as there been any
diminution of the numbers involved, though at some points conditions
have been improved. But the facts recorded in the report are practically
the same to-day; and the income of many workers falls below two dollars
a week, from which sum food, clothing, light, fuel, and rent are to be
provided for. The sum and essence of every wrong and injustice that can
hedge about the worker is found at this point, and remains a problem to
every worker among the poor, the solving of which will mean the solution
of the whole labor question.

New Jersey reports have from the beginning followed the phases of the
labor movement with a keen intelligence and interest. They give general
conditions as much the same as those of New York State. The wage-rate is
but $5; and Newark especially, a city which is filled with manufacturing
establishments of every order, reproduces some of the evil conditions of
New York City, though in far less degree. Taking the State as a whole,
legislation has done much to protect the worker, and other reforms are
persistently urged by the bureau. They are needed. In the official
report of conditions among the linen-thread spinners of Paterson we
find: "In one branch of this industry women are compelled to stand on a
stone floor in water the year round, most of the time barefoot, with a
spray of water from a revolving cylinder flying constantly against the
breast; and the coldest night in winter, as well as the warmest in
summer, these poor creatures must go to their homes with water dripping
from their underclothing along their path, because there could not be
space or a few moments allowed them wherein to change their
clothing."[40]

Thus much for the East; and we turn to the West, where some of the most
practical and suggestive forms of investigation are now in full
operation.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Third Annual Report of the Commissioner of Industrial Statistics of
Rhode Island, 1889, p. 22.

[40] Report of the Bureau of Labor for the State of New Jersey, 1888.

X.

GENERAL CONDITIONS IN THE WESTERN STATES.

The reports from Kansas and Wisconsin give a wage but slightly above
that of New Jersey, the weekly average being $5.27. Of the 50,000 women
at work in 1889,--the number having now nearly doubled,--but 6,000 were
engaged in manufacturing, the larger portion being in domestic service.
Save in one or two of the larger towns and cities, there is no
overcrowding, and few of the c