CHAPTER V.
“SOAP-SUDS ISLAND” AND THE EAST-END.

ACTON is a village of tubs and clothes-lines. So many of its inhabitants are engaged in laundry-work, in a large and small way, that the place has been given the name of “Soap-suds Island.”

On Tuesday afternoon I went to Acton to make the acquaintance of the girls, whom I had heard from many quarters were typical representatives of their class.

I waited for some time outside the gates of one of the large laundries, where many young girls were employed. At a little after seven o’clock the gates were swung back, and I found myself in a crowd of some forty or fifty women of all sizes and ages. I opened conversation by asking one of them the way to the station, and then I explained that I had come out to visit the laundry and wanted to interview them in regard to their opinion of the application of the Factory Act to laundries. They became interested at once, and, though some of them were woefully ignorant as to just what the Factory Act was, they one and all declared themselves in favour of shorter hours. I learned that at some of the laundries the girls commenced at six o’clock in the morning and worked until between seven and nine at night, according to whether or not it was a busy part of the season. At half-past seven they were allowed a half-hour for breakfast, which most of them carried with them.

A little later I was invited to visit the Working Girls’ Club, an organisation of laundry-girls started a few years ago by a number of ladies who became interested in helping them. There I introduced myself properly, told the girls how I had spent a week in a laundry, and that, wanting to know more about those engaged in the work, had come out to Acton. The fact that I had done laundry-work, no matter for what purpose, put me in their good graces at once, and they treated me as one of themselves, inviting me to become a member of the club by the payment of fourpence a month, the fee required of each member. The little room in which they met had been very comfortably fitted up. One corner at the back served for a sort of pantry, where tea was made on a small paraffin stove, and served to the girls by two young ladies who had been appointed to be their entertainers for the evening.

I was told that it was not until some time after the club was started that the girls could be induced to say “Miss ” and “Mrs.” in addressing the officers, among whom were some of the best-known ladies in Acton. At the time of my visit, however, they had become accustomed to showing a certain amount of respect to their superiors.

“Hi there, miss, I’ve fetched a copper and wants caike and tea,” called out one girl to a quiet young lady who was boiling the kettle in the back of the room.

“Very well, Lucy,” she answered smilingly, without a sign of annoyance, and then a cup of tea and box of cake were brought to the table, where about twenty girls were gathered for what they termed “a bite.” It was an interesting thing to me to watch this young lady taking the part of a servant and administering to the wants of the laundry-girls, who, despite the amusing familiarity of that “Hi there, miss,” tried to the best of their ability to show proper respect by saying, “Thank ‘ee, miss,” when their orders were carried out. I joined them in their late tea, paying the stipulated price, a halfpenny for cake and the same for a cup of tea, including milk and sugar.

The girls poured their tea into their saucers, and setting the cups on the table, made ugly rings on the red cover.

“See, you soil the table-cloth, putting the cups on it like that,” I suggested to the girl who sat next me, drinking her tea from a saucer, while she held the dripping spoon in front of her.

“Yes, miss, I sees it,” she answered, and then turning to her companions, called out, “It’s a shaime, girls. The laidy says we’s spiling the cloth with the tea-cups. We must hold ’em in the other ‘and when we drinks out the saucer.”

I noticed that most of them were very young, probably under eighteen. Their costumes were of the coster order, but many, if properly dressed, would have been good-looking young women.

After tea, the lady who had served it was requested to “maike some tunes on the pianer,” which she did with a right good will. Then the place was turned into a ball-room, and as each girl chose a partner, I was invited to “taike a turn.” With first one and then another of the girls I joined them in their schottische to the tune of “Knocked ’em in the Old Kent Road,” many of the girls singing as well as dancing. Then followed a polka to “Ta-ra-ra-boomde-ay,” and the programme ended with waltzing “After the ball was over,” for which dance I had offered me a choice of a dozen partners.

It was then nearly half-past nine, and, as one of the girls declared “the young laidy couldn’t go to the staition alone,” I left the club-room with an escort of five girls, who showed the liveliest interest in taking proper care of me. All the way to the station they kept up a continual talking on various subjects. They told me that a few of the girls at one of the laundries had lately joined the Salvation Army, and that there had been a “grait chainge” in them. Then they discussed the “Factory Hact,” and begged me to use my influence in their behalf. They were not in favour of the hours that obliged them to be up before a little after five every morning and hurry off to work at six without even so much as a cup of tea or coffee to stay them until the breakfast-hour.

