"I do not need to work, but I do not like staying at home," while another woman said, "I would rather be at work a hundred times than at home.

I get lost at home" (_Annual Report Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1906_, pp.

325, etc.).
It may be added that not only is the English law enjoining four weeks' rest on the mother after childbirth practically inoperative, but the period itself is absurdly inadequate.

As a rest for the mother it is indeed sufficient, but the State is still more interested in the child than in its mother, and the child needs the mother's chief care for a much longer period than four weeks.

Helme advocates the State prohibition of women's work for at least six months after confinement.