=General Conclusions.=--It will be seen that in almost all the occupations here considered women have special difficulties to contend with--imperfect training, amateurish habits, social customs or prejudices, and the opposition of those who, sometimes from prejudice and sometimes from a well-grounded fear of injury, oppose the industrial employment of women. Time and good counsels may be trusted to diminish these obstacles, if not to do away with them entirely. Meanwhile it remains to give women the opportunity, by thorough training, of showing the extent of their capacity for different kinds of work. Disquisitions as to what women can do, or cannot do, are irrelevant at the present moment, when facilities for training and employment have not been open long enough to test their powers in any direction. In these matters it is safer to prophesy after the event, and it is certain that competition will eventually drive women out of any calling for which they prove themselves really unfitted. CHAPTER II. _WOMEN’S WORK: CLERICAL AND COMMERCIAL._ ROUTINE CLERICAL WORK: Type-writing and shorthand--Secretaryships--Clerks and Book-keepers--THE CIVIL SERVICE: The Post Office--Number of women employed--Clerkships--Sorterships--Telegraph Learnerships--Counter-women and Telegraphists--The Telephones--Complaints against women--COMMERCE: Subordinate position of women--Shopkeeping--Trade as a Career--SHOP ASSISTANTS AND THEIR CONDITION: Wages--Deductions from Wages--Fines--Forms of Agreement--Long Hours--“Counter and Bed”--Select Committee on Mr. Provand’s Bill--Evidence from different places--Select Committee 1888--Standing all day--Effect upon health--The _Lancet_ on the provision of seats--Combination of assistants necessary--Insanitary Surroundings--Living in--Evils of the system--Bad food and insufficient accommodation--No social life--Hurried meals--Sunday arrangements--Personal Narratives--Warehouses--Combination among assistants--Objects of the different Societies--Legislation and its probable effects--ADDENDUM: The Reports of the Lady Assistant Commissioners to the Labour Commission--Miss Collet’s summary.