GIRLS IN MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS.--We need also a new departure in our manufacturing centers. Manufacturing as now conducted is a far less healthy occupation than agriculture and horticulture. The reason for this is that workmen and workwomen and even children in most mills and factories are exposed for hours at a time to an atmosphere which is loaded with dust and the debris of cotton, of wool, and often to that worst of all dust which comes from shoddy and rags. They are also, in many cases, kept away from light, and in cramped positions, and this, continued for years, slowly deteriorates the constitution; and if, in case of a war, we were obliged to enlist a large army, we should find a far less number of able bodied men among the factory workers than among the farmers. Let me give you a picture, perhaps one of the very worst to be seen anywhere, of a visit to a New England paper mill. "We left, with a company of ladies and gentlemen, the light of a mellow afternoon to climb some steep and dusty stairs under the courteous guidance of a superintendent. We had hoped to 'see it all,' 'but that was quite impossible,' said our guide, 'since the room where the rags are sorted is so dusty that the gowns of the ladies would be ruined.' So we contented ourselves with less dangerous rooms. But even about the stairway the dust cloud hung heavily, obscuring the sight and choking the breath. From the narrow landing the room, into which it was impossible to venture, was in full view. It was long and large. From end to end were ranged huge boxes, waist high. Fastened to each were two inverted swords on whose sharp blades the workers cut the piled-up masses of rags, shredding them for the bleaching boiler. All the floor was covered with rags, billows upon billows of soiled white pieces, in which the toilers stood, their feet buried deep beneath the dirty, tattered material. "Not a word was spoken. Even where we stood speech was difficult, so completely did the thick dust fill eyes, mouth and nostrils, choking, blinding and exasperating. The effect of this perfect silence was oppressive. A certain solemnity hung over the place. Through the fog of dust the figures loomed unnaturally large. All the workers were white and hollow-cheeked, with great sunken eyes, emphasized by the circles underneath. Each woman had bound upon her head some rag, larger or finer than the rest, to protect her hair, and the gray-white bands folded straight across the forehead showed weirdly in the dim half-light. "As they stood there in long, silent rows, cutting, _cutting_, CUTTING, they looked like the priestesses of some ancient and frightful ceremonial. We were glad to escape, to exchange the dust, the grime, the wan faces, and the burning eyes for the breath of cool wind, the full glow of the sunlight, and the face of nature herself, so many of whose human children have no time to know or learn her ways.