What matter though some of them are a bit frowsy and not over-clean?
they have precious little time to attend to their personal adornment.

I ask, who can fulfil all their duties and remain "spick-and-span"?
"Nagging," did I hear some one say?
My friend, put yourself in her place, and imagine whether you would remain all sweetness and courtesy.
Again I say, that I cannot for the life of me understand how she can bear it all, suffering as she does, and yet remain so patient and so hopeful.
Add to the duties I have enumerated the time when sickness and death enter the home.

Mrs.Grundy has declared that even poor people must put on "mourning," and must bury their dead with excessive expenditure, and Mrs.Grundy must be obeyed.
But what struggles poor wives make to do it! but a "nice" funeral is a fascinating sight to the poor.

So thousands of poor men's wives deny themselves many comforts, and often necessaries, that they may for certain have a few pounds, should any of their children die.

Religiously they pay a penny or twopence a week for each of their children to some industrial insurance company for this purpose.
A few pounds all at once loom so large that they forget all the toil, stress and self-denial they have undergone to keep those pence regularly paid.