Richmond. Among the working women of Richmond nothing is more noticeable than the almost universal pallor and sallowness of countenance; nothing more uncommon than an example of the robust health so frequently met with among the northern working girls. Climatic conditions, bad drainage in the city, bad drinking water, and unsanitary homes and modes of life doubtless account for much of the seeming ill health among the girls, but there seems to be a general inertness among those even who do not claim to be sick. In connection with this question of health a curious trait was brought out in the investigation by queries regarding doctors' bills. Many families have been treated free by certain physicians for years past, and in answer to the query "Have you paid any doctor's bill?" the constant response was "My mother is a widow"! The girls seemed to feel no personal responsibility for such services even though able to pay for them.

The price of board is low, and many girls from the country are em. ployed in the city and live with relatives, or board in private families.

The girls, as a class, are extremely neat and ladylike in appearance and behavior. The employers are considerate of the comfort of their employés; toilet and sanitary arrangements are, almost without exception, good; seats are provided and used in stores; and the spirit of politeness governs the work room. In one large cigarette factory, employing seven hundred and fifty girls, there is an excellent library for the free use of the employés.

Religious feeling is strong and religious observances almost universal. In the tobacco factories, where the races are mixed, immorality is much more noticeable than elsewhere. In general, the working girls bear an excellent character. There is much illiteracy among the older women, and among the girls coming from the country; among the city-bred girls a fair degree of education exists, coupled with an attractive ease and propriety of diction, made all the more noticeable by contrast with the language of the colored working people and the girls from the country districts.

Saint Louis.-In Saint Louis there is work in abundance for all women who want it. The industrial class is largely German and exhibits the thrift which is characteristic of that nation. The tenements are arranged in floors for separate families, and are usually provided with wide halls and back porches. The apartments generally have carpets and good furniture, and the working classes live very well, and even in the poorest quarters the inhabitants exhibit cleanliness in the care of their dwellings.

The manufacture of clothing is largely carried on in Saint Louis, and some of the worst establishments visited during the entire investigation were found among the "tailors' back shops." The tobacco industry is almost monopolized by foreigners, whose habits of life are often riotous. In this industry the work rooms are fine and the eight-hour rule is general, but the wages are low. The wages of saleswomen are above

the average, in some stores equalling the rates paid in New York, but the weekly working hours are longer than in any other pursuit, the stores remaining open every evening, and, in consequence of the general disregard of Sunday, remaining open on that day also.

There is comparatively little church going among the Saint Louis working girls, the dance houses claiming the attendance of altogether too many, even of girls from thirteen years of age upward. Sunday balls and matinees are largely patronized. There are no libraries, lecture courses, or clubs to afford their advantages to working girls, and there is much illiteracy among them. In whole industries, such as tobacco factories, stamping works, match factories, bagging and cotton mills, few girls were found who had received much education.

The moral conditions are generally of a lower standard than is found in many other cities, but in some work rooms as high a moral tone prevails as is found in any other community, and some proprietors look carefully after the physical and moral welfare of their employés. It is gratifying to know that this class is increasing.

Saint Paul.-On account of the scarcity of labor the condition of the working girls of Saint Paul is very prosperous. The cost of living is high, but wages are comparatively higher. A very large proportion of the working girls of the city live in boarding houses, lodging houses, or private families, and quite a considerable number rent rooms and do their own cooking. The minds of most of the girls seem bent on accumulating, investing, and becoming independent, and instances are not wanting of girls who, having invested their little savings in a vacant lot of ground, have, in the course of a few years, by the rapid rise in the value of property, acquired a modest competence. No poverty among the working people was seen or heard of in the city. The tenement house is as yet unknown, and many working people own their homes.

The deportment of the girls generally is orderly, and is a decided contrast to that of the girls in some of the other cities visited. The shop girls (sales women), though in no sense superior in intelligence, are quiet, respectable, and thrifty.

The work rooms are, in the main, good, and the treatment of employés of the best. Fines and docking for tardiness, etc., are excep tional.

San Francisco. The presence of the Chinese has had a considerable influence upon the industrial condition of San Francisco working women. For a number of years it has been the custom to employ Chinese as house servants almost exclusively. Since the restriction act has lessened the supply of Chinese, San Francisco housewives have attempted to get white girls to do house work. To get them is very difficult. House service has so long been the special field of the Chinese that the white girls feel there is something degrading in the work. The same girls who refuse house service will perhaps accept work in a

cigar factory, which although employing Chinese, is not preeminently the Chinese field of labor. In fact, in one or two cigar factories visited by the agent of the Department, white girls were found working at benches side by side with Chinese.

The fruit canneries of San Francisco afford temporary employment to a large number of women and girls. During the season, which lasts from the 1st of June to the latter part of August, these canneries employ hundreds of girls. The rest of the year the cannery girls go to school, engage in domestic service, or stay at home. In the canneries of San José, Oakland, and other neighboring towns, the girls employed are often of good family and education, some being school teachers who thus spend a portion of their vacation in a not unpleasant occupation that brings them "pin money." In San Francisco the fruit cannery employés are, as a rule, of a lower class. The canneries are usually in a very dirty, unhealthy condition, crowded with a motley array of people of all races and of both sexes, and the women employed in them are less intelligent and respectable than those in the canneries throughout the rest of the state.

The poorest class of women in San Francisco are the seamstresses. A number of institutions were discovered by the agent of the Department where a regular system of fraud was being practiced upon the defenceless sewing women. The general plan of such frauds is, in brief, as follows: A standing advertisement is kept in the papers asking for girls to do tailor sewing. When a girl applies she is told that it will take her several weeks to learn the work, but that after she has learned good wages will be paid. The girl accepts and goes to work, and after four or five weeks, when she demands pay for her work, she is told that she is not satisfactory; that she can not be employed. The agent found cases of this kind where women had not only given their labor, but had also brought their sewing machines to the fraudulent factory and given the use of them, and at the end of the month or more had been sent away without pay. The exposure of this system, which was practised by a number of disreputable firms in San Francisco, led to a mass meeting at which a sewing girl's union was formed, one of the objects of which is to prevent such frauds and to prosecute them when perpetrated. Almost all the necessaries of life are dearer in San Francisco than in eastern cities, but to counteract this wages are slightly higher, and the mildness and evenness of the climate enables the working woman to do with less fuel, less clothing, and even less food. It seldom happens that a San Francisco working woman spends anything for fuel except for cooking purposes.

Savannah.-Industrial pursuits are almost closed to girls in Savannah, partly because of a lingering prejudice against the entrance of woman into the struggle for livelihood, and partly because the chief industry of the city-the buying, handling, and shipping of cotton-affords no scope for the employment of women.

In the dry goods stores, however, girls are largely employed, and they are also to be found in a few bookbinderies and bakeries, in dressmaking establishments, and in the cotton mill. The laundries here, as elsewhere throughout the South, are almost monopolized by colored help.

The cost of living is rather high in Savannah, but actual want is rare. The homes are separate frame dwellings, and are well situated and comfortable. The sewerage is good and the sanitary conditions generally well cared for. The health of the girls is good and their education above the average in neighboring cities.

The conditions under which the girls work in the dry goods stores are generally favorable, except in the particular of late hours. The general rule in the city is to keep the stores open until 8 or 9 o'clock every evening, and until 10 or 11 o'clock on Saturday evening. The relations between the girls and their employers are most kindly, and restrictions and discontent are extremely rare.

Parochial schools are a feature of educational life in Savannah, and are recognized and partly supported under the public school system. Church attendance is general among the working girls, and moral standards are high.