1. The wilfulness of women themselves, which, when I see them in positions I have helped to open to them, fills me with shame and indignation. 2. The unfair competition, proceeding from the voluntary labor, in mechanical ways, of women well to do. For the first, we cannot greatly blame the women whom employers choose for their _good looks_, for expecting to earn their wages through them, rather than by the proper discharge of their duties. Their conduct is not the less shameful on that account; but I seem to see that only time and death and ruin will educate them. For the second, we must strive to develop a public sentiment, which, while it continues to hold labor honorable, will stamp with ignominy any women who, in comfortable country homes, compete with the workwomen of great cities. There are thousands of wealthy farmers' wives to-day, who just as much drive other women to sin and death as if they led them with their own hands to the houses in which they are ultimately compelled to take refuge. Still further, it has come to be known to me, that in Boston, and I am told in New York also, wealthy women, who do not even do their own sewing, have the control of the finer kinds of fancy work, dealing with the stores which sell such work, under various disguises. I cannot prove these words, but they will strike conviction to the hearts of the women themselves, and I wish them to have some significance for men; for, if these women had the pocket-money which their taste and position require, they would never dream of such competition. One thing these men should know, that such women are generally known to their employers, and their domestic relations are judged accordingly. The recent investigations into factory labor in England concern rather the condition than the wages of the women. At _flower-making_, 11,000 girls are employed from fourteen to eighteen hours daily. In _hardware_ shops and factories, they work, from six years of age, fourteen hours daily. In _glass_ factories, 5,000 women are employed, from nine years of age and upwards, eighteen hours daily. In _tobacco_ factories, 7,000 women are employed, under conditions of great physical suffering. As _knitters_, from six years old, they work fourteen hours daily for 1s. 3d. a week! This terrible state of things is partly owing to competition with the labor of French machinery. A great deal of ignorant prejudice against machines is one of its results. In Sheffield, _files_ are still made by _hand_; while here, in America, we make _watches_ by _machinery_! The disposition of the whole community, both here and in Great Britain, towards this labor question, is kindly. It has become a momentous social problem. During the fifteen years that my attention has been riveted to this subject, I have seen a great change in public feeling.