So far as the 1906 figures are concerned it will be seen that the average for the United Kingdom in the bespoke section was 14s. 2d. The detailed statistics show that London was the highest-paid district, with 16s. 2d., and Ireland the lowest, with 12s. As ladies' costume-making has points of contact with men's tailoring, so the tailoring trade merges almost imperceptibly through various gradations of linen and cotton jackets, overalls, etc., into the shirt-making trade, and this again is closely combined, and, indeed, for statistical purposes forms one group with the manufacture of blouses and underclothing. The shirt, blouse and underclothing trade has become a factory trade to a much more marked extent than either dressmaking or tailoring. By tradition shirt-making is the sweated trade _par excellence_. But, as in many other instances, tradition has outlived the fact, the statistics showing that while the average earnings, 13s. 4d., are low absolutely, the trade is nearer the top than the bottom of the clothing trade list, notwithstanding the fact that the manufacture of shirts is combined for the purpose of the statistics with that of articles, such as baby linen, in respect of which the wages are almost certainly much lower than those for men's shirts. It should be noted, however, that the wages of home-workers are nowhere included in the statistics. The boot and shoe trade, unlike most of the others in the clothing group, is mainly a man's trade, considerably more than half of the total number employed being males. Women are employed chiefly as machinists or upper closers, or as fitters in both cases, being concerned with the manufacture of the top or upper. The trade is carried on in many centres, the principal being, perhaps, Leicester, Northampton, Kettering, Bristol, Norwich, Leeds, and Glasgow. The highest earnings of women are recorded for Manchester, the average being 17s. 6d., and the lowest for Norwich, where the average is only 10s. 6d. It is worth noting that the high average for women in Manchester is combined with a relatively low average for men, namely, 27s. 8d. The laundry trade gives employment to a large number of women, the Factory Returns for 1907 showing that 61,802 were employed in laundries using mechanical power, and 26,012 in laundries where such power was not used. For the whole of the United Kingdom the averages for power and for hand laundries were practically the same, being 12s. 10d. in the one case and 12s. 9d. in the other. In the case of power laundries Ireland is at the bottom of the list with an average of 10s. 4d., and the best-paid districts, namely, London, show an average of only 13s. 6d. A recent attempt to bring the power laundry industry within the scope of the Trade Boards Act has failed, the employers opposing the Provisional Order mainly on the ground of certain alleged technical defects of definition.