ON women's labour. 301 



young prisons ai-e not at work the men generally have to leave off. 

 This has not had the effect of keeping women out of the trade or of 

 introduciog more of them in proportion. It has simply had the effect of 

 spreadiing the work over a longer period. It affects all employers alike, 

 and tlierefore does not press unfairly on any one. 



Years ago it was the custom to work day-work indoors and 

 piece-work outdoors. Women were often allowed to take work 

 'home after the day was done, to finish and return on the morrow. 

 •Generally this was at their own request ; sometimes it was required of 

 them. Manufacturers found it did not pay. The women were not so 

 fresh next day after working half the night, and in some cases were 

 'tempted to ' slack ' work during the day, so as to have it to do at night. 

 It also made them irregular in attendance, and it did not pay the employer 

 to have his capital lying idle. The women bought their own machines 

 for home work, and their employers bought the factory machines. The 

 employers, therefore, wanted the work done as much as possible on their 

 machines, and the custom was dying gradually. The Acts of 1891 and 1895 

 entirely- killed it, and I could not now find a case of its being done illegally. 



I cannot find that this change has affected any other workers than 

 those immediately concerned. 



The requirements of the Acts have also induced an extension of the 

 factory system owing to the enforcement of the ' health ' regulations. 

 Formerly the industry was carried on in small dilapidated workshops, 

 unsanitary, and affording no separate conveniences for the two sexes. 

 Bit by bit these older places have been improved or done away with,, 

 chiefly because of the continual objections of the factory inspectors that 

 they did not fulfil the requirements of the ' health clauses ' of the Acts. 

 Only the larger manufacturers could afford to make the required altera- 

 tions, and manufacture on a large scale has thus been accelerated. 



The extension of the principle of limited liability to the trade seemS' 

 to account for some of the improvement in sanitary arrangements. When 

 the trade was a non-machinery one, and where it is so now, as in parts of 

 Kingswood, the sanitation only just reaches the minimum of the law ; but 

 where the large factories have been erected and run with plenty of capital 

 (limited liability) and expensive machinery, the sanitation is very good. 

 This also applies to the stay and clothing trades. Miss Collet, when 

 visiting Bristol for the Labour Commission, commented in her report on 

 the poorness of Bristol factories except two, the cocoa-works and the 

 Bedminster tobacco-works. Since her arrival there has been a rapid 

 extension of the factory system for women, and the methods in the boot, 

 stay, and clothing trades have all been revolutionised by the introduction 

 of the power sewing-machine and by the production on a large scale 

 for export. Several new factories have been erected, either inside the 

 city or in the adjoining neighbourhoods where the electric trams run, and 

 these have the most modern sanitary conveniences, lofty rooms, improved 

 methods of warming, and everything which is calculated to get more and 

 better work done and to keep the workers from minor ailments, as head- 

 aches, colds, &c., which in factories cause much irregularity of working. 

 Men cannot set up in business now on a small scale as they used to do, 

 and it was the small employers with wretched out-houses who offended 

 most against the sanitary and ventilation regulations. 



Thus, while the Acts have tended towards the substitution of large 

 manufacturers for small, the natural evolution of the industry has only 



