+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Largest Occupation Groups. | Number.| Per cent of Total.| |---------------------------------|--------|-------------------| | FREIE GEWERKSCHAFTEN. | | | | (Total women, 216,462.) | | | |Textile workers | 53,363 | 24·6 | |Metal | 26,848 | 12·4 | |Factory workers | 25,146 | 11·6 | |Tobacco | 17,918 | 8·2 | |Bookbinders | 15,979 | 7·4 | | CHRISTIAN UNIONS. | | | | (Total women, 28,008.) | | | |Textile workers | 12,811 | 45·7 | |Home workers | 8,188 | 29·2 | |Tobacco | 3,088 | 11·0 | | HIRSCH-DUNCKER UNIONS. | | | | (Total women, 4950.) | | | |Textile workers | 1,880 | 38·0 | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ _The Outlook._--It will be seen from the preceding chapter and section that a general view of women in Unions presents a somewhat ambiguous and contradictory picture. In one industry, cotton, there are in England two large Unions of remarkable strength and effectiveness, in which women are organised with men, and form a majority of the Union. The women cotton weavers and card-room operatives form nearly 70 per cent of all the organised women. In the other textile industries, in the clothing trades, and some others, a comparatively small number of women are organised, either with men, or in branches closely in touch with the men's Unions, but these Unions are of various degrees of strength, and in no case include a large proportion of the women employed. There are also some women organised in Unions of general labourers and workers, and their numbers have increased rapidly in the last few years, but are not as yet considerable. We also find many small Unions of women only in various occupations, but it is a curious fact that women have so far evolved very little organisation in their most characteristic occupations such as domestic service, nursing, dressmaking and millinery. Unions of some kind in these occupations are not unknown, but they are quite inconsiderable in comparison with the numbers employed. Yet the strategic position of the workers in some of these occupations is in some respects strong. A fairly well-organised strike of London milliners in the first week in May, or of hotel servants and waitresses along the south coast, say about the last week in July, would probably be irresistible. The same applies to women in