sea of life, must be a law unto themselves, who are born and nurtured in life's darkest places, 'like plants in mines that never see the sun.' Everywhere the cry of the city going up to heaven, not in the 'still sad music of humanity,' but in a sadder discord of sorrow, in a babel of oaths and curses and foul jests, and in the horrible hoarse laughter more piteous far than tears.

This life of the 'home' workers is sufficiently ghastly, though no words can adequately present its utter sickening repulsiveness. It must be seen and breathed in to be realised. Yet any attempt at remedying it by direct means involves enormous difficulties. Within the factory, however, the Government inspector can make his presence felt. Nevertheless, here too there is a general reluctance to admit visitors, an apparent fear of 'revelations,' a defensive attitude in speaking of the women and the work, which points to a lively dread of the possible effects of publicity, and a lively consciousness that improvement may be demanded.

To show that in fact little, very little, has been done to remove even the worst elements of the work, we may take the case of one workshop, said to be the best of its kind in South London, and employing large numbers both of in- and out-workers.

The process of treatment commences in a room where the smell of the skins is peculiarly overpowering. Here stands a large tank in which they are steamed and softened before being 'opened.' This opening is considered by the women to be the lowest work they can take. Those engaged on it, many of whom are only girls, will not take it up unless driven to do so by desperate straits. After the opening comes the drying process, done in large racks heated by stoves on the floor beneath. When dried the skins are brushed on the hairy side, with a solution of nitric acid, by machinery, tied up in turns' for 'pulling,' and given out. After the pulling (i.e. the removal of the longer and coarser hairs) the skins are again dried, put through an hydraulic press, and packed in bales, to be despatched to the great felt-manufacturing centres of Stockport and Macclesfield, or to America, where the felting process is largely carried on. There the soft fur is converted into felt, the actual skin being boiled down for fine glue and size. Skins of tame rabbits which are less valuable for felt, are made up into cheap muffs and linings for cloaks, and into the article of wearing apparel known as 'electric sealskin.'

The 'fluff' plucked by the fur pullers is collected and sold for cheap bedding, largely used by miners in the north of England. It may here be remarked that the report above mentioned is emphatic in condemning the foul condition of rags and other materials used for a similar purpose. It is all bought by weight, and it is no unusual thing for 40 per cent. of the weight to be lost in the process of washing. It is therefore obvious,' says the report, that an upholsterer

who is content to use the lowest sample of flock can purchase enough to stuff two beds for about the same money as another upholsterer, willing to use only the best flock, has to pay for sufficient to stuff one bed, even apart from the cost of washing.' Any one who has seen the conditions under which the fur-pullers' fluff' is collected will probably judge that the percentage of foul matter accompanying it is particularly high.

Within our workshop every available inch of space, from the large tunnelled cellars to the storage rooms of the roof, is filled with rabbi skins. They are stacked in racks reaching to the ceiling; lying in heaps about the rooms; tied up in 'turns' ready for the home workers, or in great bales of 5,000 for sending away. The stench arising from them is noisome; yet, except in the manager's rooms, where disinfectants are freely used, no attempt is made to minimise it. Moreover, though Moreover, though the atmosphere of the whole building is absolutely befogged with hair; yet, while the managers and foremen are careful to wear linen overalls, not only are the women unprovided with anything of the sort, but their outdoor garments are actually allowed to remain all day long hung up in one of the pulling-rooms. Of course the effect is that the women carry with them into their homes the sickly smell with which these elothes have become saturated, and the abominable fluff which sticks to them with the pertinacity of an Old Man of the Sea.

Worse still, in total disregard of all factory regulations, the women actually cook and eat food in the pulling-room at the same time as others are at work at a table not three yards distant.

Although fur-pulling is not yet included in the list of' dangerous trades, it is evident from the chronic bronchial catarrh from which so large a percentage of the workers suffer, the attacks of fever to which young unseasoned workers are liable, and the enormously high rate of infant mortality among the home-workers, that it is a trade which stands in urgent need of further regulation.

The report of the Royal Commission (to which allusion has already been made) in connection with those diseases to which workers in hair of every form are peculiarly liable, contains recommendations which, if they were strictly enforced, would do much to lessen the sufferings of this class of workers in the factories. It is suggested (1) that the ventilation should be so arranged as to carry the fluff away from the worker by means of powerful extracting fans with a down-draught, such as are already in use in rag mills and other factories where the material carried away is of value in manu-' facturing processes; (2) that the wearing of overalls and caps made to exclude dust should be compulsory; (3) that a prohibition to take meals in workrooms or other places to which noxious dust may penetrate should be strictly enforced.

Within the factories and workshops the strict application of these

rules would have a beneficial effect. But hitherto the new factory regulations as to air and space have had one result which was by no means desired: they have tended to drive a large quantity of the work from the factories to the home-workers. Now if the condition of things in the factories is bad, in the rooms of the home-workers it is many degrees worse; and it is exceedingly difficult to see how legislation is to interfere effectively in such places.

