358 



jaEPORT — 1903. 



London wages have risen. The estimate of the general manager of a 

 large laundry company with various branch establishments, that piece- 

 work wages have risen for ironers in the ten years, from 1B93 to 1903, 

 10 percent, all round, is certainly applicablein other steam laundries as well. 

 The following is his table of rates of wages for different classes of workers ; — 



No class of worker would seem to have benefited more than the 

 packers, whose houi's have been so considerably reduced liy the Act. The 

 washers, men and Vjoys, more often men, the folders and the manglers, 

 alone appear to have remained stationary, or ne^i'ly so, in wages. 



(c) Use of Maclihien/ and Orgcmi&ation of Lcdiour. 



The development of the industry from the domestic to tlie factory 

 system has aU-eady been referred to in quotations from the Factory 

 Act Commissioners' Report of LSTH-G. No more .striking contrast can 

 be produced than that between the account given l)y the principal witness 

 of tiie organisation of the work, then, and in the latest reports of the 

 Factory Inspectors. According to his experience in 1875, whereas 

 machinery was becoming much more largely employed in washing processes, 

 the only things which could be ' ironed by machinery, are things as straight 

 as a piece of paper, tablecloths, pillow-cases. . . . You could not put a 

 shirt into a machine to bo ironed or anything with gathers in it. . . . 

 The mechanical irons heated by gas at the Army Clothing Factory would 

 be totally useless with respect to linen.' For some time it has been a 

 conniion-place that the most elaborate developments of laundry 

 machinery are to be found in the fine ironing departments of body-linen 

 of all kinds, and of this the most marked consequence has been the de- 

 velopment of employment of girl-labour. The proof of growth of use of 

 ironing-machinery is to be seen in the fact that more than half of the total 

 accidents reported from laundries are caused by ironing-machinery ; in 

 1902, 1.52 out of 26.S, in 1901, 148 out of 289, in 1900, 111 out of 240.i 

 In her report for 1900, Miss Deane referred pai'ticularly to the extent of 

 subdivision of labour and use of labour-saving machinery in this branch. 



' For details see ^nalysjs, pp. 162 and ff. jn the Annual Befort of the Chief 

 Jiispector fo}- 1.902. 



