* * * * * =232. Copper and Zinc Manufacture.= So far as we can learn, no women are employed in copper and zinc mines, or in the making of copperas. Twenty-five women are employed in packing copper powder flasks, by the Waterbury Manufacturing Company, and making percussion caps. One fourth of them are American. They earn from $3 to $4 per week, and the work is reported not unhealthy. The women are paid about one half as much as men. It does not require long to learn, and learners are paid something during their apprenticeship. Ten hours are devoted to work. All seasons are alike. The agent says the women do better for light work than men, but require more watching. =233. Tin Manufacture.= A youth, that was working in a tin shop for a widow, whose husband had been a tinner, told me that a female relative of his, who lived about one hundred years ago in Ireland, could do all the various parts of work as well as a man. She learned the trade regularly. Women are paid nearly as well as men for such labor in the old countries, but cannot work so fast. He says, even now in Europe a few women learn the trade of a tinner. It requires four years to learn it thoroughly in all its branches, because there is such a variety. One or two branches may be learned perfectly in a short time; so may several be learned indifferently in the same period; just as a violinist may know how to play a few tunes very well, but cannot play any others; or may know how to play a great many indifferently, but none perfectly. In England, where women are employed in tin shops to solder, they receive for this work their board and thirty-seven cents a day.