The bookbinders have always been ready to point out that certain parts of their work are too heavy for women, and the compositors have done the same. The latter also show that consumption is a trade disease amongst them, and recently have defended their attempts to exclude women from working the linotype on the ground that the fumes and gases which are generated by its typefounding arrangement are injurious to health. They also maintain that standing for long periods at a stretch is injurious to women, but in at least one large printing firm in the provinces women were seen by our investigators setting type whilst sitting on stools in front of the case. The conditions of some wallpaper factories seem to be unhealthy, partly owing to the hot air, the smell, and some of the material used, especially the arsenic. Some reports state that the constant "standing about" necessary in these trades gives headaches and produces anæmia. What valid objection there is against married women leaving their homes and children for long periods at a time during the day, must of course be added to this, in common with all other kinds of continuous work in which married women engage, but there is no special danger to life or health in these industries from which the coming generation may suffer.
[CHAPTER X.] WAGES.
We have succeeded in getting the authentic records of wages from about eighteen firms in London, representing every branch of work in connection with printing, binding, and despatch, and employing together 1,000 hands—more in busy, less in slack weeks. We have also less detailed information about some half-dozen other firms.
These studied together and apart will no doubt give a correct general impression of the amount and variability of wages paid, but circumstances have made it very difficult to group them so as to give a simple bird's-eye view of the whole.
These circumstances are partly due to the very great differences between the class of work done by the various firms, and the difficulty of tabulating the workers under a few definite heads; partly to the difficulty of collecting records. Our investigators were recommended:—
i. To get complete wage sheets for as many weeks as their time and the courtesy of the manager allowed, making the record as complete as possible for 1899, and extending their researches back as far as the books existed, choosing the wage sheets of one week in every month.
ii. To trace individual workers through as long a period as possible, choosing workers who would best illustrate all the various conditions of employment.
iii. To note any other information.