tively; to what extent their employment comes in competition with the white industrial classes of the State. Eleventh-The number, condition, and nature of the employment of the inmates of the State Prisons, county jails, and reformatory institutions, and to what extent their employment comes in competition with the labor of mechanics, artisans, and laborers outside of these institutions. Twelfth--All such other information in relation to labor as the Commissioner may deem essential to further the object sought to be obtained by this statute, together with such strictures on the condition of labor and the probable future of the same as he may deem good and salutary to insert in his biennial reports. SEC. 4. It shall be the duty of all officers of State departments, and the Assessors of the various counties of the State, to furnish, upon the written request of the Commissioner, all the information in their power necessary to assist in carrying out the objects of this Act; and all printing required by the Bureau in the discharge of its duty shall be performed by the State Printing Department, and at least three thousand (3,000) copies of the printed report shall be furnished the Commissioner for free distribution to the public. SEC. 5. Any person who willfully impedes or prevents the Commissioner, or his deputy, in the full and free performance of his or their duty, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction of the same shall be fined not less than ten (10) nor more than fifty (50) dollars, or imprisoned not less than seven (7) nor more than thirty (30) days in the county jail, or both. SEC. 6. The office of the Bureau shall be open for business from nine (9) o'clock a. M. until five (5) o'clock P. M. every day except non-judicial days, and the officers thereof shall give to all persons requesting it all needed information which they may possess. SEC. 7. (As amended, Stats. of Cal., 1889, p. 6.) The Commissioner shall have power to send for persons and papers whenever in his opinion it is necessary, and he may examine witnesses under oath, being hereby qualified to administer the same in the performance of his duty, and the testimony so taken must be filed and preserved in the office of said Commissioner. He shall have free access to all places and works of labor, and any principal, owner, operator, manager, or lessee of any mine, factory, workshop, warehouse, manufacturing or mercantile establishment, or any agent or employé of such principal, owner, operator, manager, or lessee who shall refuse to said Commissioner, or his duly authorized representative, admission therein, or who shall, when requested by him, willfully neglect or refuse to furnish to him any statistics or information pertaining to his lawful duties, which may be in the possession or under the control of said principal, owner, operator, lessee, manager, or agent thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty nor more than two hundred dollars. SEC. 8. (As amended, Stats. of Cal., 1889, p. 7.) No use shall be made in the reports of the Bureau of the names of individuals, firms, or corporations supplying the information called for by this Act, such information being deemed confidential, and not for the purpose of disclosing any person's affairs; and any agent or employé of said Bureau violating this provision shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars or by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed six months. SEC. 9. (As amended, Stats. of Cal., 1889, p. 7.) The Commissioner shall appoint a deputy, who shall have the same powers as the said Commissioner, and such agents or assistants, not exceeding three, as he may from time to time require, at such a rate of wages as he may prescribe, but said rate must not exceed four dollars per day and actual traveling expenses for each person while employed; he shall procure rooms necessary for offices, at a rent not to exceed fifty dollars per month. SEC. 10. (As amended, Stats. of Cal., 1889, p. 7.) The salary of the Commissioner shall be three thousand dollars per annum, and the salary of the Deputy Commissioner shall be eighteen hundred dollars per annum, to be audited by the Controller and paid by the State Treasurer, in the same manner as other State officers; there shall also be allowed a sum not to exceed forty-five hundred dollars per annum for the salaries of agents or assistants, for traveling expenses, and for other contingent expenses of the Bureau. SEC. 12. (As amended, Stats. of Cal., 1901, p. 12.) Whenever complaint is made to the Commissioner that the scaffolding, or the slings, hangers, blocks, pulleys, stays, braces, ladders, irons, or ropes of any swinging or stationary scaffolding used in the construction, alteration, repairing, painting, cleaning, or painting of a building are unsafe or liable to prove dangerous to the life or limb of any person, such Commissioner shall immediately cause an inspection to be made of such scaffolding, or the slings, hangers, blocks, pulleys, stays, braces, ladders, iron, or other parts connected therewith. If after examination such scaffolding or any such parts is found dangerous to life or limb, the Commissioner shall prohibit the use thereof, and require the same to be altered and reconstructed so as to avoid such danger. The Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, or agent or assistant making the examination shall attach a certificate to the scaffolding, or the slings, hangers, irons, ropes, or other parts thereof, examined by him, stating that