Problems of Poverty Part 7

Among women's industries this is not the case to any great extent.

Skilled work like that of book-folding is paid no higher than the almost unskilled work of the jam or match girl. This is said to be due partly to the fact that the lower kinds of work are done by girls and women who are compelled to support themselves, while the higher cla.s.s is done by women partly kept by husband or father, partly to the pride taken in the performance of more skilled work, and the reluctance to mingle with women belonging to a lower stratum of society, which prevents the wages of the various kinds of work from being determined by free economic compet.i.tion. A bookbinding girl would sooner take lower wages than engage in an inferior cla.s.s of work which happened to rise in the market price of its labour. But whatever the causes may be, the fact cannot be disputed that the lower rates of wages extend over a larger proportion of women workers.

Again, the wages quoted above refer to workers in factories. But only three women's trades of any importance are managed entirely in factories, the cigar, confectionery, and match-making[34] trades. In many of the other trades part of the work is done in factories, part is let out to sweaters, or to women who work at their own homes. Many of the clothing trades come under this cla.s.s, as for example, the tie- making, tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, corset-making trades. The employers in these trades are able to play the out-doors workers against the indoors workers, so as to keep down the wages of both to a minimum. The "corset" manufacture is fairly representative of these trades. The following list gives the per-centage of workers receiving various sums for "indoors" i.e.

"factory" work.

s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s.

Under 4 3--6 8--10 10--12 12--15 Over 15 2.94 p.c. 50 p.c. 2.94 p.c. 5.9 p.c. 14.7 p.c. 22.52 p.c.

Outdoor workers earn from 6s. to 12s., but where more than 10s. is earned, the woman is generally a.s.sisted by one or more of her children.

Generally speaking, the most miserably paid work is that in trades where most of the work is done by out-door workers. Such is the lowest stratum of the "vest and trousers" trade, where English women undertake work rejected by the lowest cla.s.s of Jew workers, and the s.h.i.+rt-making trade, which, in the opinion of the Lords' Committee, "does not appear to afford subsistence to those who have no other employment." In these and other trades of the lowest order, 6s. a week is a tolerably common wage for a work-woman of fair skill to net after a hard week's work, and there are many individual cases where the wage falls far below this mark.

It is true that the work for which the lowest wages are paid is often that of learners, or of inefficient work-women; but while this may be a satisfactory "economic" explanation, it does not mitigate the terrible significance of the fact that many women are dependent on such work as their sole opportunity of earning an honest livelihood.

-- 3. Irregularity of Employment.--As the wages of women are lower than those of men, so they suffer more from irregularity of employment. There are two special reasons for this.

[Greek: a]. Many trades in which women are employed, depend largely upon the element of Season. The confectionery trade, one of the most important, employs twice as many hands in the busy season as in the slack season. Match-makers have a slack season, in which many of them sell flowers, or go "hopping." Laundry work is largely "season" work.

Fur-sewing is perhaps the worst example of the terrible effect of irregular work taken with low wages. "For several months in the year the fur-sewers have either no work, or earn about 3s. or 4s. a week, and many of these work in overcrowded insanitary workshops in the season.

Fur-sewing is the worst paid industry in the East End, with absolutely no exceptions."[35]

[Greek: b]. Fluctuations in fas.h.i.+on affect many women's trades; in particular, the "ornamental" clothing trades, e.g. furs, feathers, tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, etc.

Employers in these slack times prefer generally to keep on the better hands (on lower wages), and to dismiss the inferior hands.

These "natural" fluctuations, added to ordinary trade irregularities, favour the employment of "outdoor" workers in sweaters' dens or at home, and require in these trades, as conducted at present, the existence of an enormous margin of "casual" workers. These two chief factors in the "sweating" problem, sub-contract and irregular home-work, are far more prevalent in female industries than in male.

-- 4. Hours of Labour in Women's Trades.--The Factory Act is supposed to protect women engaged in industrial work from excessive hours of labour, by setting a limit of twelve hours to the working day, including an interval of two hours for meals.

