The experience of two of our investigators corroborates the above statement. One of them says: "At about 2.45 a.m. we went to see newspapers folded by women in the City. It was done in an old tumble-down room opposite a printing shop. We peeped in through a chink in the shutters--it was a boiling night, and the shutters were closed--and we could see a man carrying in a load of paper from time to time. When we entered we found four women streaming with perspiration in the foul hot atmosphere, folding away at the ... _News_. They were quite friendly and communicative, and told us they came every Thursday night about 11 p.m. and stayed till they had done. They were paid three times as much as day-workers and did no regular work in the daytime. Before beginning work they had a cup of tea. They said they liked the work and were glad that the Factory Act could not stop them; the police had been round to them and also two young ladies, but nothing had happened; and they considered that they were quite old enough to do nightwork if they liked." Folding houses are growing fewer in number owing, no doubt, to the fact that rent is so high in the City and space so valuable, that it is not worth while to erect them separate from a factory. Viewed also with dislike by factory inspectors as a means of evading the law, their tenure of life is not likely to be long. [Sidenote: Nightwork.] Employers admit that the effect of the Factory Acts has been to make them reduce nightwork. In criticising the Act before the Commission of 1876, Mr. Bell, of the firm of Darton, Bell and Thomas, bookbinders, says: "The Factory Act of 1867 has been a boon to employers and employed, because it has enabled us to put pressure on customers. Now we can say to the public 'We can't go beyond certain hours,' and, therefore, work not new has to be sent in earlier." Mr. Darton, of the same firm, adds: "We have persuaded booksellers to give out stock work in June and July instead of September or October, and so begin the work earlier and avoid nightwork." This stimulus is undoubtedly good, and these views are echoed by other employers. The whole question of how far the practical prohibition of overtime for women has limited the volume of work available for them, and thus diminished their aggregate wages, needs very careful consideration, as mistaken conclusions may easily be formed. The matter was carefully considered by a Committee of the Economic Section of the British Association, appointed in 1901, to enquire into the effect of special legislation on women, and the following extracts from its final report[68] are of some interest:-- "A very important, perhaps from the economic point of view the most important, effect of legislation has been to spread the period of work more uniformly through the week, month, and year than had been the case before regulation" (p. 5).