The report, having remarked that any old dilapidated buildings are considered good enough for the accommodation of the fur-pullers,' proceeds with suggestions-viz. that the Secretary of State should license every building in which the trade is carried on, that health registers should be kept, and periodical visits be paid by the certifying surgeons. But this would apply only to the factories. With the host of isolated workers, constantly changing and moving, the difficulty of efficient registration seems almost insuperable. To extend the rule effectively to home-workers, power would have to be given to factory inspectors to enforce sanitary regulations of a similar character and standard to those required in the factory; a licence being granted only after the house had been visited and certified as a place where the work could be done without injury to those working there. Whereas, as the law now stands, the factory inspector, though empowered to demand from the employer a list of his out-workers and to visit them in their homes, has no authority to remedy any of the evils he may find there; and the sanitary authorities, who alone have power to act, can only do so in cases where complaints are made of a public nuisance. Moreover, every home-worker who can plead irregularity of employment-and all home-work is irregular-can thereby claim exemption from all the provisions of the Act.

It does not, in short, seem practicable to make the worker responsible. To prohibit home-work altogether is equally impracticable. But what does seem practicable is to throw the responsibility on to the employer. It is not beyond his power to ensure that the homes' to which work is given out answer to the necessary conditions. Moreover, the adoption of this principle would have one very marked advantage. In order to avoid the trouble of attending to the condition of the home-workers, the employer would find a strong inducement to get as much work as possible done in the factory or workshop proper. A tendency would set in, working towards the gradual extinction of home-work; and the effect of that would be infinitely more satisfactory than any system of registration, inspection, or regulation of actual home-work that can be devised.

The evils of both subcontracting and home-work in all departments have become so thoroughly realised in the United States that a Bill was last year introduced by Mr. Sulzer which certainly had the effect of annihilating home-work entirely. It provides that, when a wholesaler gives out work to be done not by his own employés

but by a contractor, the wholesaler must prepay a tax of 300 dollars. If the contractor in turn sublets a part of his contract, he also must pay the same tax for each subcontractor. And if the subcontractor divides his work among home-workers and others not in his own direct employment, he must pay the same tax for each one of those home-workers. It is tolerably obvious that if the employer has to pay a tax of 60l. per head for every home-worker, he will give up employing home-workers.

For the legislative extinction of home-work by such drastic measures, neither the public nor the workers are probably at present prepared. The public, unaware of the conditions under which homework-at least in such trades as these-must be carried on; deluded also to some extent by a vague idea that family ties, parental influence, and family affection are preserved by it; are either indifferent or adverse to any such measures. The workers would see in them not the opportunity of work under healthier conditions, but the loss of employment. But a system which gradually and automatically turned home-work into factory work would excite no serious opposition; the end accomplished would have the approval of every competent observer who knows what such home-work means.

An important conference on the subject of home-work, called by the Women's Industrial Council, will meet in November in London, under the presidency of Mrs. Creighton. The condition of the furpullers will be under discussion. It is earnestly to be desired that the problems in connection with the subject will have received full and careful consideration, and that practical suggestions duly weighed and thought out may be laid before the conference, for giving effect to the recommendations of the report, and for appreciably ameliorating the lot of the fur-pullers. Heaven knows, they need it!

EDITH F. HOGG.

SOME FIRST IMPRESSIONS

THE irrepressible globe-trotter, who believes that a sojourn of fortyeight hours in any country entitles him to pronounce an authoritative judgment upon its social and political characteristics, is hardly an admirable character. But that there is something in first impressions-even the first impressions of the merest outsider-is undeniable, and occasionally the fresh view of things familiar to others which is taken by such a person may have a certain measure of interest. Thus it was my fortune, the other day, to pay a flying visit to four European capitals which I had never seen before; and though my glimpse of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Stockholm, and Copenhagen was nothing more than that of the mere tourist, it taught me some things which I had not learned from my visits to all the other capitals of Europe. The Baltic and the countries which border it are becoming as familiar to the English holiday-maker as the Mediterranean was twenty years ago. Every year two or three yachts, conducted on the co-operative system, visit the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, and give their passengers an opportunity of seeing more of Northern Europe than could be seen by any, save a few adventurous travellers, even so recently as thirty years since.

My co-operative yacht was the Garonne, a fine vessel of about 4,000 tons burden, in which I steamed out of the Thames on the 25th of August last, 'bound for the Baltic Sea.' The company on board consisted of about ninety men and women, and one charming little boy. We belonged to different sections of society, and included the representatives of all professions save that of the Church-a rare omission, I am told, in these voyages. For a whole month we remained together in the close confinement of a ship, and for that space of time we constituted a little cosmos of our own-one which loomed so largely before our eyes for the moment, that the outside world seemed to be practically banished, and the small events of our daily life on board assumed proportions of historical importance. It is not a bad thing for the toil-worn man or woman thus to escape from the environment of everyday life, and to find a new and peculiar environment, which, though for the moment as engrossing as any other, is dropped as easily as an old shoe when the cruise is over