To recur to the facts adduced by Mr. Webb: it seems to be impossible, he says, to discover any but a few instances in which men and women do precisely similar work in the same place and at the same epoch. In the tailoring trade, for instance, men do one class of garment, women another. In the cigar trade women make the lower-priced goods. So in all the Birmingham trades. In paper mills men do the heavier, women the lighter work. In cotton spinning, the mule tenders, called, _par excellence_, "spinners," are men, while women take all the preparatory processes. But there is one exceptional trade where this does not hold. "Weaving," says Mr. Webb, "appears to be nearly always paid at equal rates to men and women, whatever the material or locality." This seems to hold as regards the weaving industry generally, from the hand-loom weavers of Ireland to the carpet weavers of our own country; and it extends also to other countries, as, for instance, to the cotton and silk weaving in France. That is to say, as I understand, that the piece-work rate is the same, although in special cases strength may give the man an advantage in handling heavy looms. But what is most remarkable is that, over the great weaving district of Lancashire, not only are the rates of piece-work the same, but men and women do exactly the same work side by side in the same sheds, practically under the same Factory Act restrictions, and earn equal wages, namely, an average from 17s. 11d. in Carlisle to 21s. 4d. in Burnley. This, however, is distinctly and notably an exception. Women compositors, for instance, in London, receive uniformly lower piece-work rates for exactly similar work; for the same work the union man gets 8½d., the non-union man 7½d., and the woman only 5½d. As an exception, however, we shall have reason to recur to the Lancashire weavers later.