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The trades covered by this enquiry include a great number of processes, some brief account of which is necessary if the succeeding chapters are to be comprehensible. It will, perhaps, be the easiest way to follow the stages by which paper is converted into books and to return afterwards to such accessory matters as envelope making, relief stamping, lithography, etc.

Paper-making.—Paper-making is carried on mainly in the counties of Kent, Lancashire, Buckingham, Yorkshire, Fife, Lanark, Aberdeen and Midlothian, but mills are found scattered over the country where water is favourable to the manufacture.[1] In London, there is one mill only, and not more than thirteen women are employed in it. Of these the majority are occupied in sorting esparto grass, and throwing it by means of pitchforks into machines where the abundant dust is shaken out, and from which the grass is carried on moving bands to the vats where it is boiled into pulp. A few older married women are engaged in cutting rags, removing buttons, etc.; but at the present day paper is but rarely made from rags, and the rags so used are generally sorted and cut by machinery. This is an instance in which machinery has undoubtedly superseded the work of women; but, perhaps, few persons will regret that an occupation so uninviting as the cutting up of old rags should be undertaken rather by a machine than by a human being. With the later processes in the manufacture of paper—the boiling, mixing, bleaching, and refining—women have nothing to do; but a few women are employed in "counting" the sheets of paper before they leave the mill.

[1] The Directory of Paper-makers for 1903 gives the following number of paper mills as being situated in the following counties:—Bucks, 16; Devon, 10; Durham, 9; Kent, 30; Lancashire, 44; Yorkshire, 27; Edinburgh, 17; Lanark, 9; Stirling, 8; Fife, 7; Aberdeen, 5; Dublin, 6.

The work of the women, who are time-workers at from 8s. to 10s. a week, requires no training. The working day begins at 6 a.m., an earlier hour than that of any other factory or shop dealt with in this enquiry. The machinery is kept in constant action, double shifts of men being employed, and when it becomes necessary to feed the machines with grass at night men do the work performed in the day by women.

Letter-press Printing.—The primary business of the "compositor" is to "set-up type," i.e., to arrange the separate movable types in required order for printing successive lines of words. These lines are then arranged in frames called chases, each of which containing the types is known as a forme; the formes are "locked up," that is, made firm by wooden or metal wedges called quoins, and are then carried to the press for a proof impression. The printed page passes on in the shape of proof to the "corrector," and from him to the author, and is then returned in order that corresponding alterations may be made in the placing of the type. Finally, when the whole corrected impression has been printed off, comes the "distributing"—the removal of the types from their places and re-sorting into the proper divisions in the "case." Were books the only form of printed matter, this description would cover the whole business of the compositor, but there are also handbills and newspapers—to say nothing of lithographic printing, which will be dealt with farther on. The printing of handbills, etc., and the printing of newspapers, require, each in its own way, a high degree of skill and experience, to which women, the vast majority of whom leave the trade comparatively young, seldom attain.

In the provinces, however, a few women are engaged upon the printing of weekly or bi-weekly newspapers; and in London, one establishment has been visited in which women regularly do "jobbing" or "display work"—terms which cover the printing of advertisements, posters, handbills, etc.—while at least two other firms employ each one girl upon such work. "None of the other workers," it is reported, "seem to care to learn."

The difference between skilful and unskilful work in this department is far greater than an uninitiated person might suppose; and the attractiveness of a poster, advertisement or invitation card depends very largely upon the way in which the type is spaced.

In all printing houses employing women compositors, setting up, correcting, and distributing are done by women; in the Women's Printing Society women regularly "impose," that is, divide up the long galleys of type into pages and place the pages so that they may follow in proper order when the sheet is folded, and in another firm a woman was found who could impose; but as a general rule the "imposing" is the work of the man or men employed to lock-up and carry about the heavy formes. No instance has been found in which this latter work, which in some cases is extremely heavy, is done by women.

