vote.

The most important provision of the bill was the ten-hour limit which it
placed on the work of women under twenty-one. The overwhelming majority
of department-store clerks are girls under twenty-one. The bill also
provided seats for saleswomen, and specified the number of
seats,--one to every three clerks. It forbade the employment of
children, except those holding working certificates from the
authorities. These, and other minor provisions, affected all retail
stores, as far as the law was obeyed.

As a matter of fact the Consumers' League's bill carried a "joker" which
made its full enforcement practically impossible. The matter of
inspection of stores was given over to the local boards of health,
supposedly experts in matters of health and sanitation, but, as it
proved, ignorant of industrial conditions. In New York City, after a
year of this inadequate inspection, political forces were brought to
bear, and then there were no store inspectors.

Year after year, for twelve years, the Consumers' League tried to
persuade the legislature that department and other retail stores needed
inspection by the State Factory Department. A little more than a year
ago they succeeded. After the bill placing all retail stores under
factory inspection was passed, a committee from the Merchants'
Association went before Governor Hughes and appealed to him to veto what
they declared was a vicious and wholly superfluous measure. Governor
Hughes, however, signed the bill.

In the first three months of its enforcement over twelve hundred
infractions of the Mercantile Law were reported in Greater New York. No