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SEX IN INDUSTRY.
acts upon your young ladies?” A. “They all suffer more or less from headaches, severe backaches, debility, and constipation, but all the younger ones, particularly, from too frequent and profuse return of their menses. I think this last the worst feature ; for, as soon as that begins, they lose color, grow nervous and feeble, are often absent, and suffer along till they ‘ give up.’ ”
Q. “ Are there any influences connected with the work other than those which, as we see, are part of it, that act badly on the employees?” A. “Our rooms are fearfully hot,.— most unhealthily so, I think ; and of course the stoop which a girl soon gets is bad, as well as her sitting so long in one position. No other unhealthy ‘ influences.’ ”
(}■ ‘ 1 You consider, then, that the very character of
the work is surely and rapidly prejudicial to the health of the young women engaged in it, and especially on account of their sex? ” A. “ Yes, I do; and they cannot remain it but a very short time. It told upon me severely when I began, and I was matured when I began; and, if I had been at the counting, I could not have remained.”
The counting of “ strands ” of rattan, used in “ cane-seating ” furniture, etc., is an employment which, as carried on at Wakefield