serving every phase of their life,
has given a picture, unsurpassed in any literature, of the misery and
degradation of the worker. An investigation in 1874, and indignation at
some of the conditions then discovered, brought about modifications of
the law. That of the general congress of 1891 accomplished much more;
but work must still be done before any very marked advance becomes
discernible.

Passing to Germany, a good two-thirds of the women are at work in field
or shop or home, the proportion of women in agriculture being larger
than in any other country of Europe. Her schools furnish better training
than those of any other nation. In all these points Prussia leads,
though till recently legislation has been in behalf of child-workers,
and women have been practically ignored. But factory regulations are
minute and extended; and the questions involved in the labor of women,
and its bearing on health, longevity, etc., are now coming under
consideration. In Silesia, as early as 1868, women were excluded from
the salt-mines; and the Labor Congress of 1889 brought about many
changes of the laws on this point for Belgium and Germany. In Italy, in
which country industrial education is now receiving much attention, the
labor of women, continuous, severe, and underpaid, as it is known to be,
finds small mention, save among special students of social questions.
Russia has practically no data from which judgment can be formed. In
short, it is only in English-speaking countries that really efficient
action as to the labor of women has taken place; while even for them the
work has but begun, and new and more radical forms will be necessary
for any real progress toward final betterment. Toward such end the labor
bureaus of our own country are working diligently; and it is with them
that we have next to do, the investigations already made and
incorporated in their reports being full of suggestion for future
workers.

The census of 1882 gave for Germany, in a population of 45,222,113
persons, 23,071,364 women, of whom 1,109,530 were widows, and 5,467,730
unmarried, a large proportion of both these classes being
self-supporting. An immense number of these were agricultural laborers.
In Prussia in 1867 the census gave the number of women agricultural
laborers as 1,054,213. Woman's wage for a day's labor, always twelve and
often fourteen hours, is from twenty to twenty-five cents, about a third
of that received by men doing the same