Much of the work is extremely laborious, hours are long, twelve hours forming an ordinary day, and the wage paid is the barest subsistence wage.

Much of the work done by women is quite unfit for them.
Sec.5.Who is the Sweater?
The Sub-contractor ?--These facts relating to a few of the principal trades in the lower branches of which "sweating" thrives, must suffice as a general indication of the character of the disease as it infests the inferior strata of almost all industries.
Having learnt what "sweating" means, our next question naturally takes the form, Who is the sweater?
Who is the person responsible for this state of things?
John Bull is concrete, materialistic in his feeling and his reasoning.

He wants to find an individual, or a class embodiment of sweating.

If he can find the sweater, he is prepared to loathe and abolish him.

Our indignation and humanitarianism requires a scape-goat.
As we saw, many of the cases of sweating were found where there was a sub-contractor.