But pa.s.sing over the fact that a dispensation is granted, enabling women to be employed for fourteen hours during certain times, there is the far more important consideration that most employments of women wholly escape the operation of the Factory Act. In part this is due to the difficulty of enforcing the Act in the case of sweating workshops, many of which are unknown to inspectors, while others habitually break the law and escape the penalty. Again, the Act does not and cannot be made to apply to a large cla.s.s of small domestic workshops. When the dwelling-room is also the work-room, it is impossible to enforce by any machinery of law, close limitation of hours of labour. Something may be done to extend the arm of the law over small workshops; but the worst form of out-work, that voluntarily undertaken by women in their own homes, cannot be thus put down. Nothing short of a total prohibition of outwork imposed on employers would be effectual here. Lastly, there are many large employments not subject to the Factory Act, where the economic power of the employer over weak employees is grossly abused.

One of the worst instances is that of the large laundries, where women work enormously long hours during the season, and are often engaged for fifteen or sixteen hours on Fridays and Sat.u.r.days. The whole cla.s.s of shop-a.s.sistants are worked excessive hours. Twelve and fourteen hours are a common shop day, and frequently the figure rises to sixteen hours.

Restaurants and public-houses are perhaps the greatest offenders. The case of shop-a.s.sistants is most aggravated, for these excessive hours of labour are wholly waste time; a reduction of 25 or even of 50 per cent in the shopping-day, reasonably adjusted to the requirements of cla.s.ses and localities, would cause no diminution in the quant.i.ty of sales effected, nor would it cause any appreciable inconvenience to the consuming public.

-- 5. Sanitary Conditions.--Seeing that a larger proportion of women workers are occupied in the small workshops or in their own overcrowded homes, it is obvious that the fourth count of the "sweating" charge, that of unsanitary conditions of work, applies more cruelly to them than to men. Their more sedentary occupations, and the longer hours they work in many cases outside the operation of the Factory Act, makes the evils of overcrowding, bad ventilation, bad drainage, etc., more detrimental to the health of women than of men workers.

-- 6. Special Burdens incident on Women.--We have now applied the four chief heads of the "sweating" disease--low wages, long hours, irregular employment, unsanitary conditions--to women's work, and have seen that the absolute pressure in each case is heavier on the weaker s.e.x.

But in estimating the industrial condition of women, there are certain other considerations which must not be left out of sight.

To many women-workers, the duties of maternity and the care of children, which in a civilized human society ought to secure for them some remission from the burden, of the industrial fight, are a positive handicap in the struggle for a livelihood. When a married woman or a widow is compelled to support herself and her family, the home ties which preclude her from the acceptance of regular factory work, tell fatally against her in the effort to earn a living. Married women, and others with home duties which cannot be neglected, furnish an almost illimitable field of casual or irregular labour. Not only is this irregular work worse paid than regular factory work, but its existence helps to keep up the pernicious system of "out-work" under which "sweating" thrives. The commercial compet.i.tion of to-day positively trades upon the maternity of women-workers.

In estimating the quant.i.ty of work which falls to the lot of industrial women-workers, we must not forget to add to the wage-work that domestic work which few of them can wholly avoid, and which is represented by no wages. Looking at the problem in a broad human light, it is difficult to say which is the graver evil, the additional burden of the domestic work, so far as it is done, or the habitual neglect of it, where it is evaded. Here perhaps the former point of view is more pertinent. To the long hours of the factory-worker, or the shopwoman, we must often add the irksome duties which to a weary wife must make the return home a pain rather than a pleasure. When the industrial work is carried on at home the worries and interruptions of family life must always contribute to the difficulty and intensity of the toil, and tell upon the nervous system and the general health of the women-workers.

Other evils, incident on woman's industrial work, do not require elaboration, though their c.u.mulative effect is often very real. Many women-workers, the locality of whose home depends on the work of their husband or father, are obliged to travel every day long distances to and from their work. The waste of time, the weariness, and sometimes the expense of 'bus or train thus imposed on them, is in thousands of cases a heavy tax upon their industrial life. Women working in factories, or taking work home, suffer also many wrongs by reason of their "weaker s.e.x," and their general lack of trade organization. Unjust and arbitrary fines are imposed by harsh employers so as to filch a portion of their scanty earnings; their time is wasted by unnecessary delay in the giving out of work, or its inspection when finished; the brutality and insolence of male overseers is a common incident in their career. In a score of different ways the weakness of women injures them as compet.i.tors in the free fight for industrial work.

-- 7. Causes of the Industrial Weakness of Women.--This brief summary of the industrial condition of low-skilled women-workers will suffice to bring out the fact that the "sweating" question is even more a woman's question than a man's. The question which rises next is, Why do women as industrial workers suffer more than men?

