Reporting generally on her enquiries, an investigator writes: "The progressive young woman, eager to show that she is man's equal and can do man's work, seems to be a product of the middle classes. I never met girls with ambitions of that sort among the employees I talked with. On the other hand, I have met with cutting reproofs from forewomen and others in the bookbinding houses when I tried, in my innocence, to find out why they did not turn their hands to simple and easy processes which were being done by men. 'Why, that is man's work, and we shouldn't think of doing it!' is the usual answer given with a toss of the head and a tone insinuating that there is a certain indelicacy in the question." Another investigator reports: "In a paper-staining department an attempt was once made to have a forewoman instead of a foreman over the girls, but she was not successful in watching the colours and had to be replaced by a man. The employer in consequence came to the conclusion that such a feat was beyond a woman's power, and the workers themselves are of the same opinion and scorn the idea of a forewoman." [Sidenote: Sex reputation.] Women in slowly increasing numbers seem to be settling down to a thorough industrial training, but except when they start businesses of their own, the general reputation of woman as workers, especially their liability to marry and leave, must permanently handicap the most efficient in search of employment. Even the woman who has paid a premium of £50 or £100 for thorough instruction in the art of bookbinding is warned that "a worker cannot be taken on anywhere, but has to set up on her own account," and even then she often does not enter the regular open competitive market, but attaches certain customers to herself, owing to her special work. The exceptional woman will always have to bear the burden of the average woman. The questions put to employers upon this point received very emphatic replies: "It does not pay us to train women," they said in some form or another; "We only want them for simple processes such as folding, and if we tried to make them skilled in more complicated work they would leave us before we got the same return for our trouble as we get from men." [Sidenote: Physique, hours, etc.] The low standard of women's living also diminishes their stamina and strength, and though in the course of this enquiry we have not discovered any very serious complaint that women were irregular at their work owing to ill-health (a common complaint against women in offices), yet the drawback has been mentioned.