shoulders listlessly, and replied, "Don't know." In addition to bearing
and rearing these children, her work would sap the vitality of any
ordinary person. "She got home soon after four in the morning, cooked
breakfast for the family and ate hastily herself. At 4.30 she was in
bed, staying there until eight. But part of that time was disturbed for
the children were noisy and the apartment was a tiny, dingy place in
a basement. At eight she started the three oldest boys to school, and
cleaned up the debris of breakfast and of supper the night before. At
twelve she carried a hot lunch to her husband and had dinner ready for
the three school children. In the afternoon, there were again dishes
and cooking, and caring for three babies aged five, three years, and
six months. At five, supper was ready for the family. The mother ate by
herself and was off to work at 5:45."

Another of the night-working mothers was a frail looking Frenchwoman of
twenty-seven years, with a husband and five children ranging from eight
years to fourteen months. Three other children had died. When visited,
she was doing a huge washing. She was forced into night work to meet the
expenses of the family. She estimated that she succeeded in getting
five hours' sleep during the day. "I take my baby to bed with me, but he
cries, and my little four-year-old boy cries, too, and comes in to make
me get up, so you can't call that a very good sleep."

The problem among unmarried women or those without family is not the
same, this investigator points out. "They sleep longer by day than they
normally would by night." We are also informed that pregnant women work
at night in the mills, sometimes up to the very hour of delivery. "It's
queer," exclaimed a woman supervisor of one of the Rhode Island mills,
"but some women, both on the day and the night shift, will stick to
their work right up to the last minute, and will use every means to