30 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
engaged in, she shall be deprived of the right to determine for herself how many hours she can and will work each day. There is no ground — at least none which has been made nta?iifest to us in arguments of counsel — for fixing upon eight hours in one day as the limit within which woman can work without i?ijury to her physique, and beyond which, if she work, ifijury will ?iecessarily follow." The court was naturally not in a position to investigate the condi- tions of work in the factories and workshops of Illinois. That is not its function. But the legislature of 1893 had been in a position to investigate the whole condition of manufacture in the state ; it had, indeed, appointed a joint committee of the house and senate to investigate the factories and workshops in operation ; this committee had visited a large number of estab- lishments, and had taken a large amount of testimony from employers and employes, physicians, visiting nurses, inspectors, and other witnesses, and had decided that, in view of the intensity of work and the rate of speed required in virtually all occupations, eight hours did constitute a limit of hours beyond which women could not work without injury. All this no court can do ; it has no apparatus for such investigations ; but that did not prevent the Illinois court from usurping the right of decision which the present decision of the federal supreme court happily reassigns to the legislature. On the pow- ers of the legislature in the matter of health and hours of labor, the federal supreme court says : "These employments, when too long pursued, the legislature has judged to be detrimental to the health of the employes ; and, so long as there are reason- able grounds for believing that this is so, its decision upon this subject cannot be reviewed by the federal courts." And else- where the court quotes with approval the words of the Utah court : "It may be said that labor in such conditions must be performed. Granting that the period of labor each day should be of reasonable length, twelve hours per day would be less injurious than fourteen, ten than twelve, and eight than ten. The legislature has named eight. Such a period was deemed rea- sonable."
The Illinois court (Ritchie vs. the People) said : "The police
