135. Rag-Sorting.
Her husband was a bricklayer’s labourer, and the woman did rag-sorting to help with the living, and used to wheel sacks full of rags on a sack-barrow to the warehouse. The wonder to me was that the babies were born alive, though it was never stated that it was through this that the children died soon after. My own impression was that it had something to do with it. As a mother myself I would not have dared to have attempted to do what that poor woman had to do, and I am thankful to know that something is being done to try and alleviate these poor women. As a Bible woman who visits in and out of the homes of the poor, my heart aches as I see how some of these poor women have to work during pregnancy, and how little comfort they have at the time, and how soon they have to begin work again, before they are fit, and I believe many poor women suffer for life through having to get about too soon.
Wages 23s.