In the first place, as the physically weaker s.e.x, they do on the average a smaller quant.i.ty of work, and therefore receive lower wages. In certain kinds of work, where women do piece-work along with men, it is found that they get as high wages as men for the same quant.i.ty of work.

The recent report upon Textile Industries establishes this fact so far as those trades are concerned. But this is not always, perhaps not in the majority of instances, the case. Women-workers do not, in many cases, receive the same wages which would be paid to men for doing the same work. Why is this? It is sometimes described as an unfair advantage taken of women because they are women. There is a male prejudice, it is urged, against women-workers, which prevents employers from paying them the wages they could and would pay to men.

Now this contention, so far as it refers to a sentimental bias, is not tenable. A body of women-workers, equally skilled with male workers, and as strongly organized, would be able to extract the same rate of wages in any trade. Everything depends upon the words "_as strongly organized_." It is the general industrial weakness of the condition of most women-workers, and not a s.e.x prejudice, which prevents them from receiving the wages which men might get, if the work the women do were left for male compet.i.tion alone. An employer, as a rule, pays the lowest wages he can get the work done at. The real question we have to meet is this. Why can he get women who will consent to work at a lower rate than he could get men to work at? What peculiar conditions are there affecting women which will oblige them to accept work on lower terms than men?

Well, in the first place, the wage of a man can never fall much lower than will suffice to maintain at the minimum standard of comfort both himself and the average family he has to support. The minimum wage of the man, it is true, need not cover the full support of his family, because the wife or children will on the average contribute something to their maintenance. But the wage of the man must cover his own support, and part of the support of his family. This marks a rigid minimum wage for male labour; if compet.i.tion tends to drive wages lower, the supply of labour is limited to unmarried males.

The case of woman is different. If she is a free woman her minimum wage will be what is required to support herself alone, and since a woman appears able to keep alive and in working condition on a lower scale of expenditure than man, the possible minimum wage for independent women- workers will be less than a single man would consent to work for, and considerably less than what a married man would require. But there are other economic causes more important than this which drag down women's wages.

Single women, working to support themselves, are subject to the constant compet.i.tion of other women who are not dependent for their full livelihood on the wages they get, and who, if necessary, are often willing to take wages which would not keep them alive if they had no other source of income. The minimum wages which can be obtained for certain kinds of work may by this compet.i.tion of "bounty-fed" labour be driven considerably below starvation point. This is no mere hypothesis.

It will be obvious that the cla.s.s of fur-sewers who, as we saw, earned while in full work from 4s. to 7s. in the winter months, and the lower grades of brush-makers and match-makers, to say nothing of the casual "out-workers," who often take for a whole week's work 3s. or 2s. 6d., cannot, and do not, live upon these earnings. They must either die upon them, as many in fact do, or else they must be a.s.sisted by other funds.

There are, at least, three cla.s.ses of female workers whose compet.i.tion helps to keep wages below the point of bare subsistence in the employments which they enter.

First, there are married women who in their eagerness to increase the family income, or to procure special comforts for themselves, are willing to work at what must be regarded as "uncommercial rates"; that is to say, for lower wages than they would be willing to accept if they were working for full maintenance. It is sometimes a.s.serted that since these married women have not so strong a motive to secure work, they will not, and in fact do not, undersell, and bring down the rate of wages. But it must be admitted, firstly, that the very addition of their number to the total of compet.i.tors for low-skilled work, forces down, and keeps down, the price paid for that work; and secondly, that if they choose, they are enabled to underbid at any time the labour of women entirely dependent on themselves for support. The existence of this compet.i.tion of married women must be regarded as one of the reasons why wages are low in women's employments.

Secondly, a large proportion of unmarried women live at home. Even if they pay their parents the full cost of their keep, they can live more cheaply than if they had to find a home for themselves. A large proportion, however, of the younger women are partly supported at the expense of their family, and work largely to provide luxuries in the shape of dress, and other ornamental articles. Many of them will consent to work long hours all week, for an incredibly low sum to spend on superfluities.

Thirdly, there is the compet.i.tion of women a.s.sisted by charity, or in receipt of out-door poor relief. Sums paid by Boards of Guardians to widows with young children, or a.s.sistance given by charitable persons to aid women in distressed circ.u.mstances to earn a livelihood, will enable these women to get work by accepting wages which would have been impossible if they had not outside a.s.sistance to depend upon. It is thus possible that by a.s.sisting a thoroughly deserving case, you may be helping to drive down below starvation-point the wages of a cla.s.s of workers.

