the
blessings of many a half-hungered husband upon their benevolent heads.
Women of the poorer classes require much help from those who are better
educated, or who have been placed in better circumstances than
themselves. The greater number of them marry young, and suddenly enter
upon a life for which they have not received the slightest preparation.
They know nothing of cookery, of sewing or clothes mending, or of
economical ways of spending their husbands' money. Hence slatternly and
untidy habits, and uncomfortable homes, from which the husband is often
glad to seek refuge in the nearest public-house. The following story,
told by Joseph Corbett, a Birmingham operative, before a Parliamentary
Committee, holds true of many working people in the manufacturing
districts.

"My mother," he said, "worked in a manufactory from a very early age.
She was clever and industrious, and, moreover, she had the reputation of
being virtuous. She was regarded as an excellent match for a working
man. She was married early. She became the mother of eleven children: I
am the eldest. To the best of her ability she performed the important
duties of a wife and mother. But she was lamentably deficient in
domestic knowledge. In that most important of all human instruction--how
to make the home and the fireside to possess a charm for her husband and
children--she had never received one single lesson. She had children
apace. As she recovered from her lying-in, so she went to work, the babe
being brought to her at stated times to receive nourishment. As the
family increased, so everything like comfort disappeared altogether. The
power to make home cheerful and comfortable was never given to her. She
knew not the value of cherishing in my father's mind a love of domestic
objects. Not one moment's happiness did I ever see under my father's
roof. All this dismal state of things I can distinctly trace to the
entire and perfect absence of all training and instruction to my mother.
He became intemperate; and his intemperance made her necessitous. She
made many efforts to abstain from shop-work; but her pecuniary
necessities forced her back into the shop. The family was large; and
every moment was required at home. I have known her, after the close of
a hard day's work, sit up nearly all night for several nights together
washing and mending clothes. My father could have no comfort there.
These domestic obligations, which in a well-regulated house (even