On the same principle, an actor when he has a holiday goes to another
theatre; and no doubt it must be interesting for a cook to observe the
_differentiae_, the finer shades of difference, in the conduct of a
kitchen. When women are married and the cares of maternity set in, one
does not see how they can get any holiday or recreation at all; but I
believe a good deal is done for their amusement by the mothers'
meetings and other clerical agencies. There is, however, below the
shop girls, the dressmakers, the servants, and the working girls whom
the world, so to speak, knows, a very large class of women whom the
world does not know, and is not anxious to know. They are the factory
hands of London; you can see them, if you wish, trooping out of the
factories and places where they work on any Saturday afternoon, and
thus get them, so to speak, in the lump. Their amusement seems to
consist of nothing but walking about the streets, two and three
abreast, and they laugh and shout as they go so noisily that they must
needs be extraordinarily happy. These girls are, I am told, for the
most part so ignorant and helpless, that many of them do not know even
how to use a needle; they cannot read, or, if they can, they never do;
they carry the virtue of independence as far as they are able, and
insist on living by themselves, two sharing a single room; nor will
they brook the least interference with their freedom, even from those
who try to help them.
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