under fourteen years of age at the bean sheds, of this city, in the stringing of beans, and have yet to hear of any detrimental surroundings or over work in this industry, and find that the sums earned by the children are in many cases sufficient to cover the narrow margin between the family self-supporting and the family that is a public charge. Should these people be obliged to forego the employment of their children in this manner it would render it necessary for many of them to receive public aid. I would consider any action that interfered with this employment of these children to be a hardship not only to their parents but for the children themselves. The employment of women and children over sixteen years in the factory proper, is of still greater help in placing many families among the self-supporting, and have yet to hear of any injury done them through sometimes long hours of labor.

Commissioner of Charities.

To Whom It May Concern:

This is to certify that I,

N. Y., February 27, 1912.

reside at

and have been a practicing physician for about thirteen years and during the last eight years of that time have been practicing in

and during

the last two years of such time have been health officer of the city of I consider the employment of children ten to fourteen years of age and many under that age, especially when accompanied by their parents, when engaged in bean stringing in the sheds of the during

vacation time—as physically beneficial rather than otherwise, and in my experience I know that the money so earned is of material assistance to children, and the families of which such children are members, in the way of purchasing school books, shoes, clothing and other necessities. I have never heard of anyone who has been employed by said company - either in the factory or in the sheds - as being injured by reason of working in the sheds or as a result of working sometimes long hours in the factory proper.

in 1911, at their plants at

and

-, N. Y.; that in the bean stringing sheds there was some active machinery and I was previously informed by one of the inspectors of the State Labor Department that it was a violation of the labor laws to employ in said sheds minors under fourteen years of age; that said sheds were a part of the factory and were treated as such in carrying out the laws as laid down by the Labor Depart

ment.

I was controlled accordingly, and did not employ in these sheds in 1911 minors under said age.

As a result, out of a pack totaling about 30,000 cases, more than 50 per cent of same was of poor quality, and when canned were worth much less than cost, and the said entire crop of beans were packed at a material loss, because of our inability to get them strung when in a fresh and crisp state, and there were instances when beans were not put into cans until five or six days after delivery, which fact caused a heavy depreciation in quality and a large proportion of them rusted, and we were obliged to draw part of these, as well as a large quantity which finally decayed, to the dump. The grower received, in this case, full price for his products, and we, as purchasers, suffered the entire loss.

Besides the loss mentioned above, the effect of the delay with stringing caused the small sizes, in which we do realize our profits, to wilt or become dry and unfit for first quality or fancy goods.

Very respectfully,

ACTUAL USE OF LONGER HOURS UNDER INDUSTRIAL BOARD

PERMIT

In order to determine the extent to which the permit of the Industrial Board was used the Department of Labor secured from the time-books of the canners to whom the permit was granted the hours in excess of 10 worked by women over 18 years of age during each of the 5 weeks from June 28 to August 1, 1914, inclusive. The relative use of the permit is indicated in Figure 1.

Taking 4,838 women over 18 years of age, the average number per week working in the canneries to whom permits were granted, as the base, the entire figure represents the total number of day's work of over 10 hours each which the permit allowed. The shaded portion of the figure represents the actual number of day's work of over 10 hours each recorded on the time books during the 5 weeks. As indicated in the figure the number of days of over 10 hours each worked by individual women varies greatly. For example, 3,698 women worked over 10 hours on one day of the possible 30 while one women worked over 10 hours per day on 26 days of the possible 30.

While the permit allows women over 18 years of age to work over 10 hours per day it forbids them to work over 12 hours per day. The black portion of Figure 1 shows the extent to which these permits were abused or violated by working women over 12 hours per day. Again great variation is shown in the work of individual

women; 1,126 women worked more than 12 hours per day on one day of the 30, while one woman worked over 12 hours per day on 21 of the 30 days. The total number of day's work of over 12

The number of women who worked consecutive days of over 10 hours each is as follows:

CONSECUTIVE DAYS WORKED IN EXCESS OF TEN HOURS PER DAY
NUMBER OF WOMEN WHO WORKED CONSECUTIVE
DAYS OF OVER 10 HOURS

Figure 1 shows that less than one-sixth of the possible day's work of over 10 hours each were utilized during this busiest period of the season. Figure 2 shows more clearly the nature of the work in canneries as indicated by the number of women who worked over 10 hours on each day of the 5 weeks during which the permit was in force.

As in Figure 1, the extent to which the permit to work over 10 hours was violated by working over 12 hours is shown by the part of the figure which is black. Such violations occurred on every week-day and on one Sunday, July 26, when 41 women worked over 12 hours. The largest number of violations occurred on July 18 when 280 women worked over 12 hours. The greatest

use of the permit also occurred on July 18 when 1,298 women worked over 10 hours.

Figure 2 shows that in each week there are two days usually Tuesday. and Saturday -on which an unusually large number of women worked over 10 hours. This is due to the fact that relatively little work is done on Sunday. Nearly all establishments care for the ready crops at the end of the week. The next rush period occurs when the crops which ripened over the weekend are brought to the cannery. The relative amount of work during each of the 5 weeks as indicated by this figure is as follows:

Although the Industrial Board, in granting the permit to employ women over 60 hours per week, placed the maximum limit of a week's work for women at 66 hours, many violations of such limit occurred as is shown in the table below.

In the above table 1,683 individual women worked over 60 hours per week and 492 worked over 66 hours per week. The total number of weeks over 60 hours was 2,605 and the total number over 66 hours was 621.

In like manner the Industrial Board stipulated in the permit that women should not work more than 6 days in any one week. Nevertheless the investigation showed that one establishment whose principal crop was peas worked 34 women 7 days one week;