15 
other male labourers, such as bakers, tailors, 
shoemakers, ’bus drivers, &c., are also still 
that the law is being broken one day in every two. There is 
nobody to complain to except the inspector, and when he comes 
he generally walks round with Mdme. Célimène or the fore 
woman ; and of course any girl who said anything to him when 
they were by would lose her place directly, and perhaps never 
get another. So we think it wiser to hold our tongues. If we 
could let out all we knew, we could tell other ways in which 
the law is broken. Perhaps you would not believe it, but it is 
true all the same, that in many a house of business the girls are 
kept working till half-past ten and eleven o’clock day after day 
through the best part of the season. That may not seem very 
much, I dare say, when you hear it told ; but it is bad enough 
when you have to do it. Where I am there are twenty girls— 
dressmakers and milliners—all sitting round three oblong tables 
in a room not bigger than an ordinary drawing-room, with only 
one window. You can think what the air of that room is like 
in July when we have all been working in it for twelve hours. 
There we sit all through the morning, afternoon, and evening- 
twenty of us—stitching and trimming away, with the sun 
pouring in on us, and the room getting closer and closer till 
you feel you can hardly bear it any longer ; and then, when 
eight o’clock comes, and you are dying to get out and have a 
mouthful of fresh air, you are told that you will have to stop for 
an hour longer, or perhaps two or three hours. I have seen 
some of the younger girls put their heads down and cry quietly 
when they heard they could not go, and I have felt like crying 
myself, if it was any use. Perhaps you won’t believe this is the 
case, because you know it is illegal to keep us working more 
than twelve hours without a special order. But I know that it 
is done sometimes ; and I dare say, if anybody was to inquire 
carefully, he would find that it is done very often. Now and 
then it gets found out, and you hear of somebody being summoned 
and fined ; but it happens lots of times when it is not found out. 
Of course the girls might tell the inspector ; but none of us 
would dare to say anything to him. Besides Mdme. Célimène