the United States, and are matters
of increasing perplexity and sorrow to every searcher into these
problems. At its best, woman's work in industries is intermittent, since
it is only textile work that continues the year round; dress and cloak
making, shoe and umbrella making, fur-sewing and millinery, have
specific seasons, in the intervals between which the worker waits and
starves, or, if too desperate, goes upon the streets, driven there by
the wretched competitive system, the evils of which increase in direct
ratio to the longing for speedy wealth. In short, matters are at that
point where only radical change of methods can better the situation,
even the most conservative observer, relying most thoroughly upon
evolution, feeling something more than evolution must work if justice is
to have place in the present social scheme.

It is at this point that some consideration of domestic service
naturally presents itself. Though regarded often as no part of the labor
question, there can be no other head under which to range it, since the
last census gives over a million persons engaged in this occupation, the
lowest rough estimate of wages being $160,000,000 and the support
included forming a sum at least as large. It is through the hands of
the domestic servant that a large part of the finished products of other
forms of labor must pass, and the economic aspects of the question grow
in importance with every year of the changing conditions of American
life. In no other occupation is a just consideration of the points
involved so difficult a task, since the mistress who faces the
incompetence, insubordination, and all the other trials involved in the
relation, suffers too keenly from the sense of individual wrong to treat
the matter in the large. Till it is so treated, however, understanding
for both sides is impossible, and to bring about such understanding is
the first necessity for all.

From the employer's standpoint the advantages to be stated are as
follows: First and most obvious is the fact that wages are not only
relatively but absolutely high; for aside from the actual cash there are
also board, lodging, fuel, light, and laundry, all of which the worker
in trades must provide for herself. There is no capital required, as for
type-writer, sewing-machine, or any appliances for work, nor is the girl
forced to expend anything in preparation, since under the present system
housekeepers take her untrained fresh from