_286 On Brass_ Sweetness and Light. So now appears the candy factory in retrospect. Shall we stumble upon a job yet that will make brass seem as a haven of refuge? Allah forbid! After all, factory work, more than anything so far, has brought out the fact that life from beginning to end is a matter of comparisons. The factory girl, from my short experience, is not fussing over what her job looks like compared to tea at the Biltmore. She is comparing it with the last job or with home. And it is either slightly better or slightly worse than the last job or home. Any way round, nothing to get excited over. An outsider, soul-filled college graduate with a mission, investigates a factory and calls aloud to Heaven: “Can such things be? Why do women _stay_ in such a place?” The factory girl, if she heard those anguished cries, would as like as not shrug her shoulders and remark: “Ugh! she sh'u'dda seen ——'s factory where I worked a year ago.” Or, “Gawd! what does she think a person's goin' to do—sit home all day and scrub the kitchen?” And yet the fact remains that some things get too much on even a philosophical factory girl's nerves. Whereat she merely walks out—if she has gumption enough. The labor turnover, from the point of view of production and efficiency, can well be a vital industrial concern. To the factory girl, it saves her life, like as not. Praise be the labor turnover! If it were not for that same turnover, I, like the soul-filled college graduate, might feel like calling aloud, not to Heaven, but to the President of the United States and Congress and the Church and Women's clubs: “Come quick and rescue females from the brassworks!” As it is, the females rescue themselves. If there's any concern it's “the boss he should worry.” He must know how every night girls depart never to cross those portals again, so help them Gawd. Every morning a new handful is broken in, to stay there a week or two, if that long, and take to their heels. Praise be the labor turnover, as long as we have such brassworks. Before eight o'clock of a cold Monday morning (thank goodness it was not raining, since we stood in shivering groups on the sidewalk) I answered the Sunday-morning “ad”: GIRLS AND WOMEN between 16 and 36; learners and experienced assemblers and foot-press operators on small brass parts; steady; half day Saturday all year around; good pay and bonus. Apply Superintendent's office.