D. remembers that when they were busy they had to work all night and all the day before and the next day too. They used to work on Sundays and were given a glass of gin. She never knew anyone who wanted to do nightwork, and thinks eight and a half hours quite long enough for anyone to work, especially when there is housework, too, when one gets home. E. remembers the time when he was a boy and women were kept at work all night; he remembers shops where they worked regularly all night after working all day, for two or three times a week. F. a bookbinder, remembers women who worked all night frequently. They were very poor, very rough, and of very low moral standing. "Some of the women who worked could hardly be said to belong to their sex." Respectable girls would not come for such low wages, and also because they had to go home alone through the streets. After the Factory Acts the moral tone and respectability increased greatly; wages were no lower and there were fewer hours of work.[73] [Footnote 73: This is an interesting comment on the relation between low wages and long hours on the one hand and character on the other.] G. says, "We used to have to come in at 6 in the morning and work till 10 or 11 at night, and then be told to come back again at 6 next day. I often used to faint; it took all my strength away." She considers the Factory Act an unmixed blessing. H., before the Factory Act, has worked from 9 to 7, 8, 9, or 10. Often as a learner she stayed till 11 or 12, and once till 12 several nights running. Once she remembers being turned out in a thunderstorm at midnight, and how frightened she was. Occasionally she worked all night; they used to be given coffee at 2 a.m. Once or twice she worked from 9 a.m. one day to 2 p.m. next day; "Excitement keeps you up." They were allowed to sing at their work and be as merry as they could; "We didn't count it much of a hardship." Some women after leaving the factory would go and work all night in printing houses; one woman would leave at tea-time and go to spend the night at the "Athenæum" until 7 a.m. After the Factory Act no one might stay beyond 10 without special permission. Once she did work all night; they put out the lights in the front and worked at the back. The only result of the Factory Acts that she could see was that employers had to have larger premises and employ more hands, instead of working a small staff hard. J. says "I entered the trade in 1863 when I was thirteen. Boys and porters came at 6 a.m.; journeymen at 8 a.m. (sixty hours a week); women at 8 or 9 a.m. All had to stay as long as they were wanted, _i.e._, till 10 or 11. Boys were frequently kept till 11 p.m. I was never kept all night. Conditions have improved for both sexes, men's owing to Trade Unionism, women's to factory laws." [Sidenote: The opinions of forewomen.]