Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914   By: Various

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 147.

July 1, 1914.

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PROGRESS.

["Giving evidence recently before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, Miss C. E. Collet, of the Home Office, said the commercial laundry was killing the small hand laundry." Evening News. ]

The little crafts! How soon they die! In cottage doors no shuttle clicks; The hand loom has been ousted by A large concern with lots more sticks.

The throb of pistons beats around; Great chimneys rise on Thames's banks; The same phenomena are found In Sheffield. (Yorks) and Oldham (Lancs).

No longer now the housewife makes Her rare preserves, for what's the good? The factory round the corner fakes Raspberry jam with chips of wood.

'Tis so with what we eat and wear, Our bread, the boots wherein we splosh 'Tis so with what I deemed most fair, Most virginal of all the Wash.

'Tis this that chiefly, when I chant, Fulfils my breast with sighs of ruth, To think that engines can supplant The Amazons I loved in youth.

That not with tender care, as erst By spinster females fancy free, These button holes of mine get burst Before the shift comes back to me;

That mere machines, and not a maid With fingers fatuously plied, The collars and the cuffs have frayed That still excoriate my hide;

That steam reduces to such states What once was marred by human skill; That socks are sundered from their mates By means of an electric mill;