WAGES.--_Card Mounting and Paper Colouring._--Piece work rates are paid here, with overtime at the same rate. It is difficult to give an average. One girl would make 25_s._, while another girl would only make 7_s._ at the same work in the same time. After consideration, the head gave it as his opinion that 12_s._ 6_d._ a week would be what the ordinary girl would earn, taking the whole year round, slack with busy times. They were kept on all the year at this firm. Sometimes a girl would make as much as 28_s._ It was further stated that a girl might make 6_d._ in less than an hour at night, when the colours were mixed and she was finishing a job, whereas it might take her a whole morning to earn the 6_d._ next day. A quick girl could do 1,000 eyelets in an hour, eyeletting being paid at 10_d._ per 1,000. _Varnishing and Sizing._--Piece work wages are paid here, with overtime at same rates. Wages are reckoned by the lump sum for the gross work done, and divided equally amongst all the hands. The division is made by the firm, not the workers. We asked one girl what she took last week, and she said 14_s._; but my guide said that the average would not be so high for the year, say 12_s._ WORK.--There are four separate departments or businesses here, in three of which the work is done by women. _Varnishing and Sizing_, where 16 girls are employed. The calendars, advertisements, and so on, to be varnished are placed in a pile on a table underneath the long webbing band, and a girl sits there and feeds. They are caught up and passed round rollers, and are sized or varnished as the case may be. Another girl stands facing the machine, seeing that they pass round all right. They are then carried over the top of the top roller along the webbing band, which stretches the full length of the room, till they come to the drum at the end, round which the band passes on its return journey. There girls take them off and place them in racks, the bottom one of which is on a small trolley. When a big pile of racks (about 5½ ft. high) is filled the girls wheel it off, lift up a door, and push it into a big cupboard which takes up all the middle of the room, and above which is a fan. There they are left to dry, and when dry the girls wheel them out again and take out the sheets. There were two rooms in which this was being done, with about 8 girls in each. There was also a third room at the side, where they make up odds and ends, _e.g._, make up packets of "Happy Families," fold odd papers, eyelet a few things, and so on. There was only 1 girl in this; sometimes there are several. When a girl comes in first she does this work.