Once, when we had nearly reached the station, a crowd of boys in front of a public-house began throwing pebbles. One of my protectors threw back a missile with the injunction—

“Better behaive there ! Carn’t yer see we’ve got a young laidy with us?” and I could not help thinking what a pity they could not have a “young laidy ” with them oftener. Who could foresee the results that such a state of things might bring about!

As my train moved out from the station, the girls ran along the platform as far as they could, giving me numerous farewell messages, and the last I heard from them was—

“Saiy, miss, don’t forget to maike ’em give us that Hact you told about.”

Having an invitation to visit their club on Sunday that I might inspect them in what they called their “church togs,” I made them another call on that day, and found every girl arrayed in her Sunday best Cotton velvet was in great requisition, blue the favourite colour, and long plumed hats the ruling things in headgear. In the jewellery line heavy silver chains and lockets and threepenny-bit ear-rings were greatly in demand. Sunday afternoons they were allowed their tea without payment, the cost being covered by the subscription fee of fourpence a month. When I arrived, most of them had just returned from church, and had sundry original remarks to make about the service and the people in attendance.

So I had mixed with the Acton girls, and suffered no bodily injury or moral contamination in consequence! I did not go with the expectation of finding a great degree of refinement among them, and I was in no way disappointed. It is true that I may have met only the best of them, and I have no doubt that, had I remained long among them, some unpleasant knowledge would have been brought to me ; but, on the whole, considering the circumstances of their bringing up and their early surroundings, I could not see that they were deserving of the opprobrium that I had heard cast upon them.

Some time afterwards, accompanied by a young woman, who was herself a laundress, and had been appointed to make a report of the opinions of laundry employers and workers in regard to the Factory Act, I made a trip among the smaller establishments of the East-End. A few of the employers had not heard of the proposed amendment, and did not understand what it was about; but on general principles they were opposed to it, and ordered us out of their shops. In Brick Lane, Whitechapel, I visited a laundry, that took in the shirts and “starched work” from the inhabitants of the neighbouring streets. Friday was the busy day at this place, for the reason that many of the customers were Jews, who, no matter how they dressed on other days, were always careful to garb themselves in clean white shirts for their Sabbath day. The proprietor of the laundry told me that quite often, when the work had not been finished up Friday night, some of his customers would come into the shop early Saturday morning, and, with their coats buttoned up to their throats, wait about until their shirts were ironed, and then request the privilege of putting them on before going out into the street. This was the sort of place, too, where the young man who owns but one collar and one “front” always has them done up in time for Bank Holiday.

In this laundry, as well as in the several other establishments in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel, I had an opportunity to become acquainted with many of the women employed in the ironing-rooms.

I discovered that most laundry-girls married at a very early age. In fact, I found but few girls over twenty who were without husbands. One very pretty young woman smilingly told me that she had only been married the day before, and had come immediately back to her post as collar-dresser. Asking her why she married, when she saw no prospect of bettering her condition, she replied that she liked the work, and would not, if she could, remain at home all day. All of these young wives had what they called “homes” — that is, two, three, or four rooms, with their own furniture in them. The girl who married and continued to live with her parents or in lodgings was looked down upon as being particularly unfortunate or improvident. One young woman said that ever since she commenced work, at twelve years of age, she had been laying by a small sum each week against the day of her marriage, in order to purchase dishes, linen, and other things necessary for the fitting up of a home.

“But how did you know you would get married?” I asked.

“We all gets married. We has plenty of chances, never fear,” was her answer, and she eyed me suspiciously, as if wondering whether I had meant to insinuate that she was likely to have no “chances.”

To the minds of these girls the idea of marriage came as a matter of course. One girl confided to me that she had simply married because the other girls did. She was not going to have people say that nobody had ever asked her. That was an imputation that no laundry-girl with any self-respect could endure.

Yet, notwithstanding the popularity of matrimony, none of them thought for an instant of giving up their trade. They said they returned to the work not so much because they must, as because they liked it. There appeared to be little or no domesticity about them. In the mornings they either left their husbands in charge of the rooms, or they locked the place up until the evening when they returned. Those who had children hired some old person—either a relative or a neighbour—to take care of them, at the rate of about three shillings a head weekly. When four or five children from the same family were to be looked after, there was a small reduction made. These laundry-workers were not without their theories concerning woman’s “emancipation.” When they married they had no thoughts of giving up what they termed their “independence.” They clung to that with the greatest tenacity, and were under the impression that, by earning from ten to twenty shillings a week in a laundry, they were able to hold it fast. In a word, they all seemed “laundry-struck,” and marriage seemed to mean no more to them than an escape from being called an “old maid.”

