The prospect of future employment is fair. The comparative comfort and remuneration of the work are good. Comfortable board, $3 a week." A company in Northfield, Conn., inform us: "It requires from three to five years to learn the men's part of the work. Some of the women work by the piece, and some by the day, receiving from $3 to $5 per week. The same price would be paid to men. The prospect of future employment is good. They work throughout the year. Women are superior in quickness. A locality should be fixed on where good water power may be had." =223. Needles.= Most of the needles used in Europe and America are manufactured at Redditch, fourteen miles from Birmingham, where there are about a dozen very large factories. The number manufactured in Redditch amounts to about seventy million per week. The process is a very long and painful one. The drilling is done by young women. The constrained posture and rigid gaze of the women on the eyes of the needles as they drill, is distressing. It requires a perfect steadiness of hand. In addition to this, the small channel observed on each side of the eye is made by women with a suitable file. The picking out of defective needles, and laying perfect ones with the heads one way and the points another, is performed by children. Dr. G. C. Holland writes: "We candidly admit that the physical evils produced by needle grinding exceed all that imagination has pictured." The needle grinders in England are said to be ignorant and dissipated. One half can neither read nor write. The dust which is evolved in the process of needle grinding, contains a much larger amount of steel than is produced by any other grinding. Mr. Aiken, inventor of the knitting machine, has the machines and needles both manufactured. He says "he supposes he could teach women to do most of the work on needles, if he would give the time and trouble. He pays $1 per day to hands in the needle room." In the manufacture of Bartlett's sewing-machine needles, but a few small girls are employed, at from $1 to $1.50 per week, for smoothing the eye by running an oiled thread through it. Formerly they employed girls to perforate the eye, but it is now done by machinery. A manufacturer of knitting needles writes us: "The winter season is the best for work, and the Eastern States furnish the best localities for manufactories." A maker of sewing-machine needles told me the tools are rather heavy, files and a lathe being used. They pay a boy of fourteen years $3 a week, and one of eighteen, $5.50. C. employs girls to envelop and label needles. They earn from $3 to $4 a week, and do it at home. It takes a long time to become expert. They are paid from the first, but not much. The business is limited. They could have it done for less in England, but prefer to put labels on for parties in this country, who want to be considered manufacturers. G. & B. employ some girls to label and paper needles they import. They pay two cents and a half for putting the