=The Sweat-Shop.= The sweat-shop, in most cases, is a home that has been turned into a factory. The father or mother goes to the manufacturer of clothing and agrees to furnish so many pairs of pants or waists or shirts for so much money. The worker carries these garments to the home and all the family go to work upon the job. Many of these homes are one-room affairs, so that in many instances the work is carried on in the room where the cooking is done; where the meals are eaten and where the family sleeps. Legislation has done much to eliminate the sweat-shops, and sweating as a system is under the ban. Every church and every individual in the church ought to know all about the work of the National Consumers’ League. This organization inspects factories and workshops and issues a stamp or label that is attached to all garments made under clean, humane, healthful, and fair conditions. Information can be secured by writing to Mrs. Florence Kelly, 289 Fourth Avenue, New York. Look for this label when you buy any garment. Low wages make possible the continuation of the sweat-shop system. In a family where the wage-earner receives less than enough for its subsistence, or for some reason or other the earnings are decreased to a rate at which the family cannot live, it becomes necessary to supplement the family income. Wife and children go to work, boarders and lodgers are taken into the home, and the standardization of living is so lowered that normal conditions of home life are impossible. In a study made of the garment trades it was found that in the homes where work is being done for a profit only about 11 per cent. of the husbands in these families earned $500 or more a year, while more than one half of them earned $300 or less a year. =The Task System.= A study of conditions in the dressmaking industry was made by the United States government. The results of this study showed that we never can get back to the old state of affairs. We have entered into a new period of production and this must continue. The task system prevails in a large number of the garment-making shops. By the task system is meant that the work on a garment is done by a team of three persons consisting of a machine-operator, a baster, and a finisher. Every three teams have two pressers and several girls to sew on the pockets and buttons that are necessary for the completion of the garment. There is essentially a fine adjustment within the team, so that each one completes his work in time to pass it on to the next one as soon as the latter is ready to receive it. A certain amount of work is called a task, and this amount is supposed to be done within a day. Forced competition has gradually increased the amount of the task, until frequently even with the most strenuous activity the task cannot be completed without working twelve and fourteen hours a day. The wages paid are based upon the utmost that the best individual in the team can do in a day.