Probably a large majority of women-workers are to some extent bounty-fed in one of these ways. In so far as they do receive a.s.sistance from one of these sources, enabling them to accept lower wages than they could otherwise have done, it should be clearly understood that they are presenting the difference between the commercial and the uncommercial price as a free gift to their employer, or in so far as compet.i.tion will oblige him to lower his prices, to the public, which purchases the results of their work. But the most terrible effect of this uncommercial compet.i.tion falls on that miserable minority of their sisters who have no such extra source of income, and who have to make the lower wages find clothes, and shelter for themselves, and perhaps a family of children. We hear a good deal about the jealousy of men, and the difficulties male Trade Unions have sometimes thrown in the way of women obtaining employment, which may seem to affect male interests. But though there is doubtless some ground for these complaints, it should be acknowledged that it is women who are the real enemies of women. Women's wages in the "sweating" trades are almost incredibly low, because there is an artificially large supply of women able and willing to take work at these low rates.

It will be possible to raise the wages in these low-paid employments only on condition that women will agree to refuse to undersell one another beyond a certain point. A restriction in what is called "freedom of compet.i.tion" is the only direct remedy which can be applied by women themselves. If women could be induced to refuse to avail themselves of the terrible power conferred by these different forms of "bounty," their wages could not fall below that 9s. or 10s. which would be required to keep them alive, and would probably rise higher.

-- 8. What Trade Unionism can do for them.--A question which naturally rises now is, how far combination in the form of Trade Unionism can a.s.sist to raise the industrial condition of these women. The practical power wielded by male Unions we saw was twofold. Firstly, by restricting the supply of labour in their respective trades they raised its market price, i.e. wages. Secondly, they could extract better conditions from employers, by obliging the latter to deal with them as a single large body instead of dealing with them as a number of individuals. How far can women-workers effect these same ends by these same means?

Trade Unionism, so far as women are concerned, is yet in its infancy. In 1874, Mrs. Paterson established a society, now named the Women's Trades Union Provident League, to try and establish combination among women in their several trades. The first Union was that of women engaged in book- binding, formed in September 1874. Since then a considerable number of Unions have been formed among match-makers, dressmakers, milliners, mantle-makers, upholstresses, rope-makers, confectioners, box-makers, s.h.i.+rt-makers, umbrella-makers, brush-makers and others. Many of these have been formed to remedy some pressing grievance, or to secure some definite advance of wage, and in certain cases of skilled factory work where the women have maintained a steady front, as among the match- makers and the confectioners, considerable concessions have been won from employers. But the small scale and tentative character of most of these organizations do not yet afford any adequate test of what Unionism can achieve. The workers in a few factories here and there have formed a Union of, at the most, a few hundred workers. No large women's trade has yet been organized with anything approaching the size and completeness of the stronger men's Unions. Women Trade Unionists numbered 120,178 in 1901, and of these no less than 89.9 per cent were textile workers, whose Unions are mostly organized by and a.s.sociated with male Unions.

There are several reasons why the growth of effective organization among women-workers must be slow. In the first place, as we have seen, a large proportion of their work is "out work" done at home or in small domestic workshops. Now labour organizations are necessarily strong and effective, in proportion as the labourers are thrown together constantly both in their work and in their leisure, have free and frequent opportunities of meeting and discussion, of educating a sense of comrades.h.i.+p and mutual confidence, which shall form a moral basis of unity for common industrial action. But to the majority of women-workers no such opportunities are open. Even the factory workers are for the most part employed in small groups, and are dispersed in their homes.

Combination among the ma.s.s of home-workers or workers in small sweating establishments is almost impossible. The women's Unions have hitherto been successful in proportion as the trades are factory trades. Where endeavours have been made to organize East End s.h.i.+rt-makers, milliners, and others who work at home, very little has been achieved. In those trades where it is possible to give out an indefinite amount of the work to sub-contractors, or to workers to do at home, it seems impossible that any great results can be thus attained. Even in trades where part of the work is done in factories, the existence of reckless compet.i.tion among unorganized out-workers can be utilized by unprincipled employers to destroy attempts at effective combination among their factory hands.

