The entrance of women into industry is an act of necessity. Women have in the beginning gone to work in factories and in shops and in all occupations outside the home, not from choice but because the industrial revolution has so altered the conditions of life that such a departure from the home was rendered inevitable. Woman has entered industry half-heartedly. She is not work-conscious as she is home-conscious. The old home tradition remains with her as a powerful sentiment. Her interest is the home. She expects to return to a home life of her own. Industrial work is a mere interlude. It is this work interlude that is so fraught with danger from the very fact that it is a makeshift. It is still unrelated to the deepest conscious or unconscious purpose of the girl. When we say the New York working girl whom do we mean? We mean to a certain extent the American girl, _i. e._, the girl who has drifted to New York from up state or from other states. Such girls are homeless here. The difficulty is not the inadequacy of home life, but its absolute lack. For these girls some substitute must be provided. But the great bulk of girls in industry in New York are not American, but Irish, Jewish, and last of all, Italian. Taken as a whole, it cannot be said that the Irish girl’s entrance into industry has corrupted her as a woman. Surrounded by temptation, keenly enjoying pleasure, the Irish girl yet possesses that combination of reserve, good taste and self-possession that protects her more surely than any mere parental inhibition. But in addition to the protection of the family, she enjoys the aid of religion, which constantly inculcates the preservation of purity. The Irish girl is a religious girl, a devoted Catholic. Ever before her is a picture of the ideal woman, Mary the Mother of God. “Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and in the hour of death,” is said daily by thousands of Irish girls before they go to work and before they lie down to sleep. Mechanical as this may often be, it is a mental habit as strong as a physical habit. And habits serve as a prop to the will when stress comes. It would be near the truth to say that whatever the reason,--Catholic training, native chastity, an inborn sense of restraint and good taste, or all these together, Irish girls form but a small element of the group of women workers in danger of corruption.