In an overwhelming number of cases the beginners are simply placed beside a regular hand, and pick up their skill by watching the old hand and then turning and doing it themselves. The girl who "picked up vellum-sewing and wire-stitching" whilst engaged as a folder, and she who was transferred from tie-making to stitching and folding, are types. The phrase "serving her time" survives, but the apprenticeship which is indicated hardly now exists. [Footnote 53: "A boy learns nothing after fifteen, a girl after fourteen," is the way one employer puts it.] [Footnote 54: Very few premiums are reported upon. In one case it was said that £10 were asked as a premium in relief stamping, but the informant admitted that the sum varied; in another well-known stationery firm a premium of £2 is asked for, but is returned with 5 per cent. interest at the end of three years. The premiums of £50 or £100 charged by certain bookbinding teachers are of course quite special.] [Footnote 55: LEADING LONDON HIGH-CLASS STATIONERY FIRM:--_Paging Department._--Girls come for a few months for nothing, _i.e._ six months, no premium. They go on getting quicker. _Lithographic Department._ Girls come in and pick it up: show one another how to do it. _Vellum-binding Department._ Girls come for three years and are paid 5_s._ per week. LEADING EDUCATIONAL SUPPLY FIRM: _Copybook and similar Work._ "Has several little girls running about on errands for a few shillings a week, and if any of them seem promising they are helped on. Training nothing like what it used to be; girls learn only one branch." LARGE LONDON PRINTING FIRM:--_Vellum-sewing Department._ "Regular apprenticeship still the system here." Three years given as the period for training and during this time no wages are paid. Girls come straight from school. _Folding, etc., Department._ "No regular apprenticeship. Girls come in and pick it up; if quick they are taught other branches, like numbering, relief stamping, etc." LONDON STATIONERY FIRM: _Envelope Folding and Hand-cementing Department._ "Girls are put under an experienced party to whom they pay 10_s._ For six weeks, they receive nothing. For next six weeks they receive half earnings, then they are put on piecework." _Black Bordering._ "A regular hand teaches and gets any benefit of the work during six months in return for the time she wastes in teaching." This practice is also adopted in some firms in envelope folding by hand. LONDON PUBLISHING FIRM: _Bookbinding Department._ "System of indenture has just been revived because it was found that otherwise the firm had no hold over the girls, so that the quick ones as soon as they had learnt went off elsewhere as full earners." Indenture for two years.