The Association of Working Girls' Societies comprises fifteen active and four honorary clubs, with fifteen hundred members. Its inception and success is largely due to the efforts of Miss Grace H. Dodge, now one of the commissioners of education of New York city. The first of these societies had its origin in an upper room of a Tenth avenue tenement house, where with Miss Dodge were gathered a dozen girls whose days were spent in the factory or shop. For six weeks the society met in rooms offered free of charge, and by that time it numbered sixty members, each of whom pledged herself to pay 25 cents monthly dues. A constitution was adopted and rooms were rented for $25 per month. This same society now rents a large house for which it pays $125 per month, subletting a portion of it for $85 per month, thus reducing the net monthly cost to $40, which is fully met by fees and dues from members. During the year 1886–7 the total attendance at the rooms was 8,585, an average of 165 weekly. As in similar organizations, classes in dressmaking, millinery, cooking, embroidering, cutting and fitting, etc., have been organized and are well attended, the class membership in 1886-7 being 200. There are weekly "practical talks" given by the leader, and these form the most interesting and one of the most valuable features of the society. Such subjects as "Men friends," "How to get a husband," "Womanhood," "Purity," "Money, how to get it and how to keep it," "Accounts," "Characteristics," "Books," "Home life," are always popular, and the members never tire of them. Within this society is an organization for helping others poorer than themselves. From this, the parent society, have sprung many others similar in character and almost identical in the means taken to effect their purposes, nearly all having inside clubs, as just mentioned, for assisting the more needy. The association was formed in February, 1884, to strengthen, knit together, and protect the interests of the several societies, and at its annual meetings over a thousand working girls appear, besides hundreds of interested spectators holding cards of invitation. The characters of the girls composing these working girls' societies vary as greatly as do their incomes. A member of one club earns $50 a week; many earn little more in the whole year. Girls from the jute, carpet, and silk mills, the cigarette and box factories, and the tailor shops, mingle with dressmakers, saleswomen, and teachers. In a few of the clubs the very roughest type of the working girl is present, and it is astonishing to note the improvement in manners and the elevation in character which result from even a brief membership.

A valuable adjunct to the working girls' societies has been the establishment of "Holiday House." Through the generosity of a lady, a large and beautiful dwelling on the north shore of Long Island, with extensive outbuildings and 18 acres of meadow and woodland, has been purchased and made over to trustees for the sole use of the association as a vacation home or for other similar purposes. The house holds thirty girls without crowding, and has latent capacity for twenty more. 20997 L

It is neatly but simply furnished, and each club sends a certain number of girls during the summer to enjoy a short vacation. Each comer pays $3 a week, which secures all country luxuries in the way of food, invitingly cooked and served. The travelling expenses of these sojourners at "Holiday House" are met by the clubs in conjunction with the Working Girls' Vacation Society.

This latter organization, besides aiding the clubs to provide rest and recreation for their members, has its own independent field of labor. Girls are sent to quiet country homes where they may obtain rest and home comforts at low rates. Tickets at half rates are furnished to girls who have friends living at a distance, and excursion tickets to neighboring resorts are given to those who are unable to take long leaves. This society, which originated in the summer of 1883 among a few young ladies who were anxious to benefit working girls unable to leave the hot city for even a short vacation, has steadily grown and is developing new plans for usefulness.

An important experiment for elevating the poor by direct personal example, influence, and teaching was undertaken over a year ago by Dr. Stanton Coit, a leading member of the Society for Ethical Culture. The name "Neighborhood Guild" is significant of the principles and forces sought to be controlled and utilized-neighborly feeling and responsibility. Dr. Coit himself lives in a tenement house in one of the worst parts of the city, with two young clergymen of different denominations as his assistants. The founders of the Neighborhood Guild labor on the secular basis alone. They educate, teach cleanliness and thrift, and try to purify the lives of the families in their neighborhood. They reach the fathers, mothers, boys, girls, and all the little folks. They encourage industry and saving and provide harmless social pleasures which a whole household may share, emphasizing the importance of the family and striving to keep its ties intact. A club for boys and two for girls, a kindergarten, and mothers' meetings are all held in the same tenement. Entertainments are given, lectures are frequent, books are lent. Small contributions from neighboring tenants are applied to cleaning the street and other practical sanitation, and to furnishing an ice-water fountain in summer.

