“I can’t keep a job longer than four months because I get so nervous.” “This is my second week and I’m nearly dead, the hours are so long.” “It would be the grandest thing in the world if they could do away with the twelve-hour day.” To resist the unavoidable strain of the work, the restaurant worker must be in a normal, healthy state of mind and body. Our responsibility lies in seeing to it that conditions are such as to make this possible. The results of fatigue do not end with the individual. It is common knowledge that health depends upon the power to resist disease. The person who has overworked is not only subject to the devastating action of fatigue poisons, but is a prey to any infections to which he may be exposed because he cannot throw them off. Working conditions which render large numbers of men and women susceptible to disease, and hence capable of spreading it, are a public menace. To allow such conditions to continue unchecked is inexcusable negligence. These facts point directly to the crying need for the limitation of hours for women in restaurants, that the individual worker may be protected from overstrain, that the community may be guarded from the spread of contagious disease by people predisposed to infection through fatigue, and that the children of these women may be strong and capable of becoming useful citizens. It must be conceded that the difficulty of regulating hours in restaurants is much greater than in mercantile establishments. Restaurants must be open for a longer period each day than any store needs to be or is likely to be. But the difficulties are not insuperable. By working the employees in shifts of nine consecutive hours a day and six days a week, and by replacing women by men for night duty, the most undesirable features of restaurant work would be abolished. Such a plan has already been tried successfully in a number of New York restaurants, proving that it is possible and feasible to regulate hours. To limit by law the hours of labor for women employed in restaurants cannot be considered a new or revolutionary step. New York is already far behind the majority of other states in this respect. At the present time, twenty-seven states regulate the number of hours that women may work in restaurants, five having the eight-hour day.[13] Clearly, therefore, the establishment of a normal working day for this class of workers is not only reasonable, but, in the opinion of the greater number of states, it is essential to the best welfare of their people as a whole. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR LEGISLATIVE AMENDMENT. In view of the evidence brought to bear upon the subject, The Consumers’ League wishes to urge the inclusion of women restaurant workers under the Mercantile Law, the general provisions of which are: (1) That the working day shall not exceed nine (9) and the working week fifty-four (54) hours. (2) That women shall not be employed between the hours of 10 p. m. and 7 a. m.