WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO 181 



proudly displayed a doll for which she had 

 just paid about six shillings, in order, forsooth, 

 that her little girl should not be ashamed to 

 carry it out to the park on Sundays ! I have 

 heard women of high social position, whose 

 means, nevertheless, called for judicious 

 management, declare that at their butcher s 

 it is common for them to be contemptuously 

 elbowed to one side by slatternly tenement- 

 house women, ordering for their home con- 

 sumption the best cuts of beef at what might 

 be termed prohibitive prices, or spring 

 chickens at 40 cents (about is. 8d.) per 

 pound. Another woman, a working woman 

 herself, told me that during a certain famous 

 car strike in New York I should have been 

 amazed to see what costly purchases were 

 made in the city markets by the wives of the 

 strikers. 



While living in the flat alluded to above, 

 the position of engineer to the house fell 

 vacant. At least a hundred applicants 

 pressed forward. It was an easy task to 

 weed out the preponderating element of in- 

 competency ; a harder task for the kind- 

 hearted manager to close his ears and blind 



