CHAPTER IV.
"The Sweating System." Sec.1.Origin of the Term "Sweating."-- Having gained insight into some of the leading industrial forces of the age, we can approach more hopefully the study of that aspect of City poverty, commonly known as the "Sweating System." The first thing is to get a definite meaning to the term.

Since the examination of experts before the recent "Lords' Committee" elicited more than twenty widely divergent definitions of this "Sweating System," some care is required at the outset of our inquiry.

The common use of the term "Sweating System" is itself responsible for much ambiguity, for the term "system" presupposes a more or less distinct form of organization of industry identified with the evils of sweating.

Now as it should be one of the objects of inquiry to ascertain whether there exists any one such definite form, it will be better at the outset to confine ourselves to the question, "What is Sweating ?" As an industrial term the word seems to have been first used among journeymen tailors.

The tailoring houses which once executed all orders on their own premises, by degrees came to recognize the convenience of giving out work to tailors who would work at their own homes.