Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/333

 THE NECESSARY SEQUEL OF CHILD-LABOR LAWS 317

10 hours in 24, 60 hours in one week, in Connecticut, Louisiana, Neb- raska, and New Hampshire, for all women.

10 hours in 24, 60 hours in one week, in Michigan, for girls under 21 years.

10 hours in 24, 60 hours in one week, in Indiana and Maine, for girls under 18 years.

12 hours in 24, 60 hours in one week, in Pennsylvania, for all women.

In a third group of states the labor of women is restricted to a specified number of hours in the twenty-four, but no restriction by the week is named, thus inviting the twofold evil possibility of work by night and of work every night in the week, including Sunday.

WORK RESTRICTED BY THE DAY ONLY

Work restricted to

8 hours in 24, in Colorado, for women in all employments requiring them to stand.

10 hours in 24, in Maryland in mills, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vir- ginia, and Washington, for all women.

Practiced working of the restrictions. Like all statistics, these tables afford merely an outline of the conditions under which women may be employed. Various factors, such as the nature of the industry, the efficiency of enforcement, the power of public opinion, or the demands of trade, all vitally affect the practical working of legal restrictions. Thus in the retail stores of New York city the law which prohibits the employment of girls under twenty-one years of age after 10 p. M. indirectly bene- fits the whole body of older saleswomen ; for so great is the num- ber of young employees to be dismissed at i o o'clock that the large establishments find it most practicable to close at that hour, releasing the older saleswomen, who would otherwise be employed to a much later hour, especially in the holiday season. Although in this particular case the protection of working-women is ampler than seems indicated by the few existing statutes, the reverse is rather the rule, and legislation tends to lose its proposed effect through various omissions and ambiguities.

With the exception of the five states which prohibit outright night work for women, mere usage actually determines whether their hours of labor shall be by day or by night. When labor is