Page:The Woman Socialist - Snowden - 1907.djvu/91



we have travelled far since the days of our great–grand–parents, when practically everything that was used in the house was made in the house; when the beer was brewed and the soap made and the yarn spun and the cloth woven at home, and mainly by the women of the household; when the little bedroom of the country cottage was a miniature weaving–shed, and the back kitchen a cobbler’s shop, the lives of the working–women, as the foregoing chapter will have shown, are still very hard and very full lives; full, not of experiences of different kinds, each more thrilling than the last, but filled with repetitions of the same few experiences, the dull monotony of the daily task; and with scant leisure for repose.

In addition to the numerous tasks dwelt upon in the last chapter, the bearing and