valid than those of the wretched and unknown
designers of monstrosity. Englishwomen would
all gladly follow a good lead. Many a good woman
in middle life would be saved from ruining her
husband by mockery of the extravagance and
folly of the female court of France— which has
a great deal in it not desirable to be imitated
anywhere.

As for the general chances of bread-winning
by girls or young women in London, they
scarcely promise the half-loaf that is better
than no bread. While the daughters of a
respectable mechanic are yet young they may add
to the family income; but when it comes, later
in life, to self-support by bugling, or bead-work,
embroidery, feather-trimming, chenille and hair
or silk net-making, blonde-joining, cap-making,
dressmaking, it is all dreary and almost hopeless
struggle. Changes of fashion sometimes
throw the girls out of employ. Buglers who
used to advertise for hundreds of hands are
now themselves bankrupt. We have met with
one woman whose sole occupation was to make
the cockades or rosettes with which the
carriage horses of the polite world are adorned on
the days of the Queen's drawing-rooms, and
other important state occasions. She was a
person of unsteady habits, but, when she chose
to work, could earn with ease three or four
pounds a week in the season. No one could be
found by the harness-makers so well able to
give style and fashion to those ornaments.

In an ill-ventilated room in a dark alley in the
east of London, we have seen a woman and seven
children, boys and girls, engaged in making
birdcages. The woman's husband, who had been
in this trade, was dead, and, after his death, she
went on with the labour. One child cut the
thin wood into proper shapes, the woman with
singular rapidity fixed the slips together, others
prepared the wires and put them into their
right position, others were engaged in polishing
and finishing the work. But, notwithstanding
all these efforts, their income was miserably
small. The woman had no capital. At times
the dealers became overstocked with cages;
then, such was the need of the family, that it was
necessary to sell them for any sum that might
be offered.

In several neighbourhoods many women and
young girls make a scanty income by the French-
polishing of furniture, barometer-cases, and the
like. Print and map-colouring is also a kind
of work, on which, notwithstanding the large
quantity of colour-printing now done by
machinery, many females are employed. In this way,
often in miserable rooms, father, mother, and all
the children who are able, work at a large table.
The most skilful tint the faces, hands, and other
delicate parts of figures; others colour the blue,
red, green, and other portions of the drapery,
backgrounds, &c., so that when a print has
been passed round the board, the colouring is
finished. There are various forms of this work;
that which requires artistic ability is the best paid
for; but in the homes of most print-colourers,
even when well employed, there is evidently
great distress. The work, too, is, for the most
part, uncertain. Towards Valentine's-day and
Christmas there is generally a rush of business;
at other periods, the families dependent on
such work are often brought to the brink of
starvation. Yet the persons thus engaged do
not think of combining this with other work,
or putting their children, either boys or girls,
to trades by which they might obtain a better
income. The artificial flower-workers are not
much better circumstanced, and among the
tailors, especially those who are engaged in slop
work and in making clothes for the use of the
army, such is the competition (particularly since
the introduction of the sewing-machine), that by
the produce of his own labour a man cannot
exist; he is obliged, therefore, to use the assistance
of his wife and daughters. Even very
little children toil early and late; and, when all
this work is done, the week's wages are often
not so much as twenty shillings.

In a small unwholesome room, in a house
crowded with people, we have found a widow,
well educated and once in good circumstances,
with three daughters between fourteen and
twenty years of age, who struggled to live by
the making of boys' caps. Their whole income,
one week with the other, was under twelve
shillings. The rent of their room was half-a-
crown a week. In the eastern districts of the
metropolis, in the neighbourhood of the docks,
and by the river-side, there are many females
engaged in making coal, corn, and other sacks.
This is a rough, hard, and ill-paid work.

Women and girls also sort bristles, and make
them into packets for the brush-makers. Any
one quick at this, could earn from nine shillings
to eleven shillings a week. In some dismal
places we have seen women making flowers
into bouquets. In apartments, the condition
of which it is sad to think of, without furniture,
the walls mouldy and rotten, women
and children are to be seen chopping firewood.
Sometimes they have no wood to chop; then
there is distress indeed. A little while ago, the
binding of boots and shoes used to be a fair
means of employment for women; this is
now chiefly done by machinery, and it is to
be noticed that in various ways the employment
of women is being removed from their
own homes into workrooms and manufactories,
where they are decently paid.

Many young girls are engaged in folding
envelopes; but for this work, steam-machinery has
also been brought into use. Many young females
assist in the bookbinding business, in the packing-
rooms of pickling warehouses, and in several
kinds of manufactories. In connexion with the
great fruit and vegetable markets of the metropolis,
women and girls are employed in larger or
smaller numbers according to the season; but
this is a very uncertain means of livelihood.
Female compositors in printing-offices, female
copying-clerks, and, if possible, female
hairdressers, are to be tried and talked of. Clearly,
however, it will be long before there will be for
a self-dependent orphan girl any safe and good