Here and there the conditions of this form of labor are of the best, but as a whole the saleswoman suffers not only from long-continued standing, but from bad air, ventilation having no place in the construction of the ordinary store. Separate dressing-rooms are a necessity, yet are only occasionally found, the system demanding that no outlay shall be made when it is possible to avoid it. Overheating and overcrowding, hastily eaten and improper food, are all causes of the weakness and anæmic condition so perceptible among shop and factory workers, these being divided into many classes. For a large proportion it can be said that they are tolerably educated, so far as our public-school system can be said to educate, and are hard-working, self-sacrificing, patient girls who have the American knack of dressing well on small outlay, and who have tastes and aspirations far beyond any means of gratifying them. For such girls the working-women's guilds and the Friendly societies--these last of English origin--have proved of inestimable service, giving them the opportunities long denied. In such guilds many of them receive the first real training of eye and hand and mind, learn what they can best do, and often develop a practical ability for larger and better work. Even in the lowest order filling the cheaper stores there is always a proportion eager to learn. But here, as in all ordinary methods of learning, the market is overstocked, and even the best-trained girl may sometimes fail of employment. Now and then one turns toward household service, but the mass prefer any cut in wages and any form of privation to what they regard as almost a final degradation. A multitude of their views on this point are recorded and will in time find place.