THE WAIMATE ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1902. OUR WOMEN.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 201, 10 May 1902, Page 2

THE WAIMATE ADVERTISER. SAT URD AY, MAY 10, 1902. OUR WOMEN.

Tun domestic servants of Wellington have ' formed a union. What the objects of the union are has not yet transpired, but restriction of hours ami additional holidays is sure to be the chief desire. Good domestic servants are at present difficult to obtain. The trouble lies in the restriction of domestic service as compared with work in shops or factories. In the latter girls usually have an eight hour day, certain holidays, Laud their evenings and Sundays free, besides being reasonably well paid. At service they work from G a.in. till Hor 9 a.m., and are subjected to a considerable measure of restraint. There are places where gins are treated as they should be, but they are few and far between. The remedy is obvious—that of co-operation. Few recognise the fact, and 'fewer still give expression to their knowledge, but it is a fact nevertheless that the average woman, especially of the working class, is terribly over-worked. Her duties are endless and unending—to light the fire in the morning with the wood cut overnight by herself, get breakfast for hatband, get the children ready for school, wash up, get dinner ready if dinner is in the middle of the day, more washing up, then cleaning up fills in the time before starting to cool: tea or dinner as tlu case may be. After the meal and consequent washing up the children’s lessons and difficultus must be attended to, mending and darning filling up time till ten or eleven o’clock ; no time for amusement, no time for books—truly an agreeable progiamme, but one whose tmth is apparent to all. Is it any wonder that our women are aged before (heir time; that they lose their looks and health under the strain. And yet half the husbands think the wife has nothing to do, and that ho works hard. Ho may do so, but straight ahead work for a certain number of hours, and then freedom, is nothing compiled to a long day of never-ending work added to the cares and worry of household management. Hero again the remedy is co-operation hut in a different manner to an ordinary union, which is the only chance of the unmarried girls. What is there to prevent half-a-dozen families living in ilie same street from fitting up a common washhouse, where two of the women could do the work with ease, instead of six stewing and boiling over their single tubs? What is to prevent a common kitchen and dining-room, again properly fitted up, where the work of six families could easily be done by two, and where the meals could be better cooked and served? Indeed, to go a step further, what is to prevent one he use being set apart for the purposes named, and also containing a couple of wellfurniahed sitting-rooms and a piano, so that the families might spend their evenings comfortably in social intercourse when so inclined, instead of the men going “ down town ” and each wife sitting alone and sewing by a bad lamp. The whole thing is a matter of arrangement, mutual goodwill and forbearance. Difficulties would arise, but with care in tiie selection of kindred spirits they need not be overwhelming. We talk about slavery in heathen lands, while it virtually exists iu

[out!. (J " iba “ emancipated in so tar a : | e y have a vuir--i poor h-dlow | ul) [ e hut wo must go a step | rt ] ie r and place them on an |ii(ilH.T ()C amusement as w-dl. work that coni. fughU-nod if men were h-s* Jin/:uid selfish, and the rs’i.d L the common every day cookf cashing up and washing yil bo an untold blessing to Pounds. Tho idea may seem o piaii to many and foolish to uie (cinnborors of the earth) ~ h deserves a trial. There is (iielhii'o Hse t 0 btl llone in t!li ‘ s i el)l . sides eating, sleeping and or kini.’, but while cooking and eaiiing up 011 a sulull scale lgr0 B 3 nearly three parts of the siting hours there is little iance of that something else >ing dont’-