The force of public opinion which may support an organization of factory workers by preventing outsiders from underselling, can have no effect upon the compet.i.tion of home-workers, who bid in ignorance of their compet.i.tors, and bid often for the means of keeping life in themselves and their children. The very poverty of the ma.s.s of women-workers, the low industrial conditions, which Unionism seeks to relieve, form cruel barriers to the success of their attempts. The low physical condition, the chronic exhaustion produced by the long hours and fetid atmosphere in which the poorer workers live, crush out the human energy required for effective protest and combination. Moreover, the power to strike, and, if necessary, to hold out for a long period of time, is an essential to a strong Trade Union. Almost all the advantages won by women's Unions have been won by their proved capacity for holding out against employers. This is largely a matter of funds. It is almost impossible for the poorest cla.s.ses of women-workers to raise by their own abstinence a fund which shall make their Union formidable. Their efforts where successful have been always backed by outside a.s.sistance.

Even were there a close federation of Unions of various women's trades-- a distant dream at present--the larger proportion of recipients of low wages among women-workers as compared with men would render their success more difficult.

-- 9. Legislative Restriction and the force of Public Opinion.--If Trade Unionism among women is destined to achieve any large result, it would appear that it will require to be supported by two extra-Union forces.

The first of these forces must consist of legislative restriction of "out-work." If all employers of women were compelled to provide factories, and to employ them there in doing that work at present done at home or in small and practically unapproachable workshops, several wholesome results would follow. The conditions of effective combination would be secured, public opinion would a.s.sist in securing decent wages, factory inspection would provide shorter hours and fair sanitary conditions, and last, not least, women whose home duties precluded them from full factory work would be taken out of the field of compet.i.tion.

Whether it would be possible to successfully crush the whole system of industrial "out-work" may be open to question; but it is certain that so long as, and in proportion as "out-work" is permitted, attempts on the part of women to raise their industrial condition by combination will be weak and unsuccessful. So long as "out-work" continues to be largely practised and unrestrained, compet.i.tion sharpened by the action of married women and other irregular and "bounty-fed" labour, must keep down the price of women's work, not only for the out-workers themselves, but also for the factory workers. Nor is it possible to see how the system of "out-work" can be repressed or even restricted by any other force than legislation. So long as home-workers are "free" to offer, and employers to accept, this labour, it will continue to exist so long as it pays; it will pay so long as it is offered cheap enough; and it will be offered cheaply so long as the supply continues to bear the present relation to the demand.

But there is another force required to give any full effect to such extensions of the Factory Act as will crush private workshops, and either directly or indirectly prohibit out-work. The real reason, as we saw, why woman's wages were proportionately lower than man's, was the compet.i.tion of a ma.s.s of women, able and willing to work at indefinitely low rates, because they were wholly or partly supported from other sources. Now legislation can hardly interfere to prevent this compet.i.tion, but public opinion can. If the greater part of the industrial work now done by women at home were done in factories, this fact in itself would offer some restrictions to the compet.i.tion of married women, which is so fatal to those who depend entirely upon their wages for a livelihood. But the gradual growth of a strong public opinion, fed by a clear perception of the harm married women do to their unsupported sisters by their compet.i.tion, and directed towards the establishment of a healthy social feeling against the wage-earning proclivities of married women, would be a far more wholesome as well as a more potent method of interference than the pa.s.sing of any law.

To interfere with the work of young women living at home, and supported in large part by their parents, would be impracticable even if it were desirable, although the compet.i.tion of these conduces to the same lowering of women's wages. But the education of a strong popular sentiment against the propriety of the industrial labour of married women, would be not only practicable, but highly desirable. Such a public sentiment would not at first operate so stringently as to interfere in those exceptional cases where it seems an absolute necessity that the wife should aid by her home or factory work the family income. But a steady pressure of public opinion, making for the closer restriction of the wage-work of married women, would be of incomparable value to the movement to secure better industrial conditions for those women who are obliged to work for a living. A fuller, clearer realization of the importance of this subject is much needed at the present time. The industrial emanc.i.p.ation of women, favoured by the liberal sentiments of the age, has been eagerly utilized by enterprising managers of businesses in search of the cheapest labour.

