“Our laundry contains a powerful steam washing-machine, which is capable of washing the garments of the whole family in less than an hour’s time, and almost without the aid of a human hand. It contains a drying room, in which the wash is dried in a few minutes. Electric irons do the ironing. To wash, dry and iron the garments of a thousand men, women and children requires the labor of only a few persons for a very short time. Every one pays for his own washing, and can get as much of it done as he wants. The laundry work is all done by experts. We wash every day, for every day we bathe and change clothes after our day’s work is done. “In this laundry department we economize an immense amount of labor by co-operation, and doubtless conduces vastly to our average health, which is with you very often impaired by overwork, and by contracting cold when an overheated washer hangs out the clothes. Here, with you, each small family must have a washing apparatus, even if it is nothing more than a sickly woman’s hands. Each has a clothes-line, on which the clothes wear perhaps nearly as much by drying as by bodily wear. Each keeps a number of flat-irons, which are mostly operated by the muscles of an over-heated woman, many of whom are engaged in hard work for more than twelve hours a day. In your society a washer-woman is looked upon as an inferior. In our society she stands equal with the highest. No wonder that with you all try to avoid the profession of being a washer-woman. No wonder that many of your women prefer to live a life of shame and degradation, which brings them a hell during life and a premature death. Hard, hard work and little pay! It is easily seen why it is considered a hard, degraded position here. It is easily seen, too, why so many filthy garments are worn in your society, when we contemplate how few of you have water fit to wash with; how many of the poorer classes who are too poor to buy the necessary soap; how inconvenient your laundry and drying apparatus are; how laborious your ironing. It is no wonder that many wear undergarments for a week, two weeks, and even three weeks, without changing them.