FACTORY WORK EASY COMPARED WITH KITCHEN WORK
There is now a most interesting investigation under way in London. It is a scientific intensive study of the housewife, who is at last to be tabulated and indexed, just like any other labourer. The Women's Industrial Council, who have undertaken it with the endorsement of the Government, announce: "It is quite probable the results may prove that the stretching motions involved in such domestic tasks as the washing of heavy sheets and blankets are more harmful than the stretching motions of the shop assistant or the vibrations which certain engineering employés meet in their work." I went one day in London with the sociological investigator who is trying to find this out. She took me to Acton, which is the district where the washing is done for the great city. There are probably more laundries here than in any similar area in the world. We stopped to look at one of them. It is in a sanitary, new, up-to-date building with plenty of light and air and every new labour-saving device known to the trade. Then we called at some of the little cottages where live the women who work at this laundry. But to-day is Monday, which is the "slack" day of the week in the laundry business, and on Monday the employés remain at home to do their own "wash," with the same appliances that have been used in home industry for a hundred years! The woman who came to the door when we knocked had just taken her hands