Not only women, but also children are enabled, owing to the nature of recent mechanical inventions which relieve the physical strain, but increase the monotony of labour, to make themselves useful in factories or home-work. Each year sees a large growth in the ranks of women- workers. Eager to earn each what she can, girls and wives alike rush into factory work, reckless of the fact that their very readiness to work tells against them in the amount of their weekly wages, and only goes to swell the dividends of the capitalist, or perhaps eventually to lower prices. The improving mechanism of our State School System a.s.sists this movement, by turning out every year a larger percentage of half- timers, crammed to qualify for wage-earners at the earliest possible period. Already in Lancas.h.i.+re and elsewhere, the labour of these thirteen-year-olders is competing with the labour of their fathers. The subst.i.tution of the "ring" for the "mule" in Lancas.h.i.+re mills, is responsible for the sight which may now be seen, of strong men lounging about the streets, supported by the earnings of their own children, who have undersold them in the labour market. The "ring" machine can be worked by a child, and can be learned in half an hour; that is the sole explanation of this deplorable phenomenon.

In the case of child-work, with its degrading consequences on the physical and mental health of the victim thus prematurely thrust into the struggle of life, legislation can doubtless do much. By raising the standard of education, and, if necessary, by an absolute prohibition of child-work, the State would be keeping well within the powers which the strictest individualist would a.s.sign to it, as it would be merely protecting the rising generation against the cupidity of parents and the encroachments of industrial compet.i.tion.

The case of married women-workers is different. Better education of women in domestic work and the requirements of wifehood and motherhood; the growth of a juster and more wholesome feeling in the man, that he may refuse to demand that his wife add wage-work to her domestic drudgery; and above all, a clearer and more generally diffused perception in society of the value of healthy and careful provision for the children of our race, should build up a bulwark of public opinion, which shall offer stronger and stronger obstruction to the employment of married women, either outside or inside the home, in the capacity of industrial wage-earners. The satisfaction rightly felt in the ever wider opportunities afforded to unmarried women of earning an independent livelihood, and of using their abilities and energies in socially useful work, is considerably qualified by our perception of the injury which these new opportunities inflict upon our offspring and our homes.

Surely, from the large standpoint of true national economy, no wiser use could be made of the vast expansion of the wealth-producing power of the nation under the reign of machinery, than to secure for every woman destined to be a wife and a mother, that relief from the physical strain of industrial toil which shall enable her to bring forth healthy offspring, and to employ her time and attention in their nurture, and in the ordering of a cleanly, wholesome, peaceful home life. So long as public opinion permits or even encourages women, who either are or will be mothers, to neglect the preparation for, and the performance of, the duties of domestic life and of maternity, by engaging in laborious and unhealthy industrial occupations, so long shall we pay the penalty in that physical and moral deterioration of the race which we have traced in low city life. How can the women of Cradley Heath engaged in wielding huge sledge-hammers, or carrying on their neck a hundredweight of chain for twelve or fourteen hours a day, in order to earn five or seven s.h.i.+llings a week, bear or rear healthy children? What "hope of our race"

can we expect from the average London factory hand? What "home" is she capable of making for her husband and her children? The high death-rate of the "slum" children must be largely attributed to the fact that the women are factory workers first and mothers afterwards. Roscher, the German economist, a.s.signs as the reason why the Jewish population of Prussia increases so much faster than the Christian, the fact that the Jewish mothers seldom go out of their own homes to work.[36] One of the chief social dangers of the age is the effect of industrial work upon the motherhood of the race. Surely, the first duty of society should be to secure healthy conditions for the lives of the young, so as to lay a firm physical foundation for the progress of the race.

This we neglect to do when we look with indifference or complacency upon the present phase of unrestricted compet.i.tion in industrial work amongst women. So long as we refuse to insist, as a nation, that along with the growth of national wealth there shall be secured those conditions of healthy home life requisite for the sound, physical, moral, and intellectual growth of the young, at whatever cost of interference with so-called private liberty of action, we are rendering ourselves as a nation deliberately responsible for the continuance of that creature whose appearance gives a loud lie to our claim of civilization--the gutter child of our city streets. Thousands of these children, as we well know, the direct product of economic maladjustment, grow up every year--in our great cities to pa.s.s from babyhood into the street arab, afterwards to become what they may, tramp, pauper, criminal, casual labourer, feeble-bodied, weak-minded, desolate creatures, incapable of strong, continuous effort at any useful work. These are the children who have never known a healthy home. With that poverty which compels mothers to be wage-earners, lies no small share of the responsibility of this sin against society and moral progress. It is true that no sudden general prohibition of married woman's work would be feasible. But it is surely to be hoped that with every future rise in the wages and industrial position of male wage-earners, there may be a growing sentiment in favour of a restriction of industrial work among married women.