Bookbinding.—This trade covers at least two main divisions, and one of these is minutely subdivided into a great variety of processes. The first process is, in all cases, that of folding. All printed matter occupying more than a single page has to be so folded as to bring the pages into consecutive order, and this process is essentially the same whether the printed sheet be that of a book, a pamphlet, a magazine, or a newspaper. From the trade point of view, however, there is a distinction between the folding of matter intended to be bound up in a real book cover (book-folding) and matter which is not to be bound (printers' folding). As a general rule—liable, however, to many exceptions—book-folding is performed in a binder's shop and printers' folding in a printing house, whence the names. But many printers now have a regular binding department, and periodical or pamphlet work is on the other hand often folded in the workshop of the publisher's binder. The line of demarcation is therefore no very distinct one. Prospectus work is par excellence printers' folding, and so are such weekly papers as are still folded by hand.

Book-folding is done by women, of whom in theory nearly all, and in practice many, are regularly employed. The process is practically identical in both cases. Printers' folding is carried on in large firms chiefly by a regular staff; but in times of pressure "job hands" or "grass hands" are called in; and in smaller workplaces job hands do the whole of the work. Great sheets of matter, fresh from the press, are distributed in thousands to the workers to be folded either by hand or by machine. In the latter case, the woman merely feeds the machine, taking care to lay the sheet in exactly the right place. In the former, she becomes practically a machine herself, so monotonous is the occupation. The sheet is folded once, twice, three, or even four times, as the case may be, on a fixed plan, and sometimes has to be cut with a long knife as well as folded. The various sheets of a book having been folded, the process of gathering follows. Each folder has received a fixed number (probably a thousand) copies of the same sheet, and when she has finished folding the gatherer places the sheets in piles of each "signature," e.g. the index letter which one observes on the first page of each sheet in a book, in regular order on a long table. She then walks up and down the side of this table collecting one copy of each sheet and so forming a complete book. The collection thus made passes from the gatherer to the collator, who runs over it, noting by means of the printer's "signature" that all the sheets are in order, and placing her mark on the book, thereby becoming responsible for its accuracy. In the case of illustrated books the process of placing comes at this stage. The plates to be inserted are "fanned out"—i.e., laid out in fan shape—each receives a narrow strip of paste at the back and is placed next, and stuck to, its proper page. This placing is sometimes done by the collator, sometimes by a separate hand. The whole process of collating is often omitted in the case of pamphlets and small work, and the sheets then pass straight from the folder to the stitcher or sewer. Of sewing or stitching there are many varieties. The threads of hand-sewn books generally pass through three bands of tape kept taut by being attached at one end to the table at which the worker sits and at the other to a horizontal bar above. Sometimes the book will have been prepared by the sawing of grooves in the back to receive the sewing. This sawing is done by men. Stitching machines vary greatly. The simplest kind merely inserts the unpleasant "staple-binder" of wire that is so large a factor in the rapid decomposition of cheap books. In these machines, one variety of which uses thread and knots it, the pamphlet or other work in hand is placed at a particular place in a kind of trough; the operator presses a treadle and the wire is mechanically passed through and pressed flat. Other machines of a more complicated sort will sew with thread upon tapes. In this case one girl is required to superintend and a younger assistant to cut apart the books which are delivered by the machine fixed at intervals upon a long continuous tape. Such machines are worked by power and set going by the pressure of a treadle. Pamphlets or newspapers having neither "cover" nor "wrapper" are now finished—unless, indeed, inserts or insets are to be placed between the pages. These are those unattached advertisements which fall out upon the reader's knee on a first opening, and thereby certainly succeed in catching his attention, though not perhaps his approval. Magazines or paper-covered books are sometimes "wrappered" by women, a simple process consisting of glueing the back of each book and clapping on the cover. Bound books have end-papers added to them by women, who also paste down the projecting tapes to the fly-pages. At this stage the book passes into the hands of men to be touched no more by women, except perhaps in a few subsidiary processes. But since much debate has taken place over the allotment to men and women of other parts of the work, it becomes necessary to give a cursory glance at the further stages of a book's progress.

