place, but if half the girls who spend hours every day in thrumming the piano, with no taste or capacity for music, would invest the same time and money in one practical study, they would realize a much better profit on their capital, and would never come to be regarded as dependent incumbrances by their friends and relatives. "What shall I do to be saved?" is literally the cry of thousands of young women, who without friends or protectors, find themselves facing the world-the severe, critical world—that is so kind and flattering to the suċcessful, so cruel and pitiless to the helpless and improvident of either sex. The financial test is a strong argument of success, for employers are slow to part with their money for inferior work, and this is an age of competition. One inefficient worker brings to naught, theoretically, the practical services of a dozen competent ones. The employers judge other women by her isolated case, and refuse to give occupation to one whom they must first educate, and who gives them plainly to understand that she has no interest in her work, is driven to it by necessity, performs it grudgingly, and will abandon it at the first opportunity for something more congenial. CHAPTER II Average Wages in New York and. Elsewhere. # T is a common wish among young and inexperienced women about to enter the arena of public labor to find situations in a large city such as New York, Boston or Chicago, but they must remember that while there are many situations in a large town, there are also many competitors, and these always out-rate the positions in the ratio of fifty applicants to one appointment. This is the case in business situations for men, as well, only on a still more discouraging scale, there being frequently a hundred applicants to one vacancy. With this excess of demand on the wrong side prices must be low, but there are always exceptions to every rule, and there may be fortunate circumstances to give the last new comer immediate compensation, and if that is not possible, months of waiting may bear good fruit in an added experience, a knowledge of the city, and other beneficial results. In answer to enquiries in a New York paper, whether there is any position open to a woman except that of a teacher, where she can earn more than $800 a year, the following list of prices is furnished, with the comment that women, as a rule, received from twenty to thirty per centum less than men for the same or equivalent services. Just here I would say that no woman need feel aggrieved or discouraged by this statement, or imagine that it is an injury which she must avenge by recourse to the ballot. It is one of the barriers which men themselves erected to defend women, from behind which they purposed to earn bread for both, unforeseeing the coming army of women who have no one to work for them, and who must of necessity work not only for themselves but for those dependent on them. But even with this statement, a canvass of our large stores and city business houses would show a large percentage of men working for eight or ten persons against single women clerks who are working for themselves only. The adjustment of false averages in wages, even in these cases, may be a wrong one, but it is one which time and justice will remedy. The woman must console herself as Whittier did, under a national evil "I only know that God is just, Meanwhile, whatever her hand finds to do, let her do it with her might. These, then, are the average prices paid at the present time in large cities for certain positions. Good salesmen, for example, get from $6 to $10 a week; some few who have worked a long time receive $12, and occasionally a salary as high as $15 is paid. But the latter are exceptional cases. Heads of departments, such as the leading saleswomen in the glove or lace departments, or in the dressmaking, who command a large influential custom, receive as high as $20 or $30 a week, in exceptional cases, and there are not fifty such positions in New York city to-day. Lady cashiers receive, on an average, a little more than good saleswomen. But $15 a week is a large stipend for a cashier, and it requires a guaranteed ability, the best of references, and sometimes good security, to obtain such a position. The employment of bookkeeper commands as high as $20 a week, but the majority of good bookkeepers get from $10 to $12, and many women well trained in the business think themselves fortunate if they obtain $8. In the Employment Bureau of the Young Women's Christian Association, whose proteges obtain, as a rule, better positions and better wages than the subscribers to ordinary employment agencies, $15 per week is stated as the maximum that a woman can hope for, exclusive of the professions. The Superintendent of the Bureau says it is rare that a woman obtains more than $15 per week as a teacher, and that $800 per annum would be regarded as a very large salary. In the position of housekeeper $1,000 a year is occasionally paid to an experienced woman, trustworthy and capable of assuming the entire management of a first-class establishment. Such instances are very rare, and can only be commanded by experienced women, well trained theoretically. On piece work, in artificial manufacture and occupations approximating to the artistic, it is stated that wages as high as $18 are occasionally earned by first-class hands; but, in ordinary industries, from $8 to $12 per week represents the average earnings of women in occupations requiring some training, and from $3 to $6 is the common price in the lower industrial walks. WOMEN AS HOTEL CLERKS. At the Palmer House, Chicago, the head clerk, who is a woman, receives a salary of $1,000 a year and board, which is equivalent to $500 more. Another lady clerk has $900 a year and board, and one bookkeeper receives $600 and board per year. If they prefer to board away from the hotel they receive an additional allowance of $500 a year. Mr. Palmer, the proprietor, announces that the change from men clerks is so satisfactory that he will employ them in the hotel as substitutes for male help wherever it is practicable. There is a popular hotel in Michigan where the manager, clerk, bookkeeper and steward are all women. For these services they receive the same salaries that men do. It might appear at first thought, derogatory to the dignity of a lady to fill such positions, but it is in such places that true ladyhood is needed, and the very fact that the position is difficult and in public places, should inspire the bread winner to maintain and assert, at all hazards, her principles of womanly honor. It is because of woman's moral superiority that she is given the position, and the surety her employer has that the interests of the public, as well as his own, will be safe in her hands. She will not embezzle his money in gambling or in late suppers. She will not smoke his cigars, or bestow them on her impecunious friends; she will not be insolent to one per |