"Misery," continues this writer, "is strangely prolific; every hovel, every court, every alley teems with children," "little mothers" carrying heavy babies, like Miss Dorothy Tennant's tender picture, _A Load of Care_ ... that heavy, heavy baby, weighing down that tiny, tiny nurse.... _Nota Bene_: There always _is_ a baby. By the time a little wool appears on the head of number one, number two appears, and so on--well, nearly _ad infinitum_. There is no doubt whatever that babies are the bugbears of the Borough ratepayers." The Board Schools in these districts teach, it appears, not only "the three R's," but also housewifery, house-cleaning, cooking, and other most necessary accomplishments: "Housewifery" (says Mr. Morley) "is the birthright of the children of the poor.... Every mite of a girl down in the East or South ... is a housewife by the time she is six.... Often enough when times are hard and funds very low--when father is out o' work, and mother's bad in bed--does the poor little mother set forth with scrubbing-brush in hand, and clean the door-steps of the prosperous for twopence or threepence, according to the size and number of the steps. She probably lights the fire of a morning; it is her delight to go shopping to the remarkable establishment where most of the necessities of life are to be obtained by the farthing's-worth; and with the mysteries of marketing she is very well acquainted indeed. You should just see her in Bermondsey, the Walworth Road, the Dials, the New Cut, or Whitechapel on a Sunday morning, when these localities are alive with poor people buying their dinners. Road and footpath are blocked with stalls and barrows, and flesh, fish, fowl and vegetables are all jumbled together in confusion that is apparently inextricable. But little mother knows her way about, and whether it is red meat or white meat, beef, mutton or rabbit, trust her for getting a bargain, for keeping a sharp eye on weight and measure. A farden is a farden in districts where a penny is a substantial coin of the realm."