extenuation of the sweating character of this employment.

§ 4. Some minor "Sweating" Trades.--Mantle-making is also a woman's
industry. The wages are just sufficiently higher than in shirt-making to
admit the introduction of the lowest grades of unsupported female
workers. From 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d. a day can be made at this work.

Furring employs large numbers of foreign males, and some thousands of
both native and foreign females. It is almost entirely conducted in
small workshops, under the conduct of middlemen, who receive the
expensive furs from manufacturers, and hire "hands" to sew and work them
up. Wages have fallen during the last few years to the barest
subsistence point, and even below. Wages for men are put at 10s. or
12s., and in the case of girls and young women, fall as low as 4s.; a
sum which is in itself insufficient to support life, and must therefore
be only paid to women and girls who are partly subsisted by the efforts
of relatives with whom they live, or by the wages of vice.

In cabinet-making and upholstery, the same disintegrating influences
have been at work which we noted in tailoring. Many firms which formerly
executed all orders on their own premises, now buy from small factors,
and much of the lowest and least skilled work is undertaken by small
"garret-masters," or even by single workmen who hawk round their wares
for sale on their own account. The higher and skilled branches are
protected by trade organizations, and there is no evidence that wages
have fallen; but in the less skilled work, owing perhaps in part to the
competition of machinery, prices have fallen, and wages are low. There
is evidence that the sub-contract system here is sometimes carried
through several stages, much to the detriment of the workman who
actually executes the orders.