dollars out of the hard earnings of these people; and then they came to foreclose the mortgage and take away the furniture, and would have removed every household article they possessed, had not the police-officer on the beat, a man of noble heart and generous instincts, stepped in and agreed to be responsible personally for the amount. Here is another case, all of the papers of which are now in my hands: A man and his wife borrowed twenty dollars; the firm charged two dollars for making out the papers, so that the note read twenty-two dollars. The agent called on them once, and charged two dollars for that. In the course of ten months they paid twenty dollars interest. The matter then came to the attention of the secretary of a charitable association, who forced the brokers to settle up the case for six dollars. I know of another case of a Swede family who "got behind," and could not pay the rent. Sickness came upon them, and they borrowed fifty dollars. In a little over a year they paid sixty dollars interest, but the principal had not been reduced a dollar. Some of the instalment firms are just as bad, and many times are in league with these sharpers. A case has come to my knowledge where a man with a wife and family of five children bought furniture amounting to a hundred and thirty-five dollars. After he had paid seventy dollars, he was taken sick and had to go to the hospital. The wife was unable to meet the instalments promptly, and the firm threatened to take away her furniture. She asked the agent of a charitable organization to intercede for her. This gentleman wrote to the firm and begged them to postpone their foreclosure, and mercifully give the poor family a little more time. But this they absolutely refused to do, and came in the midst of the raw winds of March, and took all the household furniture away, including the stove and the loaf of bread in the oven. These are not hearsay stories, but facts that can be proved by undoubted evidence. Women are the greatest sufferers from depreciation of wages. Commissioner Carroll Wright's report on the working-women in great cities, given to the public two years since, contains some interesting facts. The investigation on which the report is based covered twenty-two of the larger cities of the United States, and three hundred and forty-two distinct industries, excluding the professional and semi-professional callings, such as teaching, stenography, typewriting, and telegraphy. The total number of women individually interviewed was 17,427.