The Equity Club designs to secure for all working women fair pay for their services, and especially to place sewing women on a basis which will enable them to be independent of the "slop shops." For plain garments, such as they are accustomed to make, prices are given which are twice as high as the "bosses" pay. Sewing is secured from wealthy women, and garments made for the club are disposed of by a special saleswoman at equitable prices.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children exposes and prosecutes every foreman, "boss," or employer, who can be proved guilty of immoral practices towards young girls.

On Sunday afternoons at Cartier's Hall, No. 80 Fifth avenue, Miss

Henrietta Markstein gives free entertainments for working girls. These include vocal and instrumental music, readings, recitations, and incidents of travel, and the hall is filled with eager listeners.

The Working Women's Protective Union, No. 19 Clinton Place, states in its constitution that its object shall be—

To promote the interests of women who obtain a livelihood by employments other than household service.

This object shall be sought

(1) By securing for them legal protection from frauds and imposi tions free of expense.

(2) By appeals, respectfully but urgently made to employers, for wages proportioned to the work performed and to the cost of living, and such shortening of the hours of labor as is due to health and the requirements of household affairs.

(3) By seeking new and appropriate spheres of labor in departments not ordinarily occupied by women.

(4) By maintaining a registry, through which those out of work may obtain employment.

(5) By appeals to the community for that sympathy and support which are due to the otherwise defenceless condition of working women.

From 1863 to 1885, inclusive, this organization filed 290,415 applications for situations; it supplied 48,107 women with places, prosecuted 10,291 cases of fraud, etc., and recovered and paid over to working women $35,372.57 in sums averaging only $3.44, free of all cost to the

women.

The attorney employed by the union is present every Wednesday to hear complaints, give legal advice, and suggest remedies; and when milder measures fail, suit is entered against any person who attempts to defraud a complainant and is prosecuted to the end. It is safe to say that of the thousands of dollars collected by the union scarcely any could have been collected without the intervention of law, and the very existence of this union and the knowledge of its work and methods have made employers more careful in withholding from the working woman her just dues. The employment bureau of the union is conducted without any expense either to employer or employé, and has been of great value, as its record of nearly 50,000 situations secured amply attests.

Philadelphia. In the Home of the Young Women's Christian Association, No. 1117 Arch street, admission is limited to girls earning $6 per week or less. In few private dwellings are ventilation and cleanliness so rigidly enforced. The sleeping apartments are not heated save from the halls, but large reading, sewing, and lecture rooms, and a comfortable parlor and library compensate in some degree for this defect. Concerts and entertainments in the large hall and a bible class are sources of profit and pleasure. Residents pay $3 a week, including a limited number of pieces for the laundry. In rare instances the association makes up the deficit for a worthy girl unable to pay $3 per week. Roman Catholics are not admitted. There are accommodations for over one hundred women.

A night refuge, connected with the home, is entered by a separate stairway, and does not communicate with other parts of the house. Here 10 cents is charged for lodging and 10 cents for breakfast, and in needy cases no charge is made. Six single beds, toilet facilities, light, and heat are provided, and the beds are often engaged as early as 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and many applicants have to be turned away. To the Arch Street Home is attached a restaurant where three hundred or three hundred and fifty girls daily take dinner. Success proves its excellence and the need for similar enterprises elsewhere. The food is wholesome, clean, well cooked, and furnished at moderate prices. Girls may eat at the restaurant tables luncheons brought from home. Large toilet rooms with every convenience are of great advantage to employés of shops lacking these comforts.

