As to conditions of the work itself, many trades and occupations require for their proper carrying on methods and surroundings absolutely destructive to health.  In all preparation of hemp and oakum dust is excessive; far beyond that of the cotton-mill, which itself breeds consumption.  In the spinning of flax great heat and water are both necessities.  “Nothing is more wretched,” writes Jules Simon, “than a linen-spinner’s surroundings.  Water covers the brick floor.  The odor of the linen and a temperature often exceeding twenty-five Reaumur fill the workroom with an intolerable stench.  The majority of the workwomen, obliged to put off most of their garments, are huddled together in this pestilential atmosphere, imprisoned in the machines, pressed one against the other, their bodies streaming with sweat, their feet bare to the ankle; and when a day, nominally of twelve hours but really of thirteen and a half, is over, they quit the workroom for home, the rags they wear barely protecting them from cold and damp.”

Details of the same order abound in the work of the political economist M. Leroy-Beaulieu,[36] who seeks at all points to give the most favorable impression possible.  In each and every case the great authorities appear to be of one mind as to the disastrous effects upon the children born to these mothers.  That the creche is now practically a part of every factory makes little or no difference.

“The creche,” writes Jules Simon, “abolishes maternity in all save its pains.  The working mother is defrauded of her own means of growth, bound up in the training of the child; and the child loses its right to be loved and guarded by love.”  In short, for all continental countries, as well as for England and our women, the question of child labor and the destiny of the child are inextricably bound up in that of the working mother, and are vital factors in working out the problem of woman as a wage-earner.  What proportion of wage-earning women recruit the ranks of prostitution, is a question often asked.  In Paris, which is in one sense the focus of French labor, its many opportunities drawing to it a large contingent from the provinces, it is popularly supposed that the ranks of the sewing-women give large proportion to houses of prostitution.  This opinion is the prevailing one for all large cities, whether in Europe or America, yet is disproved on all sides.  For Paris Parent-Duchalet states that in the statistics given by the prefecture of police, in a table including forty-one categories, women with no occupation had first rank as prostitutes, domestic service giving the second, and sewing-women the smallest proportion.  This is the more surprising when one considers that their wage is often below the point of subsistence, and that temptation of every order waits upon them.  At the best the wage falls far below that of men, even when both engage in the same work.  The present movement toward organization