more than five rooms each, while one family of ten persons was found accupying only two rooms-leaving no room for lodgers.

Again, in forty-eight of the households investigated, the sex and conjugal condition of the lodgers were learned. Among the lodgers in these forty-eight households are twenty-four families, consisting of husband, wife, and in about half the cases one or two children. In no case of the twenty-four did the family occupy more than one room, even though in one case a child of twelve years was found occupying the same bed with his parents, while in some cases indeed the members of such a family were forced to share their one room with other lodgers or with the head of the household and members of his family. It is doubtless true that many of these family lodgers have married since coming to America and do not find it advantageous to establish themselves as heads of a household until one or more children are born. Some of the women cannot maintain a house because after marriage they continue to work in the mills, even during their first pregnancy and up to within a few days of the birth of their first child. A smaller number of them return to work after the birth of the child. In yet other cases older children are left with kinsmen in Europe, to be sent for as soon as their parents become able to support them here. A considerable number of male lodgers have whole families in their fatherland, including wife and children.

The families of these South Siders are not large, these of more than four children being unusual while those of less than four are more common. The parents are, relatively speaking, recently arrived immigrants. Many if not most of them have been in Little Falls and in the United States less than five years. Being recent arrivals they are nearly all young people or at least not yet past middle life. If they had any children before coming to this country it is quite likely that such children were left in Europe with their grand-parents, their parents expecting to send for them later. If they have married since their arrival, their families are small and consist of small children. Mothers of such families and other mothers of small children can work in the mills only by "boarding out" their children during the day. This practice is quite common, this being the only form of day nursery

available.

The mother of an infant who cannot leave her child to take her place in the mill will sometimes act as guardian for the children of her neighbors. For this service she receives a small weekly payment which helps to make up for the loss of income which her forced stay at home occasions.

B. FOOD.

With reference to the kind of living with respect to food which what is expended for that purpose by these people affords them, it was impossible to secure in so brief a time any substantial evidence. In the table of food prices given above there is some suggestion of the various kinds of food used. But this throws no light on the actual dietaries of individuals or families, and still less does it afford evidence as to the sufficiency or insufficiency of such dietaries.

In general it may be noted that dealers state that the mill operatives buy a fairly good grade of food and in sufficiently large quantities to sustain them in their work. Of the children enrolled in the kindergarten on the South Side only about onesixth are reported to be suffering from malnutrition. From evidence obtained from physicans and representatives of the Board of Health of Little Falls it would appear that many infants are not properly nourished but a part of this may be due more to carelessness or ignorance on the part of the mothers than to lack of a sufficient quantity of food.

But the whole subject of standard of living with reference to food can here only be alluded to and left as one too complicated and difficult to be treated even in a fragmentary way without a much more elaborate investigation and study than was here possible.

CONCLUSION.

As told in the report of the Board of Mediation and Arbitration, in the settlement of the Little Falls dispute wages were restored to the level before the dispute with possibly some increases for piece workers in the readjustment of rates.* In other words

* Information received since the above was written shows that increases affected principally higher paid workers and that most of the lower paid received no advance.

the final settlement made but little, if any, change from conditions as to wages as shown by this report; certainly not enough change to indicate that the question of low wages does not still continue.

What practical conclusion is then to be drawn from this report? To this question it must be answered first of all that nothing can be said on the strength of this limited investigation as to responsibility for conditions found, whether of employers, workers, or society. It is impossible to say on the basis of this report whether higher wages could be paid in Little Falls or to what extent low wages are due to the inefficiency of untrained and in many cases ignorant foreign workers. Neither is it possible to judge how far their standard of living could be raised by a better use of wages now received.

Still less can anything be said as to remedies, consideration of which would demand most careful inquiry into many broad questions.

On the other hand, this investigation is sufficient to make one conclusion inescapable, namely, that existing conditions present a problem which is of public concern, and which therefore de mands further investigation. For certainly it is a matter of public concern because it is a matter which ultimately touches the general welfare, when a considerable body of wage earners are found with such living conditions as are revealed by this report.

Were there reason to believe that these conditions are purely local and confined to Little Falls, there might be question whether the duty of further investigation does not rest primarily upon the local community. But there is one phase of the matter which suggests that the problem may easily be of more than local concern. The textile mills of Little Falls manufacture knit goods. Hosiery and knit goods constitute one of the leading manufacturing industries of the state. According to the Federal Census of Manufactures of 1910, the average number of wage earners in the industry in 1909 was 35,950 and the value of its products in that year was $67,130,000. Only four other manufacturing industries had a larger number of wage earners, and only ten others exceeded it in value of products and five of these had a

total value under $100,000,000. The Department's statistics of factories inspected in 1910 show that approximately two-thirds of the wage earners in the knit goods industry are in establishments in the Mohawk Valley district extending from Syracuse to Albany. Little Falls lies just about in the middle of this district. A priori it would be presumed that so far as wages are concerned conditions in Little Falls would be quite similar to those in the industry generally in the Mohawk Valley. As a matter of fact the Little Falls employers under oath before the Board of Mediation and Arbitration declared emphatically that they were paying as high wages as were being paid by other employers of the industry in the valley. The larger significance of the Little Falls conditions lies, therefore, in the fact that there is reason to suppose that more or less similar conditions are to be found elsewhere in the principal district in which this important industry of the State lies.

The one outstanding and unavoidable conclusion of this report is that there is need of a thorough general investigation of wages and cost of living among the textile workers of the Mohawk Valley.

ment.

INDUSTRIAL DISEASES.

Reported Cases.

In Table XI of the Appendix are summarized the cases of industrial diseases reported by physicians under the reporting law for the months of December, January and February with comparative figures for previous months. In Table XII are given details for certain cases reported in the six months September to February, the first six months of the second year under the reporting law. These are cases reported on a new form adopted by the Department and put into use with the beginning of the second reporting year, this form calling for more detail than that previously in use and making possible the presentation of such details as appear in Table XII. It should be distinctly understood that these details are given simply as they appear in the original reports without special investigation by the DepartFor cases included in Table XI, but not appearing in Table XII, details were not sufficiently specified for this table. As noted in previous Bulletins the reader must bear in mind that nothing can be inferred from the tables as to the total number of cases of industrial disease or fatalities therefrom in the state. It is perfectly certain that registration of the reportable diseases is far from complete. This is due partly to the oversight of physicians, partly to the fact that not a few of the milder cases do not come to the attention of physicians, and partly to the fact that the true nature of such diseases, or their industrial character, may not be identified or noted. The last difficulty, which operates frequently to prevent identification of industrial diseases in death records, is forcibly illustrated by a case which recently came to light. An inquiry came to the Department as to whether a report of industrial disease in case of a person whose name only was given, and who had died, had been filed. No such report had been received. A certificate of death was found at the Department of Health, however, giving the person's occupation as that of a glass polisher and the cause of death as chronic nephritis. It so happened that previously a case of lead poisoning had been reported in the same occupation in the same locality.