NUMBER OF WOMEN WAGE-EARNERS LIVING IN ORGANIZED BOARDING HOUSES, CLASSIFIED BY COST OF LIVING AND WAGE GROUPS.

a Not including 6 waitresses, whose cost of living is not comparable, as food is paid for in service.

NUMBER OF WOMEN WAGE-EARNERS LIVING IN ORGANIZED BOARDING HOUSES WHO HAVE SPECIFIED NUMBER OF PERSONS WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY DEPENDENT ON THEM FOR SUPPORT, BY WAGE GROUPS.

The girls in these houses were found to be the youngest of any group, the average age being 24.1, and yet their average earnings are next to the highest, being $7.16, only 15 cents below those of the older women in boarding and lodging houses. This would seem to indicate that the houses visited, at least, if not all of such houses, attract the best type of the young working women, the most intelli

gent and able. Certainly they do not live there because it is the cheapest way of living, because the cost of living for these girls is next to the highest, only regular boarding and lodging houses costing more. It seems rather that the girls living in these houses are girls who demand a standard which they can not afford to pay for elsewhere, for it may be said that living conditions of the same standard as those in these houses or clubs could not possibly be obtained elsewhere except at a considerably higher cost. As a matter of fact, only a small per cent of the girls living in this way come under the head of this investigation, which included only women employed in stores, factories, or other occupations calling for like qualifications.

Out of over 400 women living in one of these houses only 7 were in these employments. In each of two smaller houses, one accommodating 35 and one 18, there was but one girl working in the employments specified. The per cent was sometimes larger, but these girls specified were always greatly in the minority. Most of the women in these houses were doing office work, some were teachers, and quite a number were students. It seems impossible for these homes to draw at the same time girls from different industrial planes, both because of the impossibility of their paying the same amount for board and because of the difference in the social status, the clerical and office workers invariably feeling above the store girls and the store girls in turn above the factory girls.

The chief objections offered by girls to this way of living, aside from the stigma which some feel of living in a house partly supported by organizations, are the various restrictions which these different houses impose about such matters as hours for closing, receiving men friends in their rooms, etc. An attractive, intelligent girl in one of these houses was asked why it was that the girls who needed such a home the most-the girl getting low wages and living alone-so often would not come. "Because they won't stand for the restrictions," was the prompt answer. "They don't want to be watched and interfered with all the time." She concluded sagely: "And those girls that kick most about the regulations are the ones that need them most."

Some houses allow the girls to be out only certain evenings in the week; almost all have a definite hour for closing, generally 10 o'clock, and in many cases a girl who is not in by that hour is locked out for the night. She must then spend it where she can. Instances were told to the agents of girls walking the street all night, having no place to which they could go. One girl returning home with a man friend a few minutes late found herself locked out, and had she not known a girl in a lodging house whom she could ask to take her in would have been in a most humiliating, if not compromising, position. The strange part of it is that some of the matrons in these houses, whose purpose is to offer safe homes to women, seem to feel no moral

respon

sibility about leaving a girl to spend the night on the street. Fortunately many of them are seeing the inconsistency of such an attitude and are making the penalty for being late less dangerous.

In the better class of such houses the girls lead a normal and much happier life than in a boarding and lodging house. They have a feeling of comradeship; they have pleasant social life at home; they have a sitting room with a piano, books, and magazines. The girls feel at home there.

Very much depends on the matron or woman in charge of the house. It is a most difficult position to fill, but one who can win the affection and confidence of the girls has a tremendous influence upon them.

Apart from the conditions already mentioned in the four groups, the opportunities for recreation and amusement offered to working women are about the same for all. To the query as to what the women did for amusement, the answers ranged from church to fancydress balls, but the things that were reiterated again and again were "taking walks," recreation parks, moving pictures, theaters, and dance halls. Some go to concerts or lectures or to social gatherings at the homes of friends. Among the Slavic people wedding parties are gala occasions, but the five forms of amusement first mentioned are the backbone of all.

Who are the women who entertain themselves thus? Not the older women. Even those who have no heavy cares find themselves tired out at the end of their day's work and are content to stay quietly at home.

But the younger women are still eager to enjoy anything that comes their way and keen to gather in all the excitement that they can. With their financial resources, however, the amount which they can spend for amusement is very limited, as the margin left after paying for food, shelter, heat, light, and laundry must furnish clothes before it can be drawn on for amusement or recreation.

INCOME AND COST OF CLOTHING FOR ONE YEAR OF 196 WAGEEARNING WOMEN IN BOSTON, MASS.

An average yearly expenditure for clothing has been taken, through the courtesy of the research department of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston, from schedules filled in their investigation of a “Living Wage." An average weekly expenditure was computed from the yearly expenditure of 121 women in employments covered by this investigation. Twenty-two of these were store women, 29 waitresses, and 70 were employed in factories, mills, and miscellaneous establishments. The average weekly earnings of all except waitresses was $7.13.

TOTAL INCOME AND EXPENDITURE FOR CLOTHING DURING ONE YEAR OF 196 WORKING WOMEN EMPLOYED IN VARIOUS OCCUPATIONS IN BOSTON, MASS. [Data furnished by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, Boston; collected 1907.]

Income for the year includes an estimate for the value of food given as part of wages.

• Subsidized as to clothing.

TOTAL INCOME AND EXPENDITURE FOR CLOTHING DURING ONE YEAR OF 196 WORKING WOMEN EMPLOYED IN VARIOUS OCCUPATIONS IN BOSTON, MASS.-Concluded.

If the average weekly earnings and cost of living for both store and factory women in the seven cities, as shown in this investigation, be combined, the results show the weekly average earnings to be $6.67, and the average weekly cost of shelter, food, heat, light, and laundry as $3.80. Inasmuch as the earnings shown by the investigation conducted by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union were computed in the same way as the earnings of the women covered by this investigation and the discrepancy between the two results is but 46 cents for all the cities and only 39 cents in