More than seventeen years ago I sat in the neat but poverty stricken room of a most respectable family and listened to the pathetic, uncomplaining words of an admirable woman who, together with her sister, had, for years, helped to support an early widowed sister-in-law and her three children. All three women worked at home at shirtmaking, and this one of the aunts had certainly gone short of food. It was not she who told me of her good deeds. She was showing me, at my request, the shirts that they were at that time making for a payment of 1s. 2d. a dozen. I continue in the words of my own report, written immediately afterwards. “These shirts are of fair average quality and are striped in gay colours. They have to be fetched ready cut out but not folded; all the sewing has to be done to them, including a square of lining at the back of the neck but not the button holes.... ‘Has the price gone down much?’ I asked. ‘Oh, yes’ said Miss Y.; ‘my sister and I used to get sixpence apiece. But that was for rather better shirts than these. We worked for B.’s then. One day my sister was there, waiting for the work, and a gentleman came in and said to Mr B., “I’ll take the whole lot at 4s. 6d. a dozen”; and Mr B. said to my sister: “Miss Y., will you take the work at that, or must I give it all to this gentleman?” And my sister thought, if we stood out for the price, they would come round to us, and she said, “No,” she would not take it, and so he gave it to the gentleman and we were thrown out; and instead of coming round to sixpence again, that work has gone down to 2s. 6d. a dozen, and even lower than that. I know of people who do the very cheapest cotton shirts at 9d. or even 7d. a dozen.’” Miss Y.’s little story is the story of work in hundreds—nay in thousands—of work places. Sometimes it is at the factory gate that the cheapening process goes on. Towards the end of those bitter weeks, “the slack time,” there will be scores of factory girls, pale and pinched under their shabby feathered hats, going from firm to firm and asking whether hands are wanted. At last word will go round that X.’s are “taking on” on Monday morning. Before the opening hour on Monday morning, the entrance to Mr X.’s factory will look like the pit door of a popular theatre. Often have I heard girls describe the dialogue that follows. “The foreman says to a young girl in front of me: ‘What wages do you want?’ And she says: ‘Eight shillings.’ And he told her: ‘No, she could go.’ So when he come to me, I knew it was no good to say, ‘Eight’; so I said: ‘Seven and six.’”