On leaving the women's hands the book—now no longer a collection of loose sheets but an entity—is placed in a machine to be "nipped," that is, to have the back pressed; then the edges are cut smooth in a "guillotine"; the back is glued upon muslin and rounded, and a groove is made, by hand or machine, at each side of the back, so that the cover may lie flat; this is called "backing," the covering boards and cloth are cut out and pasted together; the design and lettering are stamped upon them in the "blocking-room"; the books are "pasted down," that is, are fixed into their covers by means of pasting down the end leaves, and are "built up" in a large press. If the designs and lettering of the cover are to be gilded, the gold-leaf is laid on by hand according to the stamped-out pattern, which is then restamped, and any gold-leaf not firmly adhering is rubbed off with an old stocking. The stocking is burned in a crucible, and the precious remainder of the gold collected again. "Gold laying-on" is done by women; and the workers engaged in this task do nothing else. Much dexterity is needed, the gold-leaf being apt to break or blow away at the slightest breath. One investigator describes as "seeming almost marvellous" the skill with which this difficult material is laid in exactly the right place by means of a knife. Women also "open-up," i.e., look through the books ready to be sent out to see that there are no flaws. Such is the life-history of the ordinary book as it comes from the publisher, but "publishers' binding" is not the only section of the binding trade, and is indeed regarded by the workers as "decidedly inferior" to "leather-work," which is emphatically distinguished as "bookbinding." Leather-binding is employed mainly for rebinding. It forms, as may be supposed, a comparatively small part of the whole trade, and is practically confined to three large firms in the West End, a few small places, and separate rooms in some general binding establishments. The chief difference of method lies in the better fixing together of back and cover, the "bound" book being laced into the cover, and in the presence of a "head-band," at top and bottom of the back. Books to be re-bound are picked to pieces by women and cleaned from glue, etc., re-folded, if necessary, collated, and after being rolled flat (by a man) are sewn at a hand press. Repairs to torn pages or plates and the removal of stains are also done by women. This last process demands great care and skill, "foxed" pages requiring to be dipped into a preparation of acid which destroys not only the objectionable stain but also the body of the paper, so that the leaf has to be newly sized and strengthened, and naturally needs very tender handling throughout this whole course of treatment. The best head-bands, too, are made by women by hand, but the head-bands of cheaper books—when they exist at all—are machine-made. Head-band makers form a special and extremely small class of workers.

A third branch of the trade is "vellum-binding," a name which covers the binding of all ledgers, account books, and bank books, whether bound in vellum or no. The workers engaged in this branch form a separate group, are rarely found on the premises of regular bookbinders, and work chiefly in a separate department in printing houses. The employments of women in vellum-binding are much the same as in publishers' binding; they fold and sew much in the usual manner, the only marked difference arising in the case of large day-books, etc., which are elaborately hand-sewn in frames, each section of the book having a separate guard of linen.

It is difficult to draw lines of demarcation between the various workers whose occupations have now been described. In large workplaces a worker will probably be kept at one minute process; the folder will do nothing but fold, the sewer will only sew, the collator only collate, and the inserter only insert. Some forewomen, however, think it better to give the women a change of employment. Gold layers-on and openers-up are always entirely apart from folders and sewers, but collators begin with folding and sewing, and in small houses sometimes combine one or both these processes with collating.

The divisions of work between men and women are not made upon any discernible principle of fitness, and except in the case of folding and sewing, which have belonged to women from time immemorial, the various processes began in the hands of men and have been gradually taken up by women. This gradual encroachment has been generally resented and often resisted by the men, and in May, 1893, an elaborate agreement was drawn up by the Bookbinding Trade Section of the London Chamber of Commerce representing the masters, and the secretaries of the men's unions representing the men working in the trade. The women workers were not represented or consulted. The agreement is as follows:—

LONDON SOCIETIES OF JOURNEYMEN BOOKBINDERS.

London Consolidated Society; Bookbinders' and Machine Rulers' Consolidated Union, London Branch; Society of Day-working Bookbinders.

