hence, with determination to do all possible with the means at hand, and being, under the circumstances, best able to work in the vicinity of the headquarters of the Bureau, there was begun, early in the year 1901, a careful canvass of the City and County of San Francisco, with view: (1) To determine the names and vocations in which wage-workers in said city and county principally find employment;

(2) The number of factories, mercantile houses, or establishments in each of said respective vocations;

(3) The number of adult males employed in each of said vocations; (4) The number of adult females employed in each of said vocations; (5) The number of minors, male and female, under twelve years of age, employed in each of said vocations;

(6) The number of minors, male and female, under sixteen and over twelve years of age, employed in each of said vocations:

(7) The number of minors, male and female, under eighteen and over sixteen years of age, employed in each of said vocations; ·

(8) The number of Chinese employed in each of said vocations; (9) The number of Japanese employed in each of said vocations. As regards Chinese it should be here noted that those referred to include only such as are employed by white employers; that is to say, they do not include those establishments in Chinatown which are owned, managed, and manned, exclusively, by and in the interests of Chinese.

The work of canvassing the City and County of San Francisco, as before said, was prosecuted as vigorously as ways and means permitted, and was completed within about eleven months, and thereby data were secured from which has been compiled the following table, which is selfexplanatory:

The foregoing table reveals, that in the course of the canvass hereinbefore named, 6,479 establishments, employing an aggregate of 67,745 persons, were visited by the agents of the Bureau; that of the said number of persons, 53,753 were males and 13,987 were females; that of the said males, 51,156 were adults, that is to say, for the purposes here, above the age of eighteen years, and 2,602 were minors under the age of

eighteen years; that of the said adult males, 49,340 were whites, 1,587 were Chinese, and 229 were Japanese; that of the said females, 12,956 were adults, that is to say, for the purposes here, above the age of eighteen years, and 1,031 were minors under the age of eighteen years; that of the said male minors, 25 were under the age of twelve years; 1,042 were under the age of sixteen and over the age of twelve years; 1,535 were under the age of eighteen and over the age of sixteen years; that of the said female minors, one was under the age of twelve years; 288 were under the age of sixteen years and over the age of twelve years, and 742 were under the age of eighteen years and over the age of sixteen years.

It is to be borne in mind that these figures refer solely to employés in manufacturing and mercantile establishments, and do not refer to persons employed as house servants, nor, in any considerable degree, to those employed in outdoor work.

Making reference to the law herein before cited, which prohibits altogether the employment of minors under twelve years of age, and restricts the number of hours which may be worked by those over twelve and under eighteen years to nine per day or an aggregate of fifty-four hours per week, the investigation here referred to developed that of the 3,633 minors employed, as therein shown, 25 males and 1 female were employed in violation of the law, they being under twelve years of age; that 443 males and 148 females under sixteen years and over twelve years of age were being required and permitted to work more than nine hours per day or an aggregate of more than fifty-four hours per week, in violation of the law; that 676 males and 202 females under eighteen and over sixteen years of age were being required and permitted to work more than nine hours per day, or an aggregate of more than fifty-four hours per week, in violation of the law; and that thus, in the matter of the employment of 1,490 of such minors, the law was being violated. Such being the case, and in an effort to cause compliance with the provisions of the law, in the matter of the said employment of minors, there was addressed to each of the 270 employers in the City and County of San Francisco appearing to be concerned in the aforesaid violation of the law, a copy of the following letter, to wit:

City:

BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, STATE OF CALIFORNIA,
SAN FRANCISCO, May 27, 1902.

DEAR SIR: Noting "An Act to regulate the employment, hours of labor, etc., of children, and to prohibit the employment of minors under a certain age," approved March 23, 1901 (Statutes of California, 1901, p. 631), copy of which was delivered to you some weeks since by the agents of this Bureau, and which Act, among other things, provides in substance: That no child under twelve years of age shall be employed in any factory, workshop, or mercantile establishment, and that no minor under the age of eighteen shall be employed in laboring in any manufacturing, mechanical, or mercantile estabishment, or other place of labor, more than nine hours in one day, etc., I beg to say: It is made to appear that there

employed in your establishment

minors

----

under the age of twelve years; also that there employed in said establishment.... minors under the age of eighteen years who, while thus employed, are required and permitted to work more than nine hours per calendar day, not in cases wherein the same is necessary in order to make repairs to prevent the interruption of the ordinary running of machinery in such establishment, and not in cases wherein the sole purpose of thus requiring and permitting said minors to work more than nine hours per day is to make a shorter day's work for one day of the week. And it further appears that the said minors, while thus employed, are required and permitted to work in excess of fifty-four hours per week. Hence, I beg to say:

That this Bureau will cause to be instituted proper proceedings for the prosecution of any violation of the aforesaid Act, which may be brought to its attention after this date, and I therefore trust that you will so modify the arrangements in your establishment as to hereafter cause compliance with the said law.

Yours very truly,

F. V. MEYERS,

Commissioner State Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The sending of copies of the foregoing letter, as abovesaid, was followed, wherever such course seemed necessary, by further communications from the Bureau, or by visits to the respective establishments by agents of the Bureau, with the result that within fairly reasonable time the proprietors of very nearly all of the 270 establishments, above referred to, had so modified their rules and arrangements as to cause full compliance with the law in question, and it is pleasant to note the generally cheerful manner in which these proprietors, as a rule, met the Bureau in this particular regard. In a few instances, it is true, there appeared a disposition to ignore or oppose the law, and in a limited number of cases that disposition apparently still continues. Such cases will have proper attention from the Bureau in due time, and it is also the purpose of the Bureau to extend this line of work to other cities and towns in the State as soon as ways and means permit.