But although matchbox-making is among the poorest of trades, there are others but a shade better. The wages of shirtmaking, for instance, are often extremely low, and are yet further reduced by the fact that the home worker provides cotton for sewing. I remember seeing, seventeen years ago, a young deserted wife who was trying to support herself and two young children by making shirts. These were flannel shirts of a fair quality, and were handed to her cut out. She did not sew on buttons nor make button holes; but except for these items made the shirt throughout, by machine, and put in a square of lining at the back of the neck. She was paid 1s. 2d. a dozen, and bought the cotton herself. She could make in a week “five dozen all but one”; for which the payment would be five shillings, eightpence and a fraction of a penny, less the cost of cotton, machine needles, oil, and perhaps hire of machine. At the _Daily News_ Exhibition of Sweated Industries was to be seen an elderly Scotchwoman cutting and making shirts from the first stitch to the last, who was a singularly intelligent, skilful, and industrious worker. For varying styles of shirts she received from 9½d. to 1s. 9½d. per dozen. “For the shirts paid at 1s. 9½d. per dozen the following work is required:—Make and line yoke and bottom bands, put in four gussets, hem skirts, run and fell side seams, make sleeves and put them in.... The shirts paid at 9d. per dozen require her to hem necks, button-stitch two stud holes, sew on six buttons and clip threads from all seams. The shirts at 1s. per dozen have two rows of feather stitching, six button holes, eight buttons, four seams bridged and eight fastenings made.”[4] The better sorts of these shirts were such as are worn, not by poor, but by well-to-do purchasers.