That this meeting of representatives of the Bookbinding Section of the London Chamber of Commerce, with representatives of the Journeymen Bookbinders' Trade Societies, deeming it desirable that a definition of bookbinding should be agreed upon for the delimitation of work to be paid for at recognised rates, hereby agrees that the following divisions or sub-divisions of labour be for the future recognised as the work of bookbinders or apprentices, taking the book from the time of leaving the women after sewing, except wrappering, which is unaffected by this agreement:—

Forwarding, and the following sub-divisions of bookbinding:

Nipping, knocking down, or pressing.

Cutting books or magazines.

Colouring edges of books (where done indoors).

Cutting leather, except corners, and backs for flush work from sheep and roan.

Cutting cloth.

Cutting hollows and linings.

Cutting boards.

Bevelling boards.

Case making.

Pasting down and building up.

Flush work throughout.

Finishing throughout.

Assistant finishing throughout.

Blocking throughout.

Circuit and box work. (Bible trade.)

PROVIDED:—That the representatives of the journeymen agree that they will not make it a grievance if female or unskilled labour is placed upon:—

The rolling, pressing before sewing, sawing up, or papering of outboard work.

The laying on, washing up, or cleaning off of cloth work.

The varnishing of cloth or Bible work.

The paper mounts and pictures on cloth cases.

Taking work out of the press after pasting down, and opening up.

The carrying of loads of work about the workshop.

Further, that the representatives of the journeymen will not object to the introduction of unskilled labour upon cloth cutting, if the recognised rate of wages of 32s. per 48 hours be paid after a probationary period of twelve months, in which the novice may learn the work.

Owing to the difficulties of drafting a clause affecting the laying on in such a manner as to lay down a line of demarcation between cloth and leather work, it is hereby agreed to leave the subject of laying on in statu quo, upon the understanding that it shall not be the policy of the Trade Societies to interfere, except in the case of innovations upon existing custom.[2]

[2] This clause has been interpreted by the award given in March, 1903, by Mr. C. J. Stewart, the arbitrator appointed by the Board of Trade to settle a dispute in the trade regarding wages, hours, apprentices and piece work. The 6th clause in that award is as follows:——"That the right or practice existing with regard to female labour employed on wrappering and for laying on gold in case work, cloth or leather, or other material, in certain workshops in the trade, shall be made to apply to all workshops in the trade, it being agreed by the employers that no man exclusively employed in gold laying-on shall lose his employment by reason of the employment of women on such work."

This agreement not to be construed to the prejudice of the existing holders of situations.

Adopted by the Bookbinding Trade Section of the London Chamber of Commerce at its annual meeting on 7th May, 1893.

JOHN DIPROSE, Chairman.

Ratified by the executives of the hereunder-mentioned Societies on May 30th, 1893, and signed on their behalf.

HENRY R. KING, Secretary, London Consolidated Society.

WILLIAM BOCKETT, Secretary, Day Working Bookbinders' Society.

THOMAS E. POWELL, Secretary, Bookbinders and Machine Rulers' Consolidated Union (London Branch).

Closely connected with vellum-binding are the processes of machine-ruling, numbering, paging and perforating.

Machine-ruling is the process by which lines are ruled for ledgers, invoices, etc. The machine employed resembles a hand-loom in appearance, and is in effect a framework in which pens are fixed at the required distances. Ink is conveyed into these from a pad of thick flannel above, and the page to be ruled lies on a broad band below. The re-inking of the flannel is in some cases effected by means of a reservoir and tap supplying a regulated flow, in others the ink is laid on from bowls of red or blue colour by means of a brush. Machines worked by a handle still survive in a few places, but as a general rule the machine is driven by power and the operator merely superintends, correcting the machine if it goes wrong, setting the pens and regulating the supply of ink. The newest machines require the services of neither "feeders" nor "wetters," and the simple old picturesque accessories, the cords, the wooden frame, the bowls of colour, are disappearing. Women are employed in some houses to feed the machines, which is purely mechanical work; our investigators found four establishments in London in which women can rise to the higher position of "minder," and one other in which they are allowed to damp the flannel and partially "mind."

