The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-17
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
 Does the New York wife have too
 much leisure? That she does is the
 opinion of an American woman who
 deyotes herself to the study of social
 conditions.
 She refers especially to the woman
 who keeps house. The life of such
 woman, she thinks, Is not nearly
 strenuous enough, and in consequence
 of much aimless idiing women of this
 type are degenerating. The very poor
 and the wealthy housekeeper are not
 included in her summary.
 She has found the housekeepers of
 small means in other cities superior
 to the New Workers. The former, she
 says, have better furnished minds
 They are better neighbors. they bring
 up their children better. They are not
 better looking-this she comedies; they
 are apt to grow old sooner than the
 New Yorker; but of course such things
 are unimportant to her.
 According to this woman's theory
 New York housek eepers of the class
 described began to deteriorate when
 flats began to improve Before the ad-
 vent of the modern flat the daily
 routine of a housekeeper of this class
 was something like this;
 In order to have breakfast on time , she got up nearly an hour beforehand
 to start a fire in the coal stove. Her
 cooking included beating up batter
 cakes or biscuits, mincing meat, slicing
 potatoes, etc., for the hearty breakfas st
 was then in style. This breakfast had to be ready from half an hour to an hour earlier than the more modern breakfast, for the reason that stores and other business concerns opened their doors earlier then than now. After breakfast, If the family in- cluded children of schoo. age. they were sent off with we'll filled lunch boxes if the school was at distance; i; if near the children came home for a hot luncheon. The mornings work in cluded such details as looking after
 ashes and garbage, putting the rooms in order, going to market, getting luncheon ready, baking bread or pies or cake. A quarter of century ago the housekeeper of small means did
 most of her own baking, and she put up preserves and made pickles and canned vegetables.
 Some days she washed and ironed. AL
 ways there was a pile of sewing to tackle in the afternoon. She made usually her own every day wrappers and dresses and trimmed her own hats and seWed on her husbands buttons.
 Then there was the dinner to get, sub stantial dinner, which took time to pre-. pare and cook, and after the last dish and pot and pan was washed and put away what time remained before bedtime was spent more often than not in helping the children get their lessons and In tackling once more the mendlng basket. That basket was always full.
 With all this the housekeeper of those days found time to help sick neighbors and exchange social courtesies with resi- dents in her block. She was in short an extremely useful and kindly as well as an intensely busy member of the community. One of the charges against the modern housekeeper of small means is that she does not set up mendng basket. "Go where you will in New York; said the student of social conditions quoted, "one never encounters mending basket any more-in the circles of which I am | speaking. I mean. An acquintance told 1 me 1t didn't pay to darn stockings when | they could be bought for so little. and !, alarmed stockings hurt the feet
 This Is about the way she spends