Similar legislation has been in force in England since 1847, in Switzerland since 1877, in Germany since the early nineties, in France since the beginning of the present century. In our own country, Massachusetts enacted a ten-hour law as early as 1876, and the supreme courts of four states--Massachusetts, Nebraska, Washington and Oregon--as well as the Supreme Court of the United States itself, have sustained the constitutionality of such laws. Why then should a measure, so long tested by human experience and so obviously necessary in Illinois, the third manufacturing state in the Union, require so earnest and determined a defense? The answer to this query is found in the favorable decision of the Illinois Supreme Court, handed down in April, 1910. It was the necessity of putting the case so strongly before the court that it might reverse its earlier decision of 1895. Fifteen years ago, the Supreme Court of Illinois in what is known as the case of Ritchie _v._ The People, held that no restriction whatever could be placed upon the working hours of adult women employed in manufacture. The earlier statute had established the eight-hour day for women employed in manufacture. It was held unconstitutional and void, as a violation of individual freedom of contract. The present statute establishes for the same classes of workers the ten-hour day. The same principle is involved in both laws, namely, that the working hours of adult women may be restricted by the legislature. In its recent decision, holding that the ten-hour statute is a valid exercise of the police power of the state and is not in violation of the constitution of the state of Illinois, the supreme court lays stress upon two points: first, that the present statute is a health measure and is so described in its title and in its text, while neither the title nor the text of the former eight-hour law, annulled in 1895, specifically stated its relation to the subject of health; second, that the present statute permits ten hours’ work in twenty-four, while the former one permitted but eight hours. These two points call for scrutiny and consideration. In future every ten-hour bill for women should be entitled a health measure, as in fact it is. This precaution costs neither time, money nor effort. Yet it may save the law when on trial before a court of last resort upon the charge of unconstitutionality.