+----------------+----------------+---------------+--------------+
| | During School |During Holidays| Total |
| |Year (39 weeks).| (13 weeks). | during year. |
| +----------------+---------------+--------------+
| | £ _s._ _d._| £ _s._ _d._| £ _s._ _d._|
| | { 13 7 6 | | |
| | { 3 7 0 | | |
|Lodgings | { to be | 0 8 6 | 17 13 0 |
| | { reserved in | | |
| | { holidays. | | |
|Board | 34 11 3 | 2 5 0 | 36 16 3 |
|Lunches, teas, | | | |
| &c. | | 0 16 8 | 0 16 8 |
|Furniture | 1 5 6 | | 1 5 6 |
|Washing | 3 7 11³⁄₄ | 3 7 11³⁄₄|
|Dress | 16 0 5¹⁄₂ | 16 0 5¹⁄₂|
|Books | 2 15 4¹⁄₂ | 2 15 4¹⁄₂|
|Fares | 3 16 6¹⁄₂| 8 3 11 | 12 0 5¹⁄₂|
|Amusements | 2 18 6 | 0 12 11 | 3 11 5 |
|Subscriptions, | | |
| donations, &c.| 1 17 11 | 1 17 11 |
|Presents | 5 18 3³⁄₄ | 5 18 3³⁄₄|
|Postage and | | |
| stationery | 4 15 1¹⁄₂ | 4 15 1¹⁄₂|
|Miscellaneous | 1 9 9 | 1 9 9 |
|Doctor and | | |
| medicine | 0 19 5 | 0 19 5 |
|Not spent | 20 12 4¹⁄₂ | 20 12 4¹⁄₂|
| | +--------------+
| | Total |130 0 0 |
+----------------+--------------------------------+--------------+
The social outlook of a working woman is very largely determined by
the amount she can afford to spend on dress, and her view of life
is perhaps most clearly indicated in the consideration of this item
of expenditure. And no accounts of expenditure are of much value
without some accompanying expression of the spender’s contentment or
dissatisfaction with the results of her expenditure. In reply to my
question on the subject of dress, No. 2 informs me that £16 a year was
quite enough for her dress:--
“My dresses were always made by a dressmaker, not at home; as we lived
in a country town, her charges for making were inexpensive as such
things go; I don’t think that with linings and small etceteras (not
of course trimmings) they ever exceeded 15_s_. I cannot say that I
was well dressed, but I don’t think that I was exactly badly dressed.
I am sure that any one with more _judicious_ taste than I had could
have done better on the same money; I myself could do better now,
for I certainly several times made mistakes of the kind that writers
on dress warn us against, that of buying things, say at sales, which
were not really suitable for any likely purpose. I always made a plan
of buying my winter dress at the summer sales, which in our country
town came in early August, and my summer dress at their winter sale
(things really were reduced). Though I did no dressmaking I made my
own underclothing.
“I am afraid I don’t quite see the application of the words
‘prettily,’ and ‘admiration’ to the school dress of a high school
teacher. I should rather consider neatness as one’s aim in school
dressing, but then some people have a talent for dressing for which
they very properly receive their reward: I am afraid I don’t possess
it.”
No. 3 writes:
“I still keep to about £12 a year for my dress, and I think there are
many teachers, if not most, who spend about that amount. Miss B----,
who was for some years head mistress at C----, tells me that she
never spent more than £12 a year while there, and she visited a good
deal and certainly always looked very nice. Miss D----, head mistress
at E----, tells me that before she came here she spent £10 a year for
about ten years while teaching in London. As to being well dressed,
that is always comparative. I have my clothes made at very good shops,
_not_ the most fashionable, and always of the best materials, as I
think it is most economical in the end; but I spend very little on
trimmings, and nothing on fripperies, such as beads and feathers. I
generally have two new dresses a year. I make my own blouses because
the ready-made ones are too cheap and poor. If I had time, I think
I should enjoy making other things, but I have too much to do. I
generally do my own mending, but sometimes lately I have had a woman
in to do it. Children certainly prefer a well-dressed teacher; I do
not think my dress is either so dowdy or so shabby as to displease
their taste; to look fresh and clean is my aim for school clothes,
and plainly made things seem to me most suitable for our work. As to
evening dress, I generally have one dress that will do for a concert,
and I very seldom go to any other evening entertainment. I think it
distinctly an advantage to a teacher to have as many quiet evenings at
home as possible, and I find so many occasions present themselves of
attending meetings and lectures that if I were to go into society as
well, I should have very little time to give to study and the quiet
rest which is so refreshing after the day’s work.”
The details of No. 4’s expenditure are given later on.
No. 3 and No. 4 were both considerably older than No. 1 and No. 2, and
had both learnt that the one absolutely necessary indulgence for a high
school mistress is a good holiday in new scenes. No. 4 says in a note
that the cost of her holidays during this year were lower than usual,
as she did not go abroad. No. 2 strikes the usual note of warning on
this point:--
“I spent very little in my holidays; for my father was much averse
to his only daughter spending any of her free time away from home;
but you will also notice that there is a distinctly large proportion
of my salary unappropriated or reserved, and a certain proportion of
this ought to have been spent in holidays. I enjoy excellent health
usually, and my nerves seem the only vulnerable point, but after
teaching more than three years at W----, a term in X---- brought me to
the brink of a regular nervous breakdown: this I imagine might have
been avoided if I had really had a good holiday every year.”
The moral of this to young teachers would seem to be: Do not try
to save out of £100 a year at the expense of your health. Better
keep fresh and strong without saving and rise to £120 as quickly as
possible, than break down and exhaust your savings in a long illness
which may reduce your salary to £90.
The conditions and cost of living of women clerks vary in many and
important respects from those of women teachers. Their work is less
exhausting on the whole and less trying to the nerves. But, on the
other hand, their holidays are generally very short; except for a few
brief months in the year, they must work while it is day, and seek for
their amusements when the night comes; they are doing sedentary work
in office hours, and yet only by a strong determination can they find
any recreation except in the further sedentary occupations of reading
and sewing, or in poisonous lecture halls, concert rooms, or theatres.
They cannot easily do their shopping, and have no opportunity of
wearing out their shabby dresses in private; they must feed themselves
unwholesomely at tea-rooms, or extravagantly and monotonously at
restaurants. Above all, whereas teaching may be regarded as a life work
well worth the doing for its own sake, clerical work can hardly be
soul-satisfying to any intelligent human being. It is not living, but
merely a means of living.
Dress is necessarily much more expensive in the case of the clerk than
in the case of the high school mistress. Circumstances and temperament
work together in producing this result. Were it possible--as I hope it
may be--to secure accounts of clerks and typists living at home and
working for about £40 to £60 a year, it would, I believe, frequently
be found that their expenditure on this item was double that of the
high school mistress earning £130 a year. On the other hand, the high
school teacher knows that she must preserve physical health, and that
she cannot afford to economise in food. The clerk too often lives on
tea and roll until the evening, and for want of physical exercise, has
little appetite even then.
The clerk’s budget (No. 5) that I present here gives a year’s
expenditure of an income of £227. It has to be noted that, apart
from the food and rent, most of the items were largely supplemented
_in kind_. The expenditure does not at all represent the standard
of living in things not strictly necessaries. The sum put down for
holiday expenditure includes the expense of five days’ holiday only,
the remainder being for railway fares, no other expense whatever being
incurred during the remainder of the holidays.