Page:The Woman Socialist - Snowden - 1907.djvu/86

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The Woman Socialist

And surely this arrangement is the only sensible one. Instead of a hundred kitchens and fires and cooks, we shall have one. Instead of a hundred meals to prepare, we shall have one. Instead of a hundred journeys to the shops for a hundred different things, in a hundred different quantities, to be carried to a hundred houses by a hundred messengers, this will all be done on a large scale at one effort. Instead of a hundred homes being made to reek of unsavoury dishes, or the detestable odour of bad cooking, the offensive effluvia will be confined to one building. And ninety-nine women will be able to appear at the table with their children, smiling and unruffled, without the hot face and the harassed appearance of the mother of a hungry family.

Under Socialism domestic duties will be reduced to a minimum. There will be municipal or communal servants separated for some special work, which for a short number of hours they shall be willing to do in the houses of the citizens. No indignity will attach to this work. The person who exhibits contempt, or acts disparagingly towards the community's