Those who have investigated the conditions of women workers in towns are agreed as to the enormous influence of class and æsthetic feelings in narrowing the competition. "The girl who makes seal-skin caps at a city warehouse does not wish to work for an East End chamber-master, even though she could make more at the commoner work; just as a soap-box maker would not care to make match-boxes, even though skilled enough to make more by it."[261] This sensitiveness of social distinction in industrial work, based partly upon consideration of the class and character of those employed, partly upon the skill and interest of the work itself, is a widespread and powerful influence among women workers. It tends to bring about that equalisation of wages in skilled and unskilled industries which, as we have seen, practically exists, for if there is an economic rise of wages in the lower grades of work, it does not tempt the competition of high-skilled workers, while a corresponding rise in the wages of the higher grades would draw competitors from the lower grades to qualify themselves for undertaking work which would at once give them more money and more social respect. The lower wages often paid for more highly-skilled work simply mean that the women take out a larger portion of their wage in "gentility." This influence, which is operative amongst men, reducing the wages of routine-mental labour to the level of common unskilled manual labour, is powerful in all ranks of women, rising perhaps in its potency with the social status of the woman. Considerations of "gentility" enable us to obtain "teachers" for board schools at an average "salary" of £75 per annum, as compared with £119 for men, the fixed scale of women teachers in the same grade being 16 per cent. less than for men. Thus custom, ignorance, contentment, social prejudices operate in different ways and in different degrees to prevent women workers from claiming in higher wages that share of the increased capacity of the community for making wealth which men workers have been able to procure.