Then again, a folder, despised herself by those above her, is reported to "look down upon the litho and bronzing girls. They are of the very lowest class (she says), with hardly a shoe on their feet. They are on quite a different floor and have nothing to do with the folders." Or again, for reasons of gentility, girls prefer to become book-folders, where the hours are longer and the pay lower, rather than to become paper-bag makers. The distinction between these various sections is not similar to that between skilled and unskilled labour. The simple explanation is that amongst women engaged in industry convention is particularly potent in determining what trades are desirable and proper and what are not, so that when certain employments acquire a reputation for gentility, the others will be filled by a goodly proportion of unassorted girls, and will ultimately acquire characteristics which appear to justify the feminine prejudices against them. It has been suggested that these notions of gentility have, as a matter of fact, a deeper significance, and that the favoured trades are the lighter ones. To some extent this is true. The heavier employments are staffed by a rougher class of women. But, as in the case of the Manchester folders cited above, fashions change, and we must recognise that reputation for gentility is a very important factor in determining the distribution of character amongst the trades. This appears to be the main reason why high wages do not always attract the better class of girls to certain kinds of employment, and also why there is a reluctance on the part of many self-respecting girls to enter a course of industrial training. CHAPTER VI. _LEGISLATION._ 1. THE LAW. The printing and allied trades were not brought within the scope of legislation until Mr. Walpole's Factory Acts' Extension Act of 1867. [Sidenote: Conditions of employment, 1866.] The Commission on Children's Employment in 1866[64] first disclosed the fact that substantial abuses prevailed throughout the printing and kindred trades. Long hours, frequent nightwork, Sunday labour, irregularities regarding meal times, and insanitary conditions--such, roughly speaking, were the hardships which made it desirable to bring them under State supervision. Mr. Lord, who took an active part on these Commissions, said that the general state of printing houses in London was very bad; not only were the composing rooms generally overcrowded and ill-ventilated, but even machine rooms were often extremely dirty, close and unhealthy. He cites the case of a machine room, where the roof was so low that a hole was cut in the ceiling for the head of the boy who was "laying-on" to go through. "The heat of steam printing," says he, "is very deleterious in close cellars, such as many places in this town are." [Footnote 64: Children's Employment Commission, 1862-1866 (Report V.).]