trimmings change. Work is slack in the early part of the winter for a few weeks. It would take three or four years to learn all the branches perfectly. Some sit and some stand while at work. At a manufactory in New York, I was told the season begins in September and lasts through the winter. Their hands earn from $3 to $5 per week. There is an over supply of hands in New York. At another place I was told the work is nearly always paid for by the piece. Their hands earn from $3 to $5 per week. Men receive from $7 to $10. Women's part can be learned in from four to six weeks, and learners are paid if they do not spoil too much material. June, July, December, and January are dull months. In busy seasons good hands are very scarce. The clerk of Messrs. B.'s factory told us the wages vary greatly. We glanced over the account book, with his permission, and observed that the lowest wages were about $1 a week, and the highest $4. It is piece work, and they will not promise employment all the year. He says, if a girl that learns cannot earn something in a year, she is not worth having. Their work is for wholesale houses. At one place I was told the girls work nine hours a day, and receive $4 a week--six months learning. After the first week they were paid $1.50 a week for six months. They make up a stock when not doing ordered work. N. employs from fifty to one hundred women, and sometimes more. They can learn in fourteen days. He pays from the first, and pays by the week, they working from six to six, having an hour at noon. It requires but a few weeks to learn one branch. One girl told me she works by the piece, and sometimes earns from $3 to $6 a week. She works from seven in the morning till gaslight. Girls, when reeling and braiding, stand. To those engaged in this kind of work, there is employment all the year to twenty-five out of every hundred; the rest are occupied from July to January. When paid by the week they seldom receive more than $4, though by taking it home and working more hours they sometimes make $5. Prices in this kind of work have fallen considerably in the last few years. I have been told by a manufacturer that the class so employed is usually of not so elevated a character as some others. The prices paid and work given for so short a time, prevent the best class of workers from entering the business. M--s, Philadelphia, employ about seventy females, including bookkeepers, saleswomen, and trimming makers. In the dull seasons their operatives are not likely to be thrown out of work, as the wholesale dealers will always require them. The workers are paid by the piece, according to the degree of perfection they have attained. When a girl presents herself for employment, the foreman immediately sets her to work on some easy kind of trimming, but she receives no wages until her work is fit for sale. The loss of time on her part and the risk of materials on the part of the employer constitute the apprenticeship. A smart girl will of