The Clinton Street Boarding Home, under Episcopal patronage, occupies two commodious houses and contains fifty-two girls. There are reading and sewing rooms, a parlor, and six bath rooms, all on a more luxurious scale than in the Arch Street Home. The charge for board is $3 per week in advance, and this charge includes washing, ironing, and medical attendance when necessary. Applicants over twenty-five years of age are not accepted without the express consent of the managers. No limit is fixed as to the earnings of residents, who are mainly students designing to become self-supporting, milliners, dressmakers, saleswomen, bookkeepers, typewriters, and clerks. Religious services occur daily, but attendance upon them is optional. Roman Catholics are not received. Through an endowment fund medicine and nursing are supplied during illness, and girls in ill health or broken down by overwork are sent to the sea shore. Those who from illness or want of employment are unable to pay board are supported for the time.

The Temporary Home for Working Girls, on Fifth street, shelters convalescents out of hospitals, girls discharged or laid off, etc. Fees for board are required in most cases, though remitted at discretion. Three weeks' stay is allowed, and good reasons must be given for exceeding that limit. The house is always full.

The Girls' Friendly Society has active branches in Philadelphia. The New Century Guild of Working Women was founded for the improvement and recreation of working girls. The guild has a distinct organization and accomplishes the ends reached in New York by the Association of Working Girls' Societies, to which it formerly belonged. The yearly dues of the guild are $1, while hundreds of girls, not members, attend the evening classes, paying from 3 cents to 10 cents for the lessons. Over sixty different occupations are represented among the pupils. Instruction is given in many departments of useful knowledge, including the common English branches, millinery, dressmaking, embroidering, home elocution, home singing, stenography, typewriting, bookkeeping, English literature, German, and French. A labor exchange has been organized where the products of women's work are

sold. Another enterprise of the guild is the preparation of special food for invalids. Still another is a mending department, where darning, patching, etc., are done for the public. A gymnasium for women and children has also been established, where instruction is given by a professional lady teacher in such exercises as are prescribed by a physician who examines all pupils. A department of peripatetic house work has been instituted, through which accredited persons are sent to families by the day or hour to sweep, dust, and do chamber work. Menders, competent to repair anything from stockings to lace, are also furnished to families by the day or hour. The "Once-a-day Club," an inside organization, secures signatures among the girls to the following pledge: "I promise to try to do each day some one service, however small, for some one person whom I am under no obligation to serve." The rooms of the guild, in Girard street, are accessible to girls from many of the largest shops. Branches have also been established in the vicinity of the mills and factories. Seven hundred and twenty women are enrolled in the sixteen classes, exclusive of four guild circles for study, fortnightly lectures, and gymnasium instruction. No vacation fund exists, but one wealthy patroness, who owns a beautiful country home, invites a number of girls in succession to visit her. The committee on statistics of women's work publishes in the newspapers reports of the good things done by proprietors of mills, factories, and shops for the benefit of their employés, deeming that the public acknowledgment of good actions has a greater moral effect than the exposure of cases of oppression. The guild desires to found what might be called a trades college for women, a place where women may learn such trades as they are capable of following.

Providence.-The Women's Christian Association owns a large house in an agreeable locality, wherein it supports an excellent boarding home. The use of the building and the cost of fuel and gas are given by the association, all other expenses being met by the receipts from board. The price of board without room is $3 per week, one-third of this charge being remitted to those who can not return to midday dinner. Double rooms cost $2 per week; single rooms, 75 cents to 87 cents per week. Where earnings are small, reductions are made from these charges, and only the directress knows what each girl pays. Only well recommended Protestants are accepted as residents. Among the boarders are bookkeepers, typewriters, students, milliners, sales women, dressmakers, and tailoresses. Two large, pleasant parlors and a reception room are lighted and open every evening, and here the young women receive their friends.

Grace Memorial Home for Little Children is situated in the heart of the factory district. In this lovely home children from ten months to seven years of age, whose mothers work in the mills and are respectable, are received into the nursery or kindergarten, and are cared for and furnished with two good meals a day for 5 cents for one or 8 cents