allowed for meals: this is often altogether insufficient, and strongly
contrasted with the custom in other industrial pursuits, in which one
hour for dinner, and half an hour for breakfast or tea, as the case
may be, is the usual allowance. In an occupation so sedentary as
dressmaking, and especially in the case of young females, hurried
meals are most injurious, and are a frequent cause of deranged health.
It is also the painful duty of the committees to state that in some
establishments, according to the medical report, the principals, in
cases of sickness, will neither allow the young people an opportunity
of calling on the medical officer for his advice, nor permit that
gentleman to visit them at the place of business. The evils resulting
from this absence of all proper feeling are so obvious that it is
hoped this public rebuke will in future obviate the necessity of
recurring to so painful a topic."

The committee after this proceed to publish the following declaration,
signed by fifty-three of the West End dressmakers:--

"'We, the undersigned principals of millinery and dress-making
establishments at the West End of London, having observed in the
newspapers statements of excessive labor in our business, feel called
upon, in self-defence, to make the following public statement,
especially as we have reason to believe that some of the assertions
contained in the letters published in the newspapers are not wholly
groundless:--

"'1. During the greater portion of the year we do not require the
young people in our establishments to work more than twelve hours,
inclusive of one hour and a half for meals: from March to July we
require them to work thirteen hours and a half, allowing during that