The following discussion would have been impossible without the hearty co-operation of the thousand and more employers and the seven hundred employees who filled out the schedules distributed. The great majority of these were personally unknown to the writer, and she can express only in this public way her deep appreciation of their kindness, as she also wishes to do to the many friends, known and unknown, who assisted in distributing the schedules. She also desires to express her obligation to the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, for help received in preparing the schedules and for the receipt of advance sheets from the Census of 1890; to the Hon. Horace G. Wadlin and Mr. Charles F. Pidgin, for the courtesies extended at the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, and also to Professor Davis R. Dewey, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; to Dean Marion Talbot of the University of Chicago, and to Professor Mary Roberts Smith, of the Leland Stanford Junior University; to Mrs. John Wilkinson of Chicago, Mrs. John H. Converse of Philadelphia, and Mrs. Helen Hiscock Backus of Brooklyn, for their constant encouragement and assistance in the work. Most of all the writer is under obligation to Miss A. Underhill for her assistance in reading both the manuscript and the proof of the work, and for the preparation of the Index. Articles bearing on the subject have at different times appeared in the _Papers of the American Statistical Association_, _The New England Magazine_, _The Cosmopolitan_, and _The Forum_. These have been freely used in the work, and the writer acknowledges the courtesy of the publishers and editors of these periodicals in allowing this use of her papers. JANUARY 18, 1897. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION It has seemed advisable in sending out a second edition of this work to add a supplementary chapter on the condition of domestic service in Europe. This is based largely on the inquiries made in season and out of season at different times during the past ten years of heads of households and of housekeepers in England, France, Germany, and Italy. It has naturally been impossible to sum up in a single chapter the mass of information thus gleaned, but a few features common to all of these countries have been indicated, as well as some peculiar to each. The literature bearing directly on the subject is very meagre, but a few titles have been indicated. For information bearing on this part of the work, I am under special obligation to M. Levasseur of Paris, to Miss Collet of the Labor Department of the Board of Trade, London, to Miss E. M. Hall of Rome, to Professor Victor Böhmert, recently of the Royal Statistical Bureau, Dresden, and to Mrs. J. H. W. Stuckenberg of Cambridge, recently of Berlin. JANUARY, 1901. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION