PROOF-READERS, COMPOSITORS, AND BOOKBINDERS.

Men who employ women in trades and businesses where they have to work for some length of time before they become skilled laborers have one very strong objection against female help. "No sooner," they say, "do we really begin to get some benefit from the woman's work, after having borne long and patiently with her sins of omission and commission, than along comes a good-looking young fellow and marries her."

For this reason women sometimes find it difficult to obtain entrance into the most desirable establishments where trades can be learned. And yet these same employers are not hostile to female labor; on the contrary, they are strongly in favor of it, but they say that they are not willing to encourage it to the extent of sacrificing the necessary time and trouble in making a woman perfect in a trade, and then seeing her leave them to enter upon the presumably more congenial duties of matrimony.

The woman, therefore, who desires to learn a trade may find this difficulty meeting her at the threshold. All employers, however, are not alike, and some establishment can generally be found where a woman can learn the first principles of the occupation she wishes to follow; as soon as she has attained a reasonable degree of proficiency in it, she can get a position in a larger and better establishment, where the pay will probably be higher and the surroundings more agreeable.

Of the three employments mentioned at the head of this chapter proof-reading is probably the most pleasant. A woman to be properly qualified must have a good education, and must have graduated from the printer's case. A great many young women who know nothing about the compositor's trade think they can be good proof-readers, but they may have a good collegiate education, and if they are not familiar with the practical details of printing, as they can be learned in a printing establishment, they will never amount to much as proof-readers. This is the class of proof-readers who "get interested" in what they are reading; they are on the look-out for bad sentences which, having found, they promptly proceed to correct, a self-imposed duty for which they receive no thanks from either their employer or the author whose language or style they seek to improve. A good proof-reader reads mechanically. The moment she takes a personal interest in what she is reading, or becomes critical on the matter in hand, she is apt to overlook typographical errors of the most common sort. Of course, she must be a first-class speller and have a good knowledge of punctuation, though how far she will have to apply the latter knowledge will depend very much on what kind of proof she is reading. If she is engaged in an establishment where books are printed exclusively, she will find that authors, as a rule, have their own systems of punctuation, with which (supposing the authors to be men and women of ability) she will not be expected to interfere. But if she is engaged on newspaper or general work, she will have ample opportunity to display her knowledge and exercise her judgment in the matter of punctuation. In all important work female proof-readers seldom read the second or revised proof. That is generally given to a male proof-reader of large experience, who gives the matter a critical reading.

The pay of good women proof-readers is from $15 to $20 a week. Those who receive the latter sum are capable of reading "revises." Now and then a woman receives exceptionally good pay for this kind of service. A prominent American historian paid a lady proof-reader $30 a week; but she was unusually well educated, and capable of often making valuable suggestions to the author.

No encouragement can be given to the woman desirous of becoming a proof-reader who will not learn the practical details of the calling in a printing establishment.

In connection with proof-reading it may be mentioned that young girls or young women find employment as "copy-holders." Their duty is to read aloud to the proof-reader the copy of the author. If they can read rapidly and correctly they can earn about $8 a week.

Female compositors are now largely employed in job and newspaper offices, but it is only fair to state the objections to their following this trade. In some establishments they are obliged, like the men, to stand at their work. Physicians state, and the experience of the women themselves proves, that this is very detrimental to health. It has been urged by women, also, that in printing-offices they are forced to hear profane and improper language from their male companions, who sometimes, doubtless, in this way, harass the women, sometimes with the purpose of expressing their dissatisfaction at the employment of female labor. But too much weight should not be given to this complaint. In all the large, well-regulated establishments such conduct would not be tolerated, provided the men and women worked in the same room, which, however, is rarely the case; as a rule, the female help are set off in an apartment by themselves.

Employers who have employed female compositors say that they cause a great deal of trouble. They have to have a separate room, and require to be waited upon a great deal, especially if they are learning the trade, while men readily get along by themselves. They are sure to lose more or less time through sickness, and that, too, very often in the busiest season, when there is great pressure of work, and their services are in especial demand. Of late, the female compositors in one of the largest establishments in New York demanded to be paid the same rate as the men. The demand was not acceded to, and the proprietors came very near discharging all their female compositors, urging the objections which have just been stated, together with the general objection to the employment of female help stated in the beginning of this chapter.

