[329] Letter to the Clergy of the Diocese of New York, May 15, 1886.
[330] The Century, June, 1894.
[331] An excellent classification of standards of work and wages has been drawn up by the committee on Household Economics of the Civic Club of Philadelphia. See [Appendix III].
[332] Maria Mitchell, p. 26.
[333] “However grievous the ‘servant problem’ may be in some English households, it sinks into insignificance when compared with the conditions on the other side of the Atlantic.” Alice Zimmern, in The Leisure Hour, May, 1899.
[334] Ante, chaps. [VI.], [VIII.], [IX.]
[335] This is apparently the case universally in France and in Italy. In Italy, while the washing is always done out of the house, the ironing is often done at home. In Lombardy “a woman of color” washes the colored clothes and flannels, which are kept distinct from the ordinary laundry. On the continent bed linen is often changed only once in two, three, or even four weeks—a custom that has at least the advantage of reducing to a minimum this part of the household work.
“In England it is becoming the rule, except in large households with laundries of their own, and in households managed on narrow means, to send this work out.”—Miss Collet, Report, p. 9.
“Washing is put out, as it is now almost impossible to get a girl who will do it.”—Employer, cited by Miss Collet, Report, p. 30.
[336] In some parts of Switzerland women come in from outside every six weeks and do all the laundry work of a household for that period.