graves, and these permanent paupers are not able to rest alone in the few feet of earth we should all possess at the last. It is true that esprit du corps is increased by education, and there is no better way of promoting organization than to pass laws in all the States making education to the age of fourteen compulsory. However, the most ignorant working-women of the present day are not entirely without esprit du corps. They help each other. Such reasons as these I have named are commonly given. Not so commonly mentioned is the one that, as women have no voice in the laws controlling their industrial circumstances, they find organization more difficult than men do. Working-women, through their misfortune or fault, do not always recognize this. Some girls withdrew from the Knights of Labor because their meetings kept them up until twelve o'clock; very sensible objection. Besides, there was so much talk about politics. They were out of political matters, and did not have sufficient foresight to prepare themselves for the day when they will be in. Organize; do not wait for great numbers. Remember that Uriah S. Stevens, a tailor of Philadelphia, with eight. friends, organized the Knights of Labor. It is the consuming fire of earnestness that must burn the stubble of the present industrial system, and this divine gift is not confined to great numbers or to great minds. Is it not true of any reform that not many rich, not many mighty, not many noble are called? And is there nothing for you to do who are not workingwomen? Organize for their protection. Enforce the laws in their favor. Memorialize legislatures until new laws are enacted. Is it not discreditable to be a conservative through tradition or prejudice alone? Mr. Mallock says: "First of all, conservatives need increased knowledge and clearness with regard to economic science." Said Christ, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye can discern the face of the sky, but ye can not discern the signs of the times." If there is one successful woman here who rejoices merely in the triumphs of her own individualism, let her glory in the service she may do for others, to promote the solidarity of humanity, for I declare to you this only is woman's chief glory. Oh, remember that the industrial interests of woman mean not the interests of the working people alone, but a higher life for the masses. using that word not to mean, as it once did, all outside of a privileged class, but all sorts and conditions of men, the crowned and the uncrowned, the rich and the poor, the enlightened and the ignorant. If one member of this great humanity is oppressed, the whole must suffer. THE WOMEN'S PROTECTIVE AND PROVIDENT LEAGUE OF GLASGOW — PAPER BY E. E. ANDERSON OF SCOTLAND. The Women's Protective and Provident League of Glasgow was founded in 1888. It is a union exclusively for women, and has a membership of over one thousand women. workers drawn from various trades, including weavers, tailoresses, umbrella-makers, dressmakers, polishers, biscuitpackers, etc. The main objects of the Women's Protective and Provident League are to secure for women workers better wages, shorter hours, healthy workrooms, aliment in sickness and want of work, and settlement of trade disputes without strikes. The need for women's unions has long attracted the attention of the more enlightened and far-seeing philanthropic portion of the community, and it is cause for congratulation that the prejudices that formerly existed against trades unions are rapidly dying out, because the best employers regard them as a useful agency, not alone in the interest of the worker, but as a defense against the unscrupulous employer, who undersells his goods in the open market by reducing his wage-scale to the lowest possible level, and paralyzes the trade of the master who endeavors to deal justly with his employés and give them "a fair day's wage for a fair day's labor." To show that women who have to earn their own living or contribute to the support of their families are compelled to do so under the hardest possible conditions, we have but to point to the low wages in the various trades in which they are employed. In the tailoring trade, for example, for finishing a pair of men's trousers a competent woman worker is paid from a penny to four pence half-penny; for making a man's vest she is paid one shilling nine pence, whereas a man receives for the same garment, identical in every respect, three shillings six pence; and as to the comparative quality of the work, we have the assurance of the men tailors themselves that fine white vests or black vests are, as a rule, exclusively made by women, because of their superior skill. Umbrella-workers are paid as hemmers and coverers at the rate of six and one-half pence a dozen. Shirt-finishers are known also frequently to receive seven and one-half pence per dozen; that is, for making the button-holes, sewing on the buttons, hemming down neckband, wristbands, gussets, and inside of sleeves, and feathering the breasts of flannel or tweed shirts. These are comparatively skilled workers; but there are thousands of young women engaged from day to day in many occupations that yield only starvation wages in return for a ten or twelve hour day's labor. Among such are girls employed in confectionery work and jam-making, who wash jam-pots at four and one-half pence a gross, standing for hours at a stretch on wet, sloppy floors, and others who draw the jam from the boiling pots, wheel it in heavy hand-barrows alongside the stacks of jam-jars and fill them with the boiling mixture, at a set wage of from five to seven shillings a week. In addition to these low wages the workers have frequently to endure the most disgraceful sanitary conditions; some women, such as are known as hollow-ware workers, having to do a great part of their work in the drying-ovens; and tailoresses having to work in the employer's premises or in the sweater's den in stifling atmospheres in which it is impossible to preserve health. We know of one instance, in an admittedly respectable tailor's shop in this city of Glasgow, where a young woman was found at work in a closet a few feet square, of which the only ventilation was into the men's lavatory. Of course such conditions are a direct contravention of the Public Health Act, but it is a well-known fact that women will endure any amount of suffering rather than lay themselves open to discovery or suspicion on the part of the employer that may lead to their summary dismissal. This points to the further statement that women workers are their own worst enemies, and are themselves to blame for the little headway that the women's unions have made all over the country. What are the sixty thousand women who have joined unions for trade protection compared with the great mass of women workers scattered far and wide over the land? While men's unions have secured for them fair remuneration for their day's labor, and many concessions that were practically unknown twenty or thirty years ago, the women workers of to-day have yet to learn the value of combi nation. The difficulty of organizing women is almost insuperable so long as there are found workers who will step in and, for a miserable pittance, take the place of the female operator who stands out for a decent wage wherewith to keep soul and body together. There are young women by thousands living in their parents' comfortable homes who are content to earn a few shillings weekly so that they may live more at ease; others, the wives and daughters of idle or drunken husbands or fathers, are compelled to take whatever the employer chooses to offer; and widows, with families to support, who have no choice but to accept the white slavery that the labor market offers as the only refuge from starvation. Still further, there is the natural timidity of women to combat when endeavoring to organize them. Anything that savors of resistance, however unjust and ill-conditioned the demands may be, or any action on their part that may lead to possible censure from the employer, is a danger too great to be faced. Thus it is that cheap labor and female labor are interchangeable terms. These are but a few of the considerations that led to the formation of the Glasgow Women's Protective and Provident League. COÖPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING ADDRESS BY MARY Mrs. Stuckert concluded an elaborate discussion of the principles of coöperation as applied to domestic life. Mrs. Stuckert outlined her own plan for erecting buildings that would accommodate a large number of families. The plan comprises the following points: Forty-four houses will be built around an oblong block, the houses varying in size from four to twelve rooms. In the center of the block will be a building containing on the first floor a kitchen, laundry, and dining-room; on the second floor, apartments for the accommodation of all the help; on the third floor, an entertainment hall, library and reading-rooms, and apartments for kindergartens. From machinery in the basement of this central building the entire surrounding block will be heated and lighted. The central building also contains cold storage and an ice plant. Between the central building and the surrounding homes extends a large court, surrounded by a promenade. The management of the whole is to be consigned to a board of directors, under whom a superintendent will do the buying and bookkeeping of the establishment and give a general supervision to the practical conduct of all the work carried on in the central building. Only skilled |