The working man's house : its possibilities as a home / by W. Leslie Mackenzie.

  • Mackenzie, W. Leslie.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The working man's house : its possibilities as a home / by W. Leslie Mackenzie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    type of strength, persistence, stability, duty. He rises early; he works long; he retires early. He has his wife and child there to preserve him from frivolity. He is often irritable, unkind to his fellows, foolish, drunk, caught by wrong winds of doctrine. But he is ever and always in contact with the grim realities of living and, as a rule, he masters them. From him we recruit every other order of society, which to live at all must in every generation he “ recruited from the green earth.” With all his disabilities upon him— and they are many—the worker is the strong man of our society. Whether he be the violent slogger of Newcastle, or the reflective weaver of Thrums, or a black-squadder on the Clyde, he carries with him every- where the “ promise and potency ” of great issues. The. Working Man’s Wife. But nothing that can he done by the working man can he done without the working woman. She is in most cases the “ stang of the trump.” She may not always he clean, hut she is almost always industrious. She may not always he respectful to her husband’s domestic opinions; hut she has the children for her daily burden. Usually, she makes the children’s clothing; she keeps them constant in their school attendance; she assists their lessons; she reports their illnesses; she trains their characters. I know of no better ethical teacher than a good artisan’s wife. She is always in touch with reality. She has manners; she has intelligence; she has foresight; she has a limited ambition. But often she runs under a heavy handicap. She interviews the factor when the drains are choked; she abuses him when he fails to repair them; she pays the rent, she pays the rates, she banks the wages in the friendly society. “ I paid his society money for sixteen years, hut he was aye dll and over- wrocht. I fell back wi’ the instalments, and now I’ll
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