Notwithstanding all these objections, however, which a woman can weigh and take for what they are worth, the trade of a compositor is a very good one. Among men, a type-setter has always been considered the most independent of mortals. If he is thorough master of his trade, he is always sure of work, and with the great development of our country, there is hardly a spot to which he may drift where he will not find a printing-office and an opportunity to earn money. Numerous instances might be related of printers who, being of a roving disposition, have travelled all over the United States, earning their living as they went. The trade is just as good, or nearly as good, for a woman. She is never paid, it is true, the same rate that the men receive, but if she is a quick worker she can make much more money in a week, as a compositor, than she could at many other occupations. She can never hope to perform as much work as a first-class male compositor; that is a physical impossibility.

Good compositors in the large New York establishments where books are printed (and it is only in such places that women are employed in the large cities), earn from $14 to $15 a week. The poor ones average $9 and $10 a week. Sometimes good women make more than $15 a week, earning as much as $18 or $20 a week. This kind of work, it must be understood, is paid by the piece, so that how much a woman earns depends entirely on her ability.

In many small cities and country towns, especially throughout New England, young women are employed as compositors in newspaper offices. Their rate of pay is never as high as it is in the cities, but their living expenses are proportionately less, so that really they are just as well off. It would seem, indeed, that such situations were to be preferred. There is less noise and hurry in such small establishments, and, therefore, less wear and tear on the human system. The papers are generally afternoon papers, and, therefore, the work is all done in the daytime. The women are allowed to sit at their work. In such situations they will be able to earn from $5 to $12 a week.

It is, at present, difficult for a woman entirely ignorant of the trade, to get into any of the large establishments in New York, where such help is engaged, for the purpose of learning to become a type-setter. If her ambition lies in this direction, and she lives outside the large cities, she could do no better than obtain an introductory knowledge of the art in some country newspaper office, or, failing in that, get the necessary practical instruction in some job office, in either city or country.

Certain parts of the work of bookbinding are monopolized by young girls and young women. They are employed in folding, collating, sewing, pasting, binding, and gold-laying. There is probably no large establishment in the country where men are employed to do this kind of work. The industry seems to be peculiarly adapted to young women who are quick with their hands.

Employés in this trade are paid by the piece, with the exception of the collaters, who receive a stated salary of $8 a week. "Collating," it may be mentioned for the benefit of those who are not familiar with the term, means the gathering together of the various folded sheets or sections of the book, and seeing that the pages run right, preparatory to their being handed over to the sewers, who stitch them together. The pay of folders, binders, pasters, and sewers will average, during the year, from $6 to $7 a week. Gold-layers are paid by the hour and make a dollar or two more a week. This average, it must be understood, is for the whole fifty-two weeks. Some weeks the girls make $12 and $15, other weeks not one third as much. Girls as young as fourteen years are employed, and women forty and fifty years of age may be found working beside them. Nine hours and a half constitute a day's work. Some girls will make more than the average named. Those are the steady workers who, to use the expression of one employer, "work just like a man and don't care to hurry home and crimp up to see company in the evening." Such employés will, the year round, average each week two or three dollars more than the ordinary run of help.

It is said that there is always work in this trade for competent women. But it is a trade that no woman of ambition would want to enter, unless she was unable to find any thing better to do. There is no chance to rise in the business and get a better paying position, for the rule is to employ male foremen. In only one large establishment in New York is there a woman occupying such a position. It is proper to state, however, that she gives perfect satisfaction, that her employer would not replace her for a man, and that he believes other bookbinders will eventually see the advisability of having a female instead of a male overseer. A man, it is said, is apt, in giving out work, to favor the pretty girls at the expense of the plain-looking damsels, thus creating jealousy among the employés, while a woman is not influenced in that way.

The proprietors of the large bookbinderies make every effort to secure a respectable kind of help, but young women of loose principles, and sometimes, it is to be feared, of actual immoral character, get employment at the trade, and, when they do, their influence is any thing but good on their companions. It must, however, be largely a girl's own fault if she allows herself to associate with such company. During working hours, of course, nothing but business is attended to. Lunch is eaten in the establishment, and during the lunch hour the girls gather together in little knots and talk about the last picnic or the coming ball. But the place is so large, that a girl of reserved manners can generally keep by herself, or select such companions as she prefers.

The trade is not difficult to learn, the work is neat and clean, the rooms where the girls work—that is, in the large bookbinderies—are commodious, well lighted, and airy. If a young woman, getting her board free at home, wanted to make a little money by working only a few months, or a year, she could probably accomplish this object by entering a bookbindery.