less than that given to men. Sweden has a most admirable
system of industrial education; and Norway and Denmark, though far less
in population, have adopted the same methods. But the limitations of all
wage-earning women are felt here in the same manner as elsewhere, the
summary for all countries being much the same. The Northern workwoman
has the advantage of training and of as keen a sense of economy as the
Frenchwoman; but her wage is most usually at or below subsistence point,
and her difficulties are those of the worker in general,--long hours,
insufficient pay, and fierce competition.

As to the present laws concerning the length of the working-day, a
general abstract is found in a return issued in reply to an address from
the House of Commons, an abstract of which was given in "St. James'
Gazette":--

"In France the hours of adult labor are regulated by a series of
decrees, of which the earliest, promulgated September, 1848, enacts
that the workingman's day in manufactories and mills shall not
exceed twelve hours of 'effective' or actual labor. A decree
issued in May, 1851, made exceptions, so that more hours might be
worked in certain trades. In 1885 a circular was issued stating
that the limit of twelve hours _per diem_ was not to be imposed
where hand-power was employed, but was to be confined to
manufactories and mills in which the motive power was machinery. No
workshops were to come under the clauses of the act that did not
employ more than twenty hands in any one shed. The report says: 'It
is likewise to be borne in mind that there is in France no
compulsory observance of Sunday, and no day of habitual rest.'

"The reports of the French inspectors of labor appear to show that
the Act of 1848 is very loosely interpreted. It is even doubtful
whether the section limiting the actual working-day to twelve hours
was intended to include or exclude hours of rest. Practically the
legal time is made to exclude rest. This makes the working-day so
much the longer. Thus one of the French inspectors states that the
hours of attendance in factories under the Act of 1848 are from
five in the morning until seven in the evening, or a total of
fourteen hours, out of which there are twelve hours of 'effective
labor.' But the same authority also states that 'effective' time
often extends to thirteen and fou