The expenses of a waitress are often considerable; she almost always has to pay for the washing of the aprons, collars and cuffs that are a part of her uniform, and in most cases to provide them. As nearly every company has its different pattern the articles are apt to become useless when employment is changed. Moreover in some restaurants and refreshment-rooms, all breakages, whether made by them or by customers, are paid for by the assistants. I have known girls subject to this deduction who complained that they received no statement as to how the amount deducted was made up. That the sum is in some cases not trifling is shown by a newspaper correspondence that occurred in the year 1890. A representative of Messrs Spiers & Pond, Ltd., wrote to a newspaper complaining that the amounts habitually deducted at Waterloo Station had been overstated, and assigned 1s. 9½d. as the weekly average for each assistant. This being the firm’s own estimate, there can be no injustice in quoting it. When we remember that the wages of waitresses average, roughly, from 7s. to 14s. a week, less 8d. or 9d. for washing, we shall probably regard an average deduction of 1s. 9½d. a week as by no means inconsiderable. A certain proportion of breakages is manifestly incidental to the refreshment trade and the renewal of crockery is as much one of its natural expenses as the renewal of fuel. Either of these items might just as fairly be laid upon the waitresses. It is often made a reproach to schemes of industrial partnership that the employees share the profits without sharing the losses. This particular form of partnership, in which employees bear losses but take no share in gains seems to have escaped the economists. In the matters of poor pay, uncertainty of employment and compulsorily “respectable” clothing, clerks and bookkeepers occupy much the same position as shop assistants; and when their employment happens to be in shops, their hours are equally long. A young woman known to me, a highly competent clerk and book-keeper, showed me letters from employers with whom she was in treaty. In one case she was to be cashier and book-keeper in a very well known and flourishing shop; she was to be at her post until 11 P.M. on Saturdays and until 8 (or it may have been 8.30) on other evenings. Her pay was to be 8s. a week, living out. I may add that shortly afterwards I myself saw this shop open one evening, not Saturday, at nearly 9 o’clock. The other post, again that of cashier and book-keeper, was in the office of an extremely wealthy wholesale City firm, where thousands of pounds would have passed through her hands weekly and where the book-keeping would have been very complex. The salary offered was 14s. a week.