ven in back alleys of the sacred west, and in the swarming
southwest region beyond London Bridge. The London "Lancet," the most
authoritative medical journal of the world, conservative as it has
always been, has at last found that it must join hands with socialist
and anarchist, "scientific" or otherwise, with philanthropists of every
order, against the new evil and its horrors. Rich and poor alike were
involved. The virus of the deadly conditions under which the garments
took shape was implanted in every stitch that held them together, and
transferred itself to the wearer. Not only from London, but from every
city of England, came the same cry; and the public faced suddenly an
abyss of misery whose existence had been unknown and unsuspected, and
the causes of which seemed inexplicable.

For many months of the year just ended (1892) parliamentary
investigation has gone on. Report after report has been made to its
committees; and as testimony from accredited sources poured in,
incidentally a flood of light has been let in upon many forms of work
outside the clothing-manufacturer. To-day, in four huge volumes of some
thousand pages each, one may read the testimony, heart-sickening in
every detail,--a noted French political economist, the Comte
d'Haussonville, describing it, in a recent article in "La Revue des deux
Mondes" as "The Martyrology of English Industries."

In such conditions inspection is inoperative. An army of inspectors
would not suffice where every house represents from one to a dozen
workshops under its roof, in each of which sanitary conditions are
defied, and the working day made more often fourteen and sixteen hours
than twelve. Even for this day a starvation wage is the rule; the
sewing-machine operative, for example, while earning a wage of fifteen
or eighteen pence, furnishing her own thread and being forced to pay
rental on the machine.

A portion of a wage table is given here as illustrative of rates, and
used as a reference table before the preparation of Mr. Booth's book,
which gives much the same figures:--

Making paper bags, 4-1/2d. to 5-1/2d. per thousand; possible
earnings, 5s. to 6s. per week.

Button-holes, 3d. a dozen; possible earnings, 8s. a week.

Shirts, 2d. each, worker finding her own cotton; can get six done
between 8 A.M. and 11 P.M.

Sack sewing, 6d. for twenty-five; 8d. to 1s. 6d. per hundred.
Possible earnings, 8s. per week.

Pi