e spinning of flax great heat and water are both
necessities. "Nothing is more wretched," writes Jules Simon, "than a
linen-spinner's surroundings. Water covers the brick floor. The odor of
the linen and a temperature often exceeding twenty-five Reaumur fill the
workroom with an intolerable stench. The majority of the workwomen,
obliged to put off most of their garments, are huddled together in this
pestilential atmosphere, imprisoned in the machines, pressed one against
the other, their bodies streaming with sweat, their feet bare to the
ankle; and when a day, nominally of twelve hours but really of thirteen
and a half, is over, they quit the workroom for home, the rags they wear
barely protecting them from cold and damp."

Details of the same order abound in the work of the political economist
M. Leroy-Beaulieu,[36] who seeks at all points to give the most
favorable impression possible. In each and every case the great
authorities appear to be of one mind as to the disastrous effects upon
the children born to these mothers. That the _creche_ is now
practically a part of every factory makes little or no difference.

"The _creche_," writes Jules Simon, "abolishes maternity in all save its
pains. The working mother is defrauded of her own means of growth, bound
up in the training of the child; and the child loses its right to be
loved and guarded by love." In short, for all continental countries, as
well as for England and our women, the question of child labor and the
destiny of the child are inextricably bound up in that of the working
mother, and are vital factors in working out the problem of woman as a
wage-earner. What proportion of wage-earning women recruit the ranks of
prostitution, is a question often asked. In Paris, which is in one sense
the focus of French labor, its many opportunities drawing to it a large
contingent from the provinces, it is popularly supposed that the ranks
of the sewing-women give large proportion to houses of prostitution.
This opinion is the prevailing one for all large cities, whether in
Europe or America, yet is disproved on all sides. For Paris
Parent-Duchalet states that in the statistics given by the prefecture of
police, in a table including forty-one categories, women with no
occupation had first rank as prostitutes, domestic service giving the
second, and sewing-women the smallest proportion. This is the more
surprising when one considers that their wage is often below the poin