Numbering is the process by which consecutive figures are stamped upon cheques, bills, receipts, tickets, or other loose sheets. A machine worked by hand is employed, the number types changing automatically. The attention of the worker is required on three points only: the paper must be placed so as to bring the number into the right position; the machine must not be allowed to skip numbers at a jump—as it is inclined to do; and whenever an additional figure becomes necessary, a certain change must be made. The handle of the machine works up and down, and the process is different from that of stamping, to be described later. There are no power machines for numbering.

Numbering is said to try the eyes, and the working of a machine handle is considered bad for girls who have any weakness of the chest.

Paging is the process by which numbers are printed upon the pages of a bound volume. As in numbering, a change has to be made at each "100"; and there is need of further care to avoid missing pages. Where these are thin or interleaved with tissue paper omissions are very easily made.

Perforating is done by machines generally worked by power, but sometimes by treadle, with one foot; and this treadle work was described by a woman constantly employed at it as excessively hard work.

Lithography.—The work of women and girls in lithography seems to be confined to the feeding of machines. In London the introduction of female labour is comparatively recent, dating from about six or seven years ago, but in the provinces women have been employed for more than thirty years. Employers are, for some reason or another, not very ready to give information about this branch of work; but some of the investigators engaged in this enquiry have succeeded in seeing the process. A girl stands on a high platform putting sheets into the proper place in the machine until she has completed the job. A long interval may follow in which she may sew, knit or read. The noise of the machine is incessant, and the work hard, monotonous and mechanical, but if done under proper conditions not necessarily unhealthy. Many working-places in London, however, where space is so valuable, are partly underground, dark and ill-ventilated, and in these the ceaseless whirring noise and the smell of the ink grow unendurably trying. Workers in such places are rough and of low social standing. Most men working in the general stationery trades, and some employers who do not employ women, condemn the doing of this work by women, and since the women have superseded not men but boys, the views of the workmen are not those of trade rivals. Girls are said to be in various ways better workers than boys—cleaner-handed, more careful and accurate, less disposed to meddle with the machinery, and therefore less liable to accidents; above all, quieter, more docile, and less apt to strike. The men employed in lithography look favourably on the employment of girls, because no girl attempts to rise into the higher grades and "pick up" the trade without apprenticeship. Girls do not, and boys as feeders do, "constitute a danger to the Society." Moreover, a trade that offers only so uncertain a chance of rising is generally disapproved for a boy.

The objection to the employment for girls is that they work among men—an objection which may be a very grave one indeed, or a comparatively slight one, according to the character of the foreman and the management of the workshop. It may be noted that respectable working-class parents almost always consider this objection serious.

A few women are reported to be employed as lithographic artists, but no one has been seen in the course of this enquiry.

Minor stationery trades are envelope-making, black bordering, plain and relief stamping.

Envelope-making has several subdivisions. The paper is first cut to shape in machines worked by men, then passed to women to be "cemented," i.e., to be gummed upon the flaps, folded or "creased," and stuck together. Finally the envelopes are packed by women.

Cementing and folding are reckoned distinct trades. One cementer explained to an investigator, however, that she described herself as a folder, "for people are so ignorant that if you say you are a cementer they think you have something to do with the pavement." Cementing may be done by hand or by machine, and the workers are not interchangeable. The hand-worker spreads out the envelopes in the shape of a fan, and passes her brush over all the flaps at once. The machine-cementer puts 500 or 1,000 envelopes into a small machine, which grips them and drips gum upon their flaps. The worker extricates the envelopes one by one, and spreads them out to dry. A more complex machine is being introduced which performs the various processes for itself, requiring one girl to feed and one to take-off.

The flaps being dry, the envelopes are taken in bundles to the folders, who first "crease" them—that is, fold in the sides—then "gum" them with a brush at the required points, and fasten them. This process can also be performed by a machine, and the operator in that case merely feeds the machine with the cemented paper, and the envelope is delivered made.

The envelopes are then handed on to the "packers," who count them and make them up into packets, and the packets into parcels.

Except the original cutting, still done by men, all these processes have always been executed by women.