he has made such examination and that he found it safe or unsafe as the case may be. If he declared it unsafe, he shall at once, in writing, notify the person responsible for its erection of the fact and warn him against the use thereof. Such notice may be served personally upon the person responsible for its erection or by conspicuously affixing it to the scaffolding or the part thereof declared to be unsafe. After such notice has been so served or affixed the person responsible therefor shall immediately remove such scaffolding or part thereof and alter or strengthen it in such a manner as to render it safe, in the discretion of the officer who has examined it or of his superiors. The Commissioner, his deputy, and any duly authorized representative whose duty it is to examine or test any scaffolding or part thereof as required by this section, shall have free access, at all reasonable hours, to any building or premises containing them or where they may be in use. All swinging and stationary scaffolding shall be so constructed as to bear four times the maximum weight required to be dependent therefrom and placed thereon, when in use, and not more than four men shall be allowed on any swinging scaffolding at one time. This Act shall take effect immediately. Stats. of Cal., 1889, p. 3. AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE PROPER SANITARY CONDITION OF FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS, AND THE PRESERVATION OF THE HEALTH OF THE EMPLOYÉS. [Approved February 6, 1889.] The People of the State of California, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows: SECTION 1. Every factory, workshop, mercantile or other establishment, in which five or more persons are employed, shall be kept in a cleanly state and free from the effluvia arising from any drain, privy, or other nuisance, and shall be provided, within reasonable access, with a sufficient number of water-closets or privies for the use of the persons employed therein. Whenever the persons employed as aforesaid are of different sexes, a sufficient number of separate and distinct water-closets or privies shall be provided for the use of each sex, which shall be plainly so designated, and no person shall be allowed to use any water-closet or privy assigned to persons of the other sex. SEC. 2. Every factory or workshop in which five or more persons are employed shall be so ventilated while work is carried on therein that the air shall not become so exhausted as to be injurious to the health of the persons employed therein, and shall also be so ventilated as to render harmless, as far as practicable, all the gases, vapors, dust, or other impurities generated in the course of the manufacturing process or handicraft carried on therein, that may be injurious to health. SEC. 3. No basement, cellar, underground apartment, or other place which the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics shall condemn as unhealthy and unsuitable, shall be used as a workshop, factory, or place of business in which any person or persons shall be employed. SEC. 4. (As amended, Stats. of Cal., 1901, p. 571.) In any factory, workshop, or other establishment where a work or process is carried on by which dust, filaments, or injurious gases are generated or produced, that are liable to be inhaled by persons employed therein, the person, firm, or corporation by whose authority the said work or process is carried on shall cause to be provided and used in said factory, workshop, or establishment an exhaust fan or blower, with pipes and hoods extending therefrom to each wheel or other apparatus used to grind, polish, or buff metals. The said fan or blower, and the said pipes and hoods, all to be properly fitted and adjusted, and of power and dimensions sufficient to effectually prevent the dust and filaments produced by the above said metal-polishing, metal-grinding, or metal-buffing from escaping into the atmosphere of the room or rooms of said factory, workshop, or establishment where persons are employed. SEC. 5. Every person, firm, or corporation employing females in any manufacturing, mechanical, or mercantile establishment shall provide suitable seats for the use of the females so employed, and shall permit the use of such seats by them when they are not necessarily engaged in the active duties for which they are employed. SEC. 6. (As amended, Stats. of Cal., 1901, p. 572.) Any person or corporation violating any of the provisions of this Act is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty dollars nor more than three hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail for not less than thirty days nor more than ninety days, or by both such fine and imprisonment, for each offense. SEC. 7. It shall be the duty of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to enforce the provisions of this Act. SEC. 8. This Act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage. Now it may well readily be recognized that to cover, simultaneously, this whole field of work, and to present, biennially, up-to-date statistics covering each subject enumerated, is a task impossible to perform with the force and means at the Bureau's command; hence, the rule has been, and is, so far as statistical work is concerned, to attempt to cover at any one time, or during any one term, some only of the subjects enumerated, leaving the remainder thereof to other times and terms. In connection with this method, however, an evil results (and observation shows that the same evil extends to the Bureaus