Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/820

800 dollars as against thirteen; draymen, fifteen dollars as against ten; gardeners, eighteen dollars as against nine.

The cost of clothing in California is about ten per cent higher than in the Atlantic States, but the California workman is apt to wear better clothes. The average cost of food is estimated to be higher in California, but the California workman lives better. The cheap restaurants of San Francisco are superior to any in Eastern cities, and one can live there at less expense, or get more for his money, whichever he chooses. Owing to the climate, incidental expenses can be made less in California, and no time need be lost from one year's end to another. Lots are still cheap, and wood, the great building material, is about one third lower than in New York city.

Favorable as are the conditions outlined, the chief advantages are obtained by men. The wages paid to women for manual labor do not compare favorably with Eastern rates. The seamstress is no better off in California than in New York. Men proof-readers receive eighteen dollars a week, while women get nine dollars; men glove-makers are paid twenty or twenty-five dollars, while women have from five to ten dollars; salesmen in stores receive from fifty to a hundred dollars a month, while saleswomen are rated at from twenty to forty dollars. This difference comes partly from the fact that Chinese competition has been especially strong in domestic occupations. As regards teachers, the school law of California says, "Females employed as teachers in the public schools shall in all cases receive the same compensation as is allowed male teachers for like services, when holding the same certificates." In San Francisco the average salary paid to women teachers is $75.16 per month for twelve months. The statistics of the Labor Bureau bring out many encouraging facts about the life of the laboring women of San Francisco. These women number about twenty thousand, engaged in some three hundred occupations. The general condition of the establishments where they are employed is better than in some classes of establishments in the Eastern States, and the hours are shorter. Several "sweaters' shops" have been investigated, and public feeling aroused. In some of the cigar-factories and canneries Chinamen and American girls were found working together, and a law will probably be passed to prevent this. A "workshop and factory inspector," to operate under some general laws such as those of Massachusetts, is needed. The most satisfactory point about the condition of California working girls is the extent to which they "live at home." The tenement-house system has not yet reached San Francisco. With few exceptions the homes of the working women are neat and comfortable. In the interior towns work—girls are paid better, as a rule, than in San Francisco. The