One example of this practice was given by the Rev. H. W. Blunt in his evidence before the Commission of 1876. He says that much work was sent to be completed after factory hours. For instance, in one book-folding firm which had occasional rushes of work, a girl was employed till 11 p.m. on the Monday before Christmas. She was then told with the other girls that they must take home 1,000 quarto sheets to fold by the morning. Several did so, but she refused, because her mother was on the point of death, and the doctor said there must not be a light in the room. She was consequently dismissed at once. Mr. Blunt says further that religious "weeklies," the sheets of which came off the press at 12 o'clock at night, were sent out to be folded by 8 a.m. They were taken away in perambulators, children being employed to do this every week.
Work sent to "folding houses."
Another immediate result of legislation was the expedient of sending out work to "folding houses" which did not come within the definition of a factory or workshop. Such places may be premises belonging to a factory and yet separate from it. Mr. Henderson, of the Factory Department, in giving evidence before the Commission of 1876, says: "Some years ago I came across Messrs. X., where newspapers were folded wholesale by steam machinery, and I thought it was a factory. Messrs. X. resisted the idea. Boys were employed at irregular hours, but the Crown officers decided that it was not a factory." Christmas card packing and sorting are in the same position. Miss Deane, a lady factory inspector, who made a special investigation into the conditions of the Christmas card industry as recently as 1899, points out that many of the workplaces are outside the operation of the Act.
In the Report on Factories and Workshops for 1899, she says: "A large number of Christmas cards, almanacs, etc., are made in Germany and are sent to England, where girls are employed in sorting and repacking and arranging them, for the purpose of being sold wholesale. Such places, unless attached to some factory or workshop, being unregulated by the Act, the girls are without the protection afforded by the law regarding length of hours, meal-times, etc. It was impossible not to be struck by the difference between the conditions found in one such place and those found in the large airy sorting rooms of a publishing factory close by—yet the girls in the stuffy workroom of the former were without the protection given by the law in the latter workplace. A curious instance arose in connection with one such place where about forty girls had been employed in packing and sorting for illegal hours. The occupier took to employing some of them in affixing a minute bow of ribbon to the cards, and during this temporary employment all the girls could claim and were accorded the protection of the Factory Acts. Excessive hours in hitherto unsuspected workrooms were also found to be worked in the processes of adapting and preparing bonbons for sale. In some cases, baskets, boxes and bags, were trimmed for the reception of these articles, in others they were merely selected and arranged in patterns in fancy boxes subsequently tied up with ribbon. In the first case clearly, and in the last also probably, the definition of workshop under the Act applies. Instructions were given and better conditions have gained the day." Speaking of these unregulated workplaces, in the same report, Miss Deane remarks: "In the course of some inspections after midnight last winter near the City, I came across several of these workplaces where women, girls and children, were then at work under deplorable conditions—dirty rooms, foul, gassy air, and overcrowding. In one of them I was met by the observation that 'I might come in if I liked, but I could do nothing there.'"
The experience of two of our investigators corroborates the above statement. One of them says: "At about 2.45 a.m. we went to see newspapers folded by women in the City. It was done in an old tumble-down room opposite a printing shop. We peeped in through a chink in the shutters—it was a boiling night, and the shutters were closed—and we could see a man carrying in a load of paper from time to time. When we entered we found four women streaming with perspiration in the foul hot atmosphere, folding away at the ... News. They were quite friendly and communicative, and told us they came every Thursday night about 11 p.m. and stayed till they had done. They were paid three times as much as day-workers and did no regular work in the daytime. Before beginning work they had a cup of tea. They said they liked the work and were glad that the Factory Act could not stop them; the police had been round to them and also two young ladies, but nothing had happened; and they considered that they were quite old enough to do nightwork if they liked."
Folding houses are growing fewer in number owing, no doubt, to the fact that rent is so high in the City and space so valuable, that it is not worth while to erect them separate from a factory. Viewed also with dislike by factory inspectors as a means of evading the law, their tenure of life is not likely to be long.
Nightwork.
Employers admit that the effect of the Factory Acts has been to make them reduce nightwork. In criticising the Act before the Commission of 1876, Mr. Bell, of the firm of Darton, Bell and Thomas, bookbinders, says: "The Factory Act of 1867 has been a boon to employers and employed, because it has enabled us to put pressure on customers. Now we can say to the public 'We can't go beyond certain hours,' and, therefore, work not new has to be sent in earlier."
Mr. Darton, of the same firm, adds: "We have persuaded booksellers to give out stock work in June and July instead of September or October, and so begin the work earlier and avoid nightwork." This stimulus is undoubtedly good, and these views are echoed by other employers.
The whole question of how far the practical prohibition of overtime for women has limited the volume of work available for them, and thus diminished their aggregate wages, needs very careful consideration, as mistaken conclusions may easily be formed. The matter was carefully considered by a Committee of the Economic Section of the British Association, appointed in 1901, to enquire into the effect of special legislation on women, and the following extracts from its final report[67] are of some interest:—