82
SEX IN INDUSTRY.
employment of girls under ten years, eight.*
I pass norv to the consideration of several employments, in none of which purely muscular overtaxing occurs, and in which the innutrition and numerous non-hygienic influences inherent in mill-life are principally absent, but in which the most potent of causes of sexual derangement, simultaneous activity and concentration of mind and body , is noticeably present. It is observable, moreover, that, in these, the distinctive feature of the corresponding activity in factory labor, viz., monotony and its depression, is lacking; and inasmuch as, despite these advantages, it is found, that, as a whole, this order of labor is far more rapidly and certainly destructive of the normal balance of the sexual principle in women, we must con-
* The United-States census of 1870 gives as the total nuinher of girls between the ages of ten and fifteen employed in the industries of Massachusetts, G,29S); the larger proportion of whom are, beyond doubt, subject to the evils here enumerated.