6.30.—Gets up, calls five children, puts kettle on, washes “necks” and “backs” of all the children, dresses the little ones, does hair of three girls.
7.30.—Gets husband’s breakfast, cooks bloater, and makes tea.
8.0.—Gives him breakfast alone, nurses baby while he has it, and cuts slices of bread and dripping for children.
8.30.—He goes, gives children breakfast, sends them off to school at 8.50, and has her own.
9.0.—Clears away and washes up breakfast things.
9.30.—Carries down slops, and carries up water from the yard; makes beds.
10.0.—Washes and dresses baby, nurses him, and puts him to bed.
11.0.—Sweeps out bedroom, scrubs stairs and passage.
12.0.—Goes out and buys food for the day. Children home at 12.15.
1.0.—Gives children dinner and nurses baby.
1.45.—Washes hands and faces, and sees children off to school.
2.0.—Washes up dinner things, scrubs out kitchen, cleans grate, empties dirty water, and fetches more clean from yard.
3.30.—Cleans herself and begins to mend clothes.
5.0.—Clears away and washes up, nurses the baby, and mends clothes till 6.30.
8.0.—Tidies up, washes husband’s tea things, sweeps kitchen, and mends clothes, nurses baby, puts elder children to bed.
8.45.—Gets husband’s supper; mends clothes.
10.0.—Nurses baby, and makes him comfortable for the night.
The last “day” is that of the woman who has eight children under thirteen. The fact that her husband works at night enables the family to sleep seven in one room—the mother and five children by night and the husband by day; in the other bedroom three older children sleep in a single bed. This woman is tall and would be good-looking if her figure were not much misshapen. She has quantities of well-washed hair, and good teeth; but her face is that of a woman of fifty. She is thirty-eight. She can stand very little advice or argument, and simply does not listen when either are offered to her. She seems always to be hearing a baby wake, or correcting a child of two, or attending to the soiled face of the little girl of three and a half, who is so much smaller than her younger brother. She once went for a fortnight’s change to the seaside. The visitor asked her, when she came back, what she had most enjoyed. She thought for a considerable time, and then made the following statement: “I on’y ’ad two babies along of me, an’ wen I come in me dinner was cooked for me.”