to man, and man to woman. Sometimes I tried original ways of doing the
work given me. I soon found in every case that the methods proposed by
the forewoman were in the end those whereby I could do the greatest
amount of work with the least effort. A mustard machine had recently
been introduced to the factory. It replaced three girls; it filled as
many bottles with a single stroke as the girls could fill with twelve.
This machine and all the others used were run by boys or men; the girls
had not strength enough to manipulate them methodically.

The power of the machine, the physical force of the man were simplifying
their tasks. While the boy was keeping steadily at one thing, perfecting
himself, we, the women, were doing a variety of things, complicated and
fussy, left to our lot because we had not physical force for the simpler
but greater effort. The boy at the corking-table had soon become an
expert; he was fourteen and he made from $1 to $1.20 a day. He worked
ten hours at one job, whereas Ella and I had a dozen little jobs almost
impossible to systematize: we hammered and cut and capped the corks and
washed and wiped the bottles, sealed them, counted them, distributed
them, kept the table washed up, the sink cleaned out, and once a day
scrubbed up our own precincts. When I asked the boy if he was tired he
laughed at me. He was superior to us; he was stronger; he could do more
with one stroke than we could do with three; he was by _nature_ a more
valuable aid than we. We were forced through physical inferiority to
abandon the choicest task to this young male competitor. Nature had
given us a handicap at the start.

For a few days there is no vacancy at the corking-tables. I am sent back
to the bottling department. The oppressive monotony is one day varied by
a summons to the men's dining-room. I go eagerly, glad of any change. In
the kitchen I find a girl with skin disease peeling potatoes, and a