614 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
shops gives a half-holiday on Saturday all the year around, as the Swedish shops do in the slack months. One man, a tailor working by himself, said that in the seven or eight months of his busy season he worked from ten to eighteen hours per day and often all night to fill his employer's orders on time. In this part of the year he could make about $20 per week.
Two of the Polish shops were in basement rooms, and three were over or near stables. One of the workshops deserved no better name than barn, and that not a neat nor sweet-smelling one. Four of the shops were very crowded, and one of those in basement rooms had oppressively low ceilings. In all but four shops the light was not better than fair or poor. Only three of the shops were filthy, but not more than four were more than fairly clean. The ventilation in the winter time is dreadful ; windows are kept tightly closed so that as little fire as possible will be necessary. Except in the winter it is not quite so bad. 1
The average conditions in all the shops may be noted from the accompanying tables.
Altogether 34 shops were visited, in which 315 females and 201 males were at work. In 16 of the shops coats were being made, pants in 7, cloaks, skirts, or suits in 5, knee-pants in 3, and vests in 2 ; foot-power was used in all but 5 shops ; only 13 were busy twelve months in the year ; the hours were reported as more than ten in 9 shops, and less than ten in only 3 ; 1 1 shops were in rear tenements or had alley frontage, and 2 were in basements ; the size and cleanliness of the rooms were usually fairly satisfactory, but 5 were crowded and 6 were filthy ; the ventilation was bad in 23 shops and good in only 3 ; the light was poor in 7 shops and good in less than a third of the whole number.
Wages were almost always paid by the piece, once in two weeks. Polish operators received an average wage of $8.03, the handworkers $4.10, the pressers $9.75, and the home finishers $3.25; while the general average for all the Polish workers was $6.28. The average wage of the Jewish operators was $11.42, of the handworkers $5.14, pressers $11.22, home finishers $2.18,
1 Personal investigation. See accompanying tables.
