While our efforts were successful, we met with serious opposition, and in some cases almost continuous litigation, some 300 arrests being necessary to bring about the desired results, which finally secured the eight hour day and a good night's rest for the small army of toilers engaged in the candy and paper box manufacturing establishments and department stores. "In conducting these investigations and crusades the inspectors met with some surprises in the way of unique excuses. In Chicago a manager of a very representative first class department store, one of the largest of its kind, gave as his reason for not obeying the law, that they had never been interfered with before. Another, that the children preferred to be in the store rather than at home. The unnaturalness of this latter excuse can be readily realized by anyone who has stepped into a large department store during the holiday season, when the clerks are tired and cross and little consideration is shown to the cash boy or cash girl who, because he or she may be tired or physically frail, might be a little tardy in running an errand or wrapping a bundle. This character of work for long hours is deleterious to a child, as are the employments in many branches of the garment trade or other industries, which labor is so openly condemned by those who have been interested in anti-child labor movements."