Numbering is the process by which consecutive figures are stamped upon cheques, bills, receipts, tickets, or other loose sheets. A machine worked by hand is employed, the number types changing automatically. The attention of the worker is required on three points only: the paper must be placed so as to bring the number into the right position; the machine must not be allowed to skip numbers at a jump—as it is inclined to do; and whenever an additional figure becomes necessary, a certain change must be made. The handle of the machine works up and down, and the process is different from that of stamping, to be described later. There are no power machines for numbering.
Numbering is said to try the eyes, and the working of a machine handle is considered bad for girls who have any weakness of the chest.
Paging is the process by which numbers are printed upon the pages of a bound volume. As in numbering, a change has to be made at each "100"; and there is need of further care to avoid missing pages. Where these are thin or interleaved with tissue paper omissions are very easily made.
Perforating is done by machines generally worked by power, but sometimes by treadle, with one foot; and this treadle work was described by a woman constantly employed at it as excessively hard work.
Lithography.—The work of women and girls in lithography seems to be confined to the feeding of machines. In London the introduction of female labour is comparatively recent, dating from about six or seven years ago, but in the provinces women have been employed for more than thirty years. Employers are, for some reason or another, not very ready to give information about this branch of work; but some of the investigators engaged in this enquiry have succeeded in seeing the process. A girl stands on a high platform putting sheets into the proper place in the machine until she has completed the job. A long interval may follow in which she may sew, knit or read. The noise of the machine is incessant, and the work hard, monotonous and mechanical, but if done under proper conditions not necessarily unhealthy. Many working-places in London, however, where space is so valuable, are partly underground, dark and ill-ventilated, and in these the ceaseless whirring noise and the smell of the ink grow unendurably trying. Workers in such places are rough and of low social standing. Most men working in the general stationery trades, and some employers who do not employ women, condemn the doing of this work by women, and since the women have superseded not men but boys, the views of the workmen are not those of trade rivals. Girls are said to be in various ways better workers than boys—cleaner-handed, more careful and accurate, less disposed to meddle with the machinery, and therefore less liable to accidents; above all, quieter, more docile, and less apt to strike. The men employed in lithography look favourably on the employment of girls, because no girl attempts to rise into the higher grades and "pick up" the trade without apprenticeship. Girls do not, and boys as feeders do, "constitute a danger to the Society." Moreover, a trade that offers only so uncertain a chance of rising is generally disapproved for a boy.
The objection to the employment for girls is that they work among men—an objection which may be a very grave one indeed, or a comparatively slight one, according to the character of the foreman and the management of the workshop. It may be noted that respectable working-class parents almost always consider this objection serious.
A few women are reported to be employed as lithographic artists, but no one has been seen in the course of this enquiry.
Minor stationery trades are envelope-making, black bordering, plain and relief stamping.
Envelope-making has several subdivisions. The paper is first cut to shape in machines worked by men, then passed to women to be "cemented," i.e., to be gummed upon the flaps, folded or "creased," and stuck together. Finally the envelopes are packed by women.
Cementing and folding are reckoned distinct trades. One cementer explained to an investigator, however, that she described herself as a folder, "for people are so ignorant that if you say you are a cementer they think you have something to do with the pavement." Cementing may be done by hand or by machine, and the workers are not interchangeable. The hand-worker spreads out the envelopes in the shape of a fan, and passes her brush over all the flaps at once. The machine-cementer puts 500 or 1,000 envelopes into a small machine, which grips them and drips gum upon their flaps. The worker extricates the envelopes one by one, and spreads them out to dry. A more complex machine is being introduced which performs the various processes for itself, requiring one girl to feed and one to take-off.