trate the case with their employers. If times are "panicky," they may have to work on part time, or mills may be closed for weeks or months; but saleswomen and stenographers suffer the same financial reverses in hard times.
The girl who learns any trade in a factory soon finds that this knowledge is like a certain amount of capital on which she can always draw for an income. If she is an expert worker and she does not like the methods of her employers, she can seek other work among competitive firms. If she requires a change of climate or feels the spirit of wanderlust stirring within her, she can cross the continent if need be, and feel reasonably certain that wherever she finds a similar factory, there will be an opening for her skilled hands.
Among my self-supporting correspondents during the past ten years, hundreds have been factory-workers who have used their knowledge of trades, their powers of observation and the acquaintance gained in the despised factory life to accomplish certain long-cherished ambitions. One of the best traveling saleswomen in the country to-day represents a great corsetmaking firm in whose employ she started as an apprentice. Five girls who started together in a stocking factory now have a plant of their own, and are making a comfortable, independent living therefrom. The head of the Young
