50 MAKING BREAD. [No. 



this may be the more readily believed, when we see 

 so many women in England, who seem to know no 

 more of the constituent parts of a loaf than they 

 know of those of the moon. Servant women in 

 abundance appear to think that loaves are made by 

 the baker, as knights are made by the king ; things 

 of their pure creation, a creation, too, in which no one 

 else can participate. Now, is not this an enormous 

 evil ? And whence does it come ? Servant women 

 are the children of the labouring classes ; and they 

 would all know how to make bread, and know well 

 how to make it too, if they had been fed on bread of 

 their mother's and their own making. 



87. How serious a matter, then, is this, even in 

 this point of view! A servant that cannot make 

 bread is not entitled to the same wages as one that 

 can. If she can neither bake nor brew ; if she be 

 ignorant of the nature of flour, yeast, malt, and hops, 

 what is she good for ? If she understand these mat- 

 ters well ; if she be able to supply her employer with 

 bread and with beer, she is really valuable ; she is 

 entitled to good wages, and to consideration and 

 respect into the bargain; but if she be wholly de- 

 ficient in these particulars, and can merely dawdle 

 about with a bucket and a broom, she can be of very 

 little consequence ; to lose her, is merely to lose a 

 consumer of food, and she can expect very little in- 

 deed in the way of desire to make her life easy and 

 pleasant. Why should any one have such desire ? 

 She is not a child of the family. She is not a rela- 

 tion. Any one as well as she can take in a loaf from 

 the baker, or a barrel of beer from the brewer. She 

 has nothing whereby to bind her employer to her. 

 To sweep a room any thing is capable of that has got 

 two hands. In short, she has no useful skill, no use- 

 ful ability; she is an ordinary drudge, and she is 

 treated accordingly. 



88. But, if such be her state in the house of an 

 employer, what is her state in the house of a hus- 

 band? The lover is blind; but the husband has 

 eyes to see with. He soon discovers that there is 



