“The increase of urban areas can be gathered from the Census Reports. In 1851 ... the population of such areas amounted approximately to 9,000,000, or 50 per cent. of the total population of England and Wales; by 1881 the population of urban sanitary areas, as defined by the Public Health Acts, 1872 and 1875, was 17,600,000, or 68 per cent. of the aggregate population; by 1901 ... the population of boroughs and urban districts amounted to 25,000,000, or 77 per cent. of the aggregate population.”—Blue Book on Public Health and Social Conditions, p. 6 [Cd. 4671 of 1909].
It should be noted, too, that the advantages of the large-scale method of production are greatly diminished by the dangers of adulteration. Cf. p. 177.
In the absence of an efficient system of police, it probably was not safe for women to walk or travel alone. In the security provided for us by paved and lighted streets, guarded by trained constables, and in the complete safety of modern methods of travelling, some of us are apt now to forget these elementary considerations, once of supreme importance.
For the whole subject, see Hutchins and Harrison, “History of Factory Legislation.”
In “Educated Working Women,” by Clara E. Collet, 1902. Miss Collet says: “Were statistics available it might perhaps be shown that the unmarried women are to a large extent the daughters of clerks and professional men.... Emigration is probably more frequent in the salaried class; and where the sons are obliged to emigrate, it frequently happens that the daughters have to work for their living. In this class I believe the inequality of the sexes is greatest and the chances of marriage least” (pp. 37-38).