old people in the Whitechapel
Workhouse, one of the best of its class, is according to the
authorities, three shillings eleven pence (96c.) per week, the quantity
falling somewhat below the amount which physiologists regard as
necessary for an able-bodied adult. These supplies are purchased by
contract, and thus a full third lower than the single buyer can command.
But she has learned that appetite is not a point to be considered, and
for the most part confines herself to tea and bread and butter, with a
cheap relish now and then. Thus four shillings a week is made to cover
food, and three shillings gives her a small back room. For such lights,
fire, and washing as cannot be dispensed with, must be counted another
shilling. Out of the remaining two shillings must come her twopence a
week, if she belongs to any trades-union, leaving one shilling and
ten-pence for clothes, holidays, amusements, saving, and the possible
doctor's bill, a sum for the year, at the utmost, of from four pounds
fifteen shillings and ninepence, or a trifle under twenty dollars. These
women are, every one of them, past-mistresses in the art of doing
without; and they do without with a patient courage, and often a
cheerfulness, that is one of the most pathetic facts in their story. It
is the established order of things. Why should they cry or make ado?
Yet, as the workshop has its own education for men, and gives us the
order known as the "intelligent workman," so it gives us also the no
less intelligent workwoman, possessing not only the natural womanly gift
of many resources, but the added power of just so much technical
training as she may have received in her apprenticeship to her trade.

Miss Simcox, who has made a study of the whole question, comments on
this, in an admirable article in one of the monthlies for 1887,
emphasizing the fact that these women, fitted by experience and long
training for larger work, must live permanently, with absolutely no
outlook or chance of change, on the border-land of poverty and want.
They know all the needs, all the failings of their own class. Many of
them give time, after the long day's work is done, to attempts at
organizing and to general missionary work among their order; and by such
efforts the few and feeble unions among them have been kept alive. But
vital statistics show what the end is where such double labor must be
performed. These women who have character and intelligence, and
unselfish desire