rteen hours in many
weaving-establishments. Finally, we are told that, as a rule, it
may be taken that Frenchmen employed in factories are present in
the shops at least fourteen hours out of every twenty four.
"Among the countries having no laws affecting the hours of adult
labor, Germany is conspicuous. Employers, however, cannot force
their servants to work on Sundays and feast-days. Employment of
youthful or female labor in certain kinds of factories, which is
attended with special danger to health or morals, is forbidden, or
made conditional on certain regulations, by which night labor for
female work-people is especially forbidden. In Germany, as in other
countries also, women may not be employed in factories for a
certain time after childbirth. In Hesse-Darmstadt the medium
duration of labor is from ten to twelve hours,--the cases in which
the latter time is exceeded being, however, more frequent than
those in which the former is not exceeded. The normal work-day
throughout Saxony in all the principal branches of industry is from
6 A.M. to 7 P.M., with half an hour for breakfast, an hour for
dinner, and half an hour for supper. In the manufacturing industry
there are departures from these hours, the period of work in
spinning and weaving mills not infrequently being twelve hours.
"In Austria the law provides that the duration of work for factory
hands shall not exceed eleven hours out of the twenty-four,
'exclusive' of the periods of rest. These are not to be less in the
aggregate than an hour and a half. The rule can be modified by the
minister of commerce, in conjunction with the minister of the
interior, allowing longer hours. The hours have been so extended to
twelve hours in certain industries, such as spinning-mills, and
even to thirteen in silk manufactories. Sunday rest is enforced. In
Hungary there is no limit laid down by law, but the hours are not
generally longer than in Austria.
"Concerning the actual hours of adult labor in Belgium, some
difficulty is said to be experienced in getting at the facts. The
evidence given before a Belgian royal commission showed that
railway guards are sometimes on duty for fifteen and even nineteen
and a half hours at a stretch; and the Brussels tram-way-drivers
are at work from fifteen to
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