On the subject of women workers _Punch's_ utterances are apparently but not really irreconcilable. The "Wail of the Male; being a British workman's view of the cheap female labour question, respectfully submitted to the Trade Union Congress" in 1887, is a protest against women undercutting men in the labour market. But the voice is the voice of 'Arry, not of _Punch_--shrewd, glib and entirely selfish. The speaker has just got the "bullet"--having been sacked without notice--and speculates on further possibilities:-- Look here, Bill! If they shunt You and me, and our like, as they're doing all round, Because Women are cheap, and there's heaps to be found, Won't it come to this, sooner or later, my boy, That the most of us chaps will be out of employ, Whilst the Women will do all the work there's to do, And keep us, and the kids, on about half our "screw"? Who's a-going to gain by that there but the boss? And for everyone else it is bound to be loss. A nice pooty look-out! Oh, I know what they say-- That the women work better than us for less pay, And are much less the slaves of the pint and the pot, What's that got to do with it? All tommy rot! We have all got to live, and if women-folk choose To collar our cribs or to cut down our screws, _They_ will have to be bread-winners, leaving us chaps To darn stockings at home with the kids on our laps. Well, I hope as they'll like it. I tell you what, neighbour, The world's being ruined by petticoat labour. Besides, Mate, in spite of this Woman's Rights fuss, Work don't make 'em better _as_ women, but wuss. It mucks 'em for marriage, and spiles 'em for home, 'Cos their notion of life is to racket and roam. Just look at that work-girl there, her with the fringe! She's a nice pooty specimen! Makes a chap cringe To think of that flashy young chit as a wife. That's what cheap woman labour will do for our life. Oh, give 'em the Vote, and the breeks, while you're at it, Make 'em soldiers, and Bobbies, and bosses. But, drat it, If this blessed new-fangled game's to prewail, I pities the beggar who's born a poor Male! Against these arguments, illustrative of a certain habit of mind, which at best excite a grudging acknowledgment of their coarse common sense, one may set the "Dream of Unfairly Treated Women" (after Tennyson) in 1890, describing the hardships of sempstresses, governesses, "slaveys" and shop-girls, the victims of sweating, greed, and worse, which unhappily were all too prevalent so recently as thirty years ago.