of other States and countries), to wit: lack of coherence and cohesion in method and result. A statistical subject may be carefully treated in one biennial report and in connection therewith conditions concurrent with the time of said report presented, yet the same subject may not be noticed at all for an indefinite time in prior or subsequent reports. The reports of some of the States and countries may, at a given time, present statistics as to some industrial subject, while the reports of all other States and countries are silent in regard thereto, whereby it results that the seeker of knowledge along any industrial line finds himself continually halted by the lack of continuity and cohesion here referred to. Far more satisfactory and perfect results would be attained by methods which would permit the statistics of each industrial subject, within the scope of the Bureau, to be brought down to date and presented in each succeeding report thereof, and the same applies as well to the work of other States. These methods may become possible in the hereafter, but dealing with the present time, and noting in the Ninth, or last, Bien nial Report of this Bureau, the following subjects received attention, namely: Convict Labor; Orphan Asylums and Institutions for the Deaf and Blind; Alien Labor; Female Labor; Labor-saving Appliances and Processes; Agricultural and Viticultural Products; Condition of Wage-earners in California as compared with the Condition of those in Other Places; Some of the Labor Laws of California; Labor Organization; A Compilation of the Labor Laws of California. There has been collected during the last two years and tabulated and now presented in this report, data in relation to further subjects, to wit: Agricultural Labor in the State of California; Wages and Hours of Labor per Diem, etc., of Miners in the State of California; Japanese in California; The Enforcement of some of the Labor Laws of California; Children of Wage-earners, and Higher Education, in California; Comparison between Hours Worked per Diem by, and Wages Paid per Diem to, A List of the Labor Organizations in California; Arbitration in Wage and Other Disputes between Capital and Labor; Financial Statement; An Appendix containing Laws pertaining to Labor enacted in California since the publication of the Ninth Biennial Report of the Bureau. The ability of the Bureau to collect data has been limited by the smallness of the appropriation for agents' salaries, and traveling and other contingent expenses, and it again now finds that the size of the present report must be kept within limits commensurate with the amount (some twelve hundred dollars) available in the printing fund of the Bureau, for the printing of the same. However, it is believed that fairly good results are shown, and if in the report merit does in any degree appear, due recognition therefor should be given to the Deputy Commissioner, Mr. J. D. Kelsey, and to the Special Agents, E. L. Reguin, K. Zwicker, L. Brosnan, W. P. Day, and Walter McArthur, whose assistance in regard to the work of the Bureau has been cheerfully and earnestly rendered. AGRICULTURAL LABOR IN THE STATE OF Agricultural labor, as here spoken of, includes the labor which is employed in various capacities in sowing, cultivating, harvesting, and marketing cereals, and is to be distinguished from labor employed in vinicultural, viticultural, and horticultural pursuits in this State. In this connection it should be remembered that, owing to climatic conditions and to methods necessarily employed in the industry here in question, there is marked fluctuation in the volume of farm labor required and employed during some as compared with that employed during other portions of the year, thus: The climatic year in California is divided practically into a wet and a dry season; the wet season extending from about November first to May first, and the dry season from about May first to November first. The work of sowing here spoken of is begun about the month of November in each year and continues in more or less degree up to about the middle of February. Within said time a very considerable number of wage-workers must be employed; not, however, by any means as many as those employed later in harvesting. The sowing of the grain having been fully completed, as said, by about the middle of February, there then ensues a period of about three months (that is to say, ending with about the middle of May) during which there is almost absolutely no employment on farms for ninety per cent of the labor previously employed in sowing as named. With the middle of May the harvesting of hay begins, and a limited number of farm laborers again find employment. It is here said "a limited number," because, as a rule, in most of the farming localities in California the making of hay is but an incident in connection with the raising of grain, and is not by any means a leading feature of agricultural industry. About the middle of June the harvesting, i. e., the cutting, threshing, sacking, and marketing or warehousing of the grain, begins and continues ordinarily for about ten weeks; that is to say, until about September first. Within this period, and especially in those years during which large grain crops are raised in the State, the demand for farm labor is almost unlimited and vast numbers of men find employment in the grain fields. From the first of September and continuing for ten weeks, or until about the middle of November, there, however, again ensues a period of enforced idleness |