of Whitechapel and parts of two adjoining parishes. The trade is almost
entirely in the hands of Jews, who number from thirty to forty thousand
persons. Recent investigations disclosed 906 workshops, which, in the
quality and conditions of the work done in them, may be graded according
to the number of hands employed. The larger workshops, employing from
ten to twenty-five hands or more, generally pay fair wages, and are free
from symptoms of sweating. But in the small workshops, which form about
80 per cent of the whole number, the common evils of the sweating system
assert themselves--overcrowding, bad sanitation, and excessive hours of
labour. Thirteen and fourteen hours are the nominal day's work for men;
and those workshops which do not escape the Factory Inspector assign a
nominal factory day for women; but "among the imperfectly taught workers
in the slop and stock trade, and more especially in the domestic
workshops, under-pressers, plain machinists, and fellers are in many
instances expected to 'convenience' their masters, i.e. to work for
twelve or fifteen hours in return for ten or thirteen hours' wage."[21]
The better class workers, who require some skill, get comparatively high
wages even in the smaller workshops, though the work is irregular; but
the general hands engaged in making 1s. coats, generally women, get a
maximum of _1s. 6d._, and a minimum which is indefinitely below 1s. for
a twelve hours' day. This low-class work is also hopeless. The raw hand,
or "greener" as he is called, will often work through his apprenticeship
for nominal wages; but he has the prospect of becoming a machinist, and
earning from 6s. to 10s. a day, or of becoming in his turn a sweater.
The general hand has no such hope. The lowest kind of coat-making,
however, is refused by the Jew contractor, and falls to Gentile women.
These women also undertake most of the low-class vest and trousers
making, generally take their work direct from a wholesale house, and
execute it at home, or in small workshops. The price for this work is
miserably low, partly by reason of the competition of provincial