand
methods of evasion, even when the law faces them and the victim has made
formal complaint. As a rule she is too ignorant and too timid for
complaint or anything but abject submission, and this fact is relied
upon as certain foundation for success. But, if determined enough, the
woman has some redress in her power. Within a few years, after long and
often defeated attempts, the Woman's Protective Union has brought about
legislation against such fraud, and any employer deliberately
withholding wages is liable to fifteen days' imprisonment and the costs
of the suit brought against him, a fact of which most of them seem to be
still quite unaware. This law, so far as imprisonment is concerned, has
no application to women, and they have learned how to evade the points
which might be made to bear upon them, by hiring rooms, machines, etc.,
and swearing that they have no personal property that can be levied
upon. Or, if they have any, they transfer it to some friend or relative,
as in the case of Madame M----, a fashionable dressmaker notorious for
escaping from payment seven times out of ten. She has accumulated money
enough to become the owner of a large farm on Long Island, but so
ingeniously have all her arrangements been made that it is impossible to
make her responsible, and her case is used at the Union as a standing
illustration of the difficulty of circumventing a woman bent upon
cheating.

A firm, a large proportion of whose goods are manufactured in this
manner, can well afford to stock the bargain counters of popular
stores. They can afford also to lose slightly by work imperfectly done,
though, even with learners, this is in smaller proportion than might be
supposed. The girl who comes in answer to their advertisement is anxious
to learn the trade at once, and gives her best intelligence to mastering
every detail. Her fi