In most of the places that I visited the workers considered a certain daily portion of beer necessary to the proper performance of their duties. Some of the employers gave them a daily allowance; others, though refusing to supply it for their employees, permitted them to get it for themselves ; while in first-class places, where no beer was allowed on the premises, the women went to the public-houses and drank it at dinner and tea-time. In the ranks of laundresses, teetotalism is looked upon with suspicion and ridicule.

In their opinion, a glass of beer is as essential to the correct ironing of a dozen shirts as is the flat-iron itself. I believe the amount considered necessary on which to do a good day’s work (not counting “overtime,” which demands a special allowance) is one and a half pints. If something could be done to convince not only laundry-women, but workers in other trades, that these two things, beer and early marriages, are their greatest hindrances in the way of social and intellectual progress an incalculable amount of good would come to all England.

All the women were interested in the Factory Act, although some of them had not heard of its proposed application to laundries until it was explained to them. Some of the daily and weekly workers expressed the opinion that even factory hours were unjust, when it was taken into consideration that the day of certain working men lasted only eight hours. Of course, in the laundries, Monday is not a busy day, the work seldom commencing until the afternoon, so that with the Saturday halfholiday, only five full days could be given ; but the majority of the workers preferred working Monday mornings, and being allowed to leave off earlier in the evening, which, they explained, could be easily managed if the employers would be willing to so arrange it.

Most of the pieceworkers favoured the factory hours. It would really appear that regular hours from eight until six would be much better for all concerned. Many people, while deploring the ignorant condition of laundry-girls, do not stop to consider that their long hours give them really no time for self-improvement, even though they desired it. Only geniuses rise above their surroundings and surmount difficulties without other help; and, as geniuses are rare and ordinary people are numerous, it is almost useless to attempt to do anything for laundry-workers under present conditions. If the hours of the young girls, at least, could be reduced so that their day would commence at eight and end at six, then night-schools might be established in the neighbourhoods of the large laundries, and from eight until ten the girls could be instructed and amused. Even though the Factory Act is made to apply to laundries, that requires them to work until eight o’clock. These hours are too long for girls between twelve and sixteen years of age, and it would seem that some special provision should be made for them.

Many of the mothers, to their disgrace be it said, are opposed to any shorter hours for their daughters on the ground that it will give them more time to get into mischief! I had this reply from several women whose daughters were employed in laundries where the hours were from six in the morning until seven or eight at night. And these women, twenty years ago, married “because the other girls married,” and then left their children to be taken care of for three shillings a week ! At twelve the girls were put to laundry-work, and henceforth left to their own devices. There is not much wonder that they got into “mischief,” and no one is so much to blame for it as their own mothers. To ignorance, more than to a natural inclination for vice, may be ascribed all the immorality that is said to exist among laundry-girls. That there should be immorality under such conditions is no more cause for surprise than that the whitest snow should become tinged with the black of the smoke through which it falls.

So far as I have become acquainted with laundry-girls, I would say that they are not so bad a set as is commonly supposed. They are kind-hearted, and would go out of their way to help the more unfortunate of their own class. They are grateful to anyone who really tries to help them in the right way, which is by putting oneself as much as possible on a level with them and not attempting to show any superiority. To the person who “puts on airs ” these girls have a peculiar method of showing their disapproval, whether she be a worker in the laundry or a benevolent lady from the West-End.

I have discovered that injurious chemicals are not nearly so much used in first-class places as many agitators would lead us to believe. Carbolic acid and chloride of lime are more often made use of in the smaller hand laundries than in the steam laundries, although in the latter places the large quantities of soda and cheap soaps might be considerably lessened.

I spent one day in searching for the “laundry dens” of which I had read and heard so much. I found a few places where the sign, “Washing and Mangling,”led me up or down some dozens of rickety stairs to rooms where I was informed that “a laidy took in washing;” but the clothes washed belonged to people but little above the washerwoman herself in station. On inquiring the names of their customers, I was given certain addresses where mostly working men of the lower orders lived. Such “laundries” are not patronised by first-class people, although the sweating system, which is followed by some superior laundries, may sometimes bring about serious results to their customers. These places, which are really the most dangerous in London, sublet the work they receive to women living in miserable hovels, and then pass it off on their customers as having been done in their own establishments.

From the large steam laundries there is nothing to fear in this direction. It is only the smaller laundries that countenance the sweating system. However, it would doubtless be a good plan if all would personally inspect the places where they send their clothes, and demand references from those who apply for their custom. Such a course would, perhaps, save them all the wear and tear of nerves that I experienced when I started out in quest of “Mrs. Johnstone,” who lived “somewhere near ‘Ammersmith.”