I'll be dead before the next Christmas."


V

The sheer and causeless misery this girl endured was, of course,
attributable, not only to the long hours and to the standing demanded by
her occupation, but to the fact that this occupation was continued at a
period when the normal health of great numbers of women demands
reasonable quiet and rest.

With a few honorable exceptions[5] it may be said to be the immemorial
custom of department stores in this country to treat women employees, in
so far as ability to stand and to stand at all seasons goes, exactly as
if they were men.

The expert testimony collected by the publication secretary of the
National Consumers' League, Miss Josephine Goldmark, for the brief which
obtained the Illinois Ten-Hour Law, gives the clearest possible record of
the outlay of communal strength involved in these long hours of standing
for women.

_Report of "Lancet" Sanitary Commission on Sanitation in the
Shop_. 1892

Without entering upon the vexed question of women's rights, we
may nevertheless urge it as an indisputable physiological fact
that, when compelled to stand for long hours, women, especially
young women, are exposed to greater injury and greater
suffering than men.