TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 195 



been iiaoil ou a large and increasing scale for some twenty years back ; females are 

 chieHy engaged in tending power-looms, intermixed with a few yonng and adult 

 men. Female labour has been in great demand in the heavy woollen district since 

 the introduction of power-looms ; and the result is that this hind of labour now 

 receives about twice the remuneration it formerly did. Men's wages, though ad- 

 vanced, have not progressed in any thing like a corresponding ratio ; females who 

 are proficient at the power-loom can earn in full employ eighteen shillings per 

 Aveek. The employment in the woollen manufacture is, generally speaking, healthy ; 

 the oil, which is put upon the wool before scribbling, keeps down any dust, and is 

 wholesome to the operative. 



In conclusion, the trade seems destined to expand in future years as it has done 

 in the past, and to become, large as it is, much larger still. In its first initiation, 

 and for some time afterwards, the trade was not without detractors ; but it has 

 outlived all opposition, and has become fii-mly established as one of the leading 

 mamifactiu'es of the kingdom. 



-"D 



Confederated Homes and Cooperative EoiiseJceepinff. By Mrs.^E, M. King*. 



In a short introduction the writer showed that the proverbial attachment of 

 Englishmen to their homes was not so deep as was supposed ; neither were the 

 comforts of home extended to all members of society. Men in easy circumstances 

 frequented clubs, ladies left home for balls and parties ; men in a poorer class re- 

 sorted to public-houses, institutes, &c. ; the women, when they could, went out for 

 a little gossip. The large nnmber of single men and women living in boarding- 

 houses and lodgings proved that home was to them little more than a name. 



One well-known cause of the discomfort of home was the want of good servants. 

 Some considered the mistresses to blame for them, some the servants; the happy- 

 medium people said both were to blame ; while she (Mrs. King) considered that 

 neither were to blame, but thought that the position in which mistress and ser- 

 vant were placed with regard to one another caused this discomfort, producing 

 discontent on the part of the servants, and the assumption of responsibility by 

 mistresses as to the life and conduct of their servants, which they could only 

 carry out by depriving the servants of nearly all liberty and free enjoyment of life. 

 The discontent of servants was owing to the state of semislavery in which they 

 were kept. Mrs. King urged that servants should be placed in the altered condi- 

 tion of free workers ; and in order to effect this, the home of the employer should 

 no longer be the home of the employed — that is, that servants shoiddno longer live 

 in our houses. In order to efl:ect this change, our system of living in isolated homes 

 must be given up, and one of cooperative housekeeping be substituted ; and instead 

 of one set of servants working all day and, as occurred often, far into the night, re- 

 lays of servants should come for a certain number of hours and be replaced by 

 others. 



Mrs. King called attention to the want of proper schools of cookery, and declared 

 that the attempt to teach it by lectures or showing how to make a few dishes must 

 prove a failm-e, the art and science [of cookery being a branch of technical instruc- 

 tion requiring study and constant practice. 



With regard to the mechanical arrangements of the homes, the best machinery for 

 economizing labour should be made use of ; but it would be better not to attempt 

 to obtain luxuries, the most perfect organization for the supply of the necessaries 

 of domestic life being one of the greatest luxuries — these mechanical arrange- 

 ments being for heating, lighting, water-supply, and waste-pipes (speaking-tubes, 

 ventilation), and " lifts." 



As water should be carried into all rooms where required, so should all waste 

 matter be conveyed out of rooms by a turn of the hand of the occupier of the room. 

 Domestic service was made degrading by giving women degrading work to per- 

 form, and so effectually preventing women of higher class entering into it. 



Mrs. King advocated the education of boys and girls together, and affirmed 

 that in a home ou the plan she recommended a school could be attached in 



* Published in exten^o in the ' Contemporary Review ' for December 1873. 



