The Every-day Book and Table Book, v. 1 (of 3) / or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

by William Hone

October 12.

St. Wilfrid, Bp. of York, A. D. 709.

Seasonable Work.

Now come the long evenings with devices for amusing them. In the intervals of recreation there is “work to do.” This word “work” is significant of an employment which astonishes men, and seems never to tire the fingers of their industrious helpmates and daughters; except that, with an expression which we are at a loss to take for either jest or earnest, because it partakes of each, they now and then exclaim, “women’s work is never done!” The assertion is not exactly the fact, but it is not a great way from it. What “man of woman born” ever considered the quantity of stitches in a shirt without fear that a general mutiny among females might leave him “without a shirt to his back?” Cannot an ingenious spinner devise a seamless shirt, with its gussets, and wristbands, and collar, and selvages as durable as hemming? The immense work in a shirt is concealed, and yet happily every “better half” prides herself on thinking that she could never do too much towards making good shirts for her “good man.” Is it not in his power to relieve her from some of this labour? Can he not form himself and friends into a “society of hearts and manufactures,” and get shirts made, as well as washed, by machinery and steam? These inquiries are occasioned by the following

Letter from a Lady.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Sir,

I assure you the Every-Day Book is a great favourite among the ladies; and therefore, I send for your insertion a calculation, furnished me by a maiden aunt, of the number of stitches in a plain shirt she made for her grandfather.

Stitching the collar, four rows	3,000
Sewing the ends	500
Button-holes, and sewing on buttons	150
Sewing on the collar and gathering the neck	1,204
Stitching wristbands	1,228
Sewing the ends	68
Button-holes	148
Hemming the slits	264
Gathering the sleeves	840
Setting on wristbands	1,468
Stitching shoulder-straps, three rows each	1,880
Hemming the neck	390
Sewing the sleeves	2,554
Setting in sleeves and gussets	3,050
Taping the sleeves	1,526
Sewing the seams	848
Setting side gussets	424
Hemming the bottom	1,104
Total number of stitches	20,646	in
My aunt’s grandfather’s plain shirt,
As witness my hand,
Gertrude Grizenhoofe.

Cottenham,
Near Cambridge,
Sept. 1825.

---

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Wavy Fleabane. Inula undulata.
Dedicated to St. Wilfred.

---