The trade of black bordering is carried on by women who seldom or never perform any other process. Black bordering is usually done by hand. The worker spreads out a number of sheets, cards or envelopes, in such a manner as to expose only a certain width of border, and over this exposed portion she passes a brush. Of course, only two edges of each sheet, etc., can be laid ready at one time, and each object has to be "laid out" a second time after drying. "It is marvellous to see the speed and dexterity with which the women do the 'laying-out.' They gather up a large number of sheets, lay them on the board and fan them out with a piece of wood used for the purpose, showing the most astounding accuracy of eye in leaving just the right width exposed. Sometimes the 'laying out' is done by a machine, and only the blacking by hand." This trade—a steady one on the whole—has, unlike nearly all the other stationery trades, been more prosperous owing to the South African war—a grim little example of the way in which large public events eddy away into undreamed of backwaters! Men now never do black bordering, but are reported to have done so once. Machinery is now being more widely introduced.

Plain, Relief and Cameo Stamping.—Under these heads are included all the various processes by which crests, monograms, addresses, etc., are embossed upon notepaper, cards, programmes, or private Christmas cards. The trade has increased enormously of late years, and a new process has been introduced which renders it possible to employ the printing press. This, however, is only worth while when the order to be executed is a very large one; and most stamping is done by hand machines, a die being fixed into the machine and impressed by tightly screwing down. The machine is worked (like an ordinary copying press) by a horizontal bar, having a ball at each end, and swung from right to left. The lighter machines can be worked by one hand; the heavier require two, and are found fatiguing. Some are so heavy that they can only be worked by men. Practice is necessary in order to get the stamp in exactly the right place, and, in relief or cameo work, in order to mix the colours, which are rubbed on the die, to precisely the right thickness.

Plain stamping—the easiest process—is that in which letters, a coat of arms, or a trade mark, are raised but not coloured; in relief stamping the raised surface is coloured; and in cameo stamping (of which the registered letter envelope is an example) a white device stands out from a coloured background.

When two or more colours are employed considerable care, skill, and patience are needed. This work, in two or more colours, is called illuminating; in one branch of it—the highest—gold and silver are employed on a coloured surface, and here women are not employed.

Show-card Mounting.—Card mounting is a distinct trade, and is almost entirely in female hands. Almanacs, advertisements, and texts for hanging up, all belong to the province of the card mounter, whose main business is to unite the picture and cardboard that arrive separately in her workshop. The board is first cut either by a man at a cutting machine—or "guillotine"—or occasionally by a girl at a rotary machine adjustable to different gauges; then "lined," by having paper pasted over the back and edges. Inferior work is not lined. Finally, the picture or print is pasted on the card, the backs of three or four pictures being pasted at once, and each in succession being applied to its own card. Some means of hanging up is still needed, and various methods are in use. Sometimes eyelets are inserted into a punched hole by means of a small machine which a girl works by hand. Sometimes the edge is bound with a strip of tin, having loops attached to it; in this case the tin strips are cut by men, and applied by hand machines, again worked by girls. Sometimes, as in the case of maps, charts, and large diagrams, a wooden rod is fixed at the top, this fixing being done by girls.

The trade is not, it will readily be perceived, one that demands great skill, practice or intelligence, and the majority of the workers are very young. Still, a certain degree of experience is necessary, since the application of either too much or too little paste results in a "blister," and blistered work is spoiled. One investigator was shown a lot of 500 cards, the estimated value of which was 6d. each, no less than 385 of which had thus been spoiled and rendered quite useless. The workers stand at their work and report that it exhausts them. It used, till about twenty-eight years ago, to be done by men; but the trade was at that time a much smaller one. Night work, when considered necessary, is still done by men.

A little laying-on of gold is done in connection with card mounting. The process has been described already under bookbinding.

The Christmas card industry (which may be considered as a variety of show-card mounting) serves to exemplify one of the anomalies of the Factory Act. These cards may be sorted, packed, etc., to any hours of the night, because mere packing is not regarded as manufacture; but if a "bow of ribbon" is to be affixed to each card, the process becomes "preparation for sale," and the regulations of the Act apply.[3]