Women in the Printing Trades Part 27

WORK.--Stamping, plain and relief, including tradesmen's cards, notepaper, Christmas cards, etc.

REGULARITY.--The work here is regular, because they work for the trade.

SKILL.--The girls need arm strength. Artistic taste is also required.

Some never make good stampers on account of deficiency in taste.

MACHINERY.--Machinery has not displaced women.

HOURS.--The hours worked are from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., with one hour for dinner, and half an hour for tea; on Sat.u.r.days, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

PROSPECTS.--Girls may rise to forewomen. "There is a little girl of fifteen now, who has only been here a year, and the other day Mr. I.

(who does not say things when he does not mean them) told her that she would rise to be forewoman one day. She is very good at her work and knows how things should look."

GENERAL.--The girls are very comfortable here. They have a room to themselves upstairs, and a dining room and a stove to cook on.

20. F., _Stationery Firm in London. Employee's Evidence_.

WORK.--(1) Envelope folding, which includes creasing, gumming, and shuffling.

(2) Envelope cementing.

(3) Plain stamping.

(4) Relief stamping.

(5) Looking over and packing.

REGULARITY.--Slack times vary in different houses. "You never can tell,"

but summer, as a rule, is slack. Last summer there was very little work all July and August at C. and D. and F. She made only 8_d._ or 9_d._ a day sometimes.

HOURS.--At C. and D. the hours worked are from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., with one and a-half hours for meals; at E., from 8 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., with one and a-half hours for meals on Monday and Tuesday; from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., with one and a-half hours for meals on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sat.u.r.days.

MACHINERY.--Machinery has not taken work from women.

GENERAL.--She remarked that G. was "a dreadful place." The girls cried because there was no work.

21. X., _Stamping Firm in London. Employee's Evidence_.

WORK.--There are about 100 girls in the _stamping_ room, about 30 of whom pack up the work in boxes, etc. In some places the stampers have to pack their own work. There is also _envelope work_, etc., done on the firm, but my informant knew nothing of this. Some girls did the hand illuminating, _i.e._, colouring part of a design that has been stamped.

REGULARITY.--The trade is seasonal, and is slack in the summer and busy in winter.

SKILL.--"You have to be strong to stand the stamping," she said. She herself had to give it up after she had been a learner for two years, and take to packing. Her health gave way; she got very anaemic, and could not stand the strain. Most of the packers were girls who could not stand stamping. They had one very heavy press with big dies, and tried a girl on it, but she got injured internally, so a man was put on it. At R. she heard they had heavy presses. She said she knew of two girls who went there, and both injured themselves. She thinks they had to go to the hospital. The best paying work was done on the big presses. However, many girls stood the stamping all right. Strength is absolutely necessary.

HOURS.--The hours worked are from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., with one and a-half hours off for meals; on Sat.u.r.days, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. When busy they work regularly from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and three nights a week to 9.30 p.m.

22 and 23. U. and V., _Two Stamping Firms in London. Employee's Evidence_.

WORK.--My informant did plain stamping, but never learnt relief work.

She once tried it, but did not get on with it. At U. there were only 5 stampers, at V. quite 30.

REGULARITY.--At U. work came in rushes, and they were always either very busy or else very slack; at V. work was steady all the year.

HEALTH.--My informant herself had grown rather crooked, and had to leave off work. She did not know of any other girls similarly affected though, nor did she consider it unhealthy. A good many were anaemic. She thought that now she has had a rest she might be able to stand it better. The big dies were the bad ones, and were tiring.

HOURS.--At U. the hours were from 9.15 a.m. to 7 p.m., with one hour for dinner and half an hour for tea; at V. from 9.15 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., but at V. one could work till 7 or 7.30 p.m., if one cared. At U. they were then working till 8 p.m. (December). She had never worked later than 9, and that very rarely.

PROSPECTS.--She thought that the chance of rising to forewoman was exceedingly remote.

GENERAL.--Both U. and V. were very nice and respectable shops, and particular about whom they took on. At U. there was a dining room, and things more comfortable than at V.

24. Y., _Machine Ruling Firm in London. Visit to Works_.

WORK.--There are _two departments_. (1) Top floor: _Machine ruling_. (2) Ground floor: _Perforating_, _numbering_, _and paging._

(1) The following is the general principle of the ruling machine:

There is a band about 1 yd. wide which goes round and round in a large ellipse (one flat side of the ellipse is about 3 yds. long). Upon this band the sheets of paper are placed by the girls, and by it they are drawn under a row of pens set at the required intervals for the lines.

They are then carried up and round by the revolutions of the band--being held in their places by string which revolves with the band--and fall out of the machine with the ink dry.

A good many machines are fitted with a second row of pens which rules the underneath side of the paper as well as the upper.

The pens are fed by a piece of flannel which is kept soaked by a regular flow of ink from a vessel fitted with a small tap.

These machines are worked by power. They used to be worked by hand.

(2) _Perforating_ is done by a machine worked by a treadle. A good many foreign and colonial postage stamps are done here.

_Numbering_ of loose pages, cheques, receipts, etc., is done by a machine with a handle which has to be pulled down by hand.

_Paging_, which is for made-up books, is done by a machine worked by a treadle.

REGULARITY.--The summer is a slack season in this trade as a rule. The firm are especially slack just now (August) as there are no orders from South Africa.

HEALTH.--The upper floor was exceedingly, almost insupportably, stuffy.

The ground floor was fairly airy. The under-forewoman said that working the treadle for paging was very hard work. "It always upset her inside,"

so she had to give it up.

SKILL.--Strength is required for paging.

DANGER.--They had just had an accident with the perforating machine. The bands upstairs were dangerous to long hair. One girl had her hair caught and was carried right up to the ceiling. The band was loose and slipped off the wheel, so she was let down again with no great injury.

PROSPECTS.--The girls may rise to forewoman; the machine rulers may rise to wet the flannels.