(3) If women were taken on freely to do solid setting, it is not at all likely that they would seriously aspire to the higher stages of the compositor's craft. (_a_) Partly for physical reasons. Women are not fitted to handle the heavy formes. (_b_) Partly because they could not be relied upon to go through a full course of training. They would be continually leaving in the middle or at the end of it, and employers, therefore, would not take the trouble to train them. "The pick of the girls get married. The qualities which make a girl smart and successful at her work would similarly make for her success in the marriage market." (4) The cheaper type-setting of women is needed in order to compete successfully with the Linotype machine. There is no doubt that to a certain extent the comparatively low price of women's labour tends to retard the introduction of machinery. (D.) _Bookbinding._ In the bookbinding trade girls fold, put in plates and illustrations, collate, sew by hand and by machine. Sewing used all to be done by hand, but machines were introduced some fifteen years ago. In the case of primers and stitched books girls do all except print the covers. They make cloth cases as distinct from leather cases. Girls also lay the gold leaf on covers, which are subsequently stamped by machines operated by men. For at least half a century women have worked in these branches, but while in earlier days they learnt a variety of operations the tendency now is to keep them to a special process or machine. Hence a smart girl can pick up her task in a week. The old custom of a four years' apprenticeship still survives. Girls start at fourteen, or at thirteen if they have passed the fifth standard. The initial wage is still in some shops 3_s._ a week, but there is a decided upward tendency, which in one case was found to reach 4_s._ 6_d._ for beginners. On the termination of the apprenticeship an average wage of 10_s._ a week is paid, but in the exceptional case referred to above the average was given as 12_s._ 6_d._, while 15_s._ is earned by expert pagers, coverers, and perforators who have been in the employment of the firm for some time. A chargewoman gets about 15_s._ a week, while the principal forewoman in a firm employing nearly 300 girls in its bookbinding branch is paid a guinea per week. Folders and hand-sewers are paid piecework rates in the large shops, but not in the smaller ones. To the casual visitor these pieceworkers exhibit a remarkable swiftness and accuracy, and the work must involve no small physical strain. Although the girls engaged in folding and the allied processes are as a rule of higher intelligence than mill girls and machine feeders and drawn from different social strata, there are many who come, frail and under-fed, from very poor homes. To these especially the early hour at which the day's work begins is a hardship. On a Glasgow winter's