as they are now coming over in great numbers, and the question has so
organized itself that each falls almost at once into her own place, and
works with machine-like regularity and efficiency.

In one of the houses in a narrow little street opening off from
Whitechapel, were three women whose cases may be cited as representative
ones. The first was a trouser machinist, and took her work from another
woman, a sweater, who had it from city and other houses. She was paid
threepence (6c.) a pair, and could do ten pairs a day, if she got up at
six and worked till ten or eleven, which was her usual custom. In the
next room was a woman who stitched very thick large trousers, for which
she received fourpence a pair. She also had them from a woman who took
them from a sub-contractor. She could make six and sometimes seven
shillings a week, her rent being two shillings and sixpence. On the
floor above was a waistcoat maker, who, when work was brisk, could earn
eight and sometimes nine shillings a week; but who now, as work was
slack, seldom went beyond six or seven. Out of this must be taken
thread, which she got for eightpence a dozen. She worked for a small
exporter in a street some ten minutes' walk away; but often had to spend
two hours or more taking back her work and waiting for more to be given
out. She fared better than some, however, as she knew women who many a
time had had to lose five or six hours--"just so much bread out of their
mouths."

"The work has to be passed," she said, "and there's never any doubt
about mine, because I was bound to the trade, and my mother paid a pound
for premium, and I worked three months for nothing--two months of that
was clear gain to them, for I took to it and learned quick. But it's a
starvation trade now, whatever it used to be."

"Why don't some of the best workers among you combine and get your work
direct from the city house?"

"I've 'ad that in me mind, but there's never money enough. There's a
deposit to be made for guarantee, and the machine-rent and all. No,
there's never money enough. It's just keeping soul and body together,
and barely that. We don't see butcher's meat half a dozen times a year;
it's tea and bread, and you lose your relish for much of anything else,
unless sprats maybe, or a taste of shrimps. I was in one workshop a
while where there was over-hours always, and one night the inspector
happened along after hours, and no word passed down, and the man turned