Finally, in 1896, four years after it was first introduced, the bill struggled through the lower House.

In spite of powerful commercial influences the bill was reported in the Senate, and some of the senators became warmly interested in it.
A commission was appointed to make an official investigation into conditions of working women in New York City.
The findings of this Rheinhard Commission, published afterwards in two large volumes, were sensational enough.

Merchants reluctantly testified to employing grown women at a salary of _thirty-three cents a day_.

They confessed to employing little girls of eleven and twelve years, in defiance of the child-labor law.

They declared that pasteboard and wooden stock boxes were good enough seats for saleswomen; that they should not expect to sit down in business hours anyhow.