The agent of the Howe Manufacturing Company, in Connecticut, reports: "Our work is all done by the piece. The earnings of the workwomen vary according to their skill, diligence, and the number of hours spent at work. Average in April last, $11.09--in four weeks. Highest earnings of one individual $22.09 (equal to $5.54 per week). Small girls earn from $1 to $1.50 per week, and work six or eight hours. Men and women do not perform the same kind of labor in our establishment. Why all persons are not paid equally for equal labor, I do not feel competent to explain. A knowledge of our work is soon acquired. Learners are paid for what they do. A good character and reputation, honesty, fidelity, common mechanical ability, and diligence are desirable qualifications. We generally find the hands we want in our own immediate neighborhood. Our work is considered desirable, and much sought for. In all seasons the hands are equally employed, except dry seasons, when we are short of water to drive our machinery. Our _stock_ hands generally stay with us till they get married or lay up so much money that they are able to get along with less labor, or become too old or infirm to work to advantage. Some have stayed with us over twenty years, many over ten years. The number of hours for work is discretionary. We seldom request industrious hands to work more hours than they choose. Our hands sometimes work twelve or fourteen hours, at their pleasure. Small girls, of whom we employ but five or six, seldom work ten hours. The number of women and girls employed in our establishment heretofore has been variable, averaging perhaps thirty. We are using improved machinery, which has already reduced the number, and will reduce it still more. Our work is peculiarly adapted to female labor. Nearly all our hands are American born. In twenty-two years' business, we have seldom, if ever, had an adult woman employed who was unable to sign her name to the pay roll. Our adult women have the churches and lyceum lectures, which I believe they generally attend. Their time for reading, for the most part, will be evenings and Sundays. Small girls can attend our district school free of cost." A manufacturer, in Seymour, Connecticut, writes: "We pay from $3 to $4 per week. We employ no men in sticking and packing, and, if we were not particular as to whom we employ, we could reduce the amount of our monthly pay roll a large per cent. It requires very little practice to learn the part of our business done by women, and in most cases we pay them full wages upon entering the mill. No special qualifications are needed. The kind of business we pursue will always be carried on, but of course can never become very common. No difference in the seasons, and the girls are never thrown out of employment. Under the present regulations they work eleven hours, and the time could not well be shortened, as that would tend to derange the other departments of our business.