take charge of lavatories and cloak-rooms, rather than by a system which runs counter to all decent instincts. Welfare Workers report that where such attendants are employed the behaviour of young girls seldom gives cause for complaint. In a few factories the attendants in charge of the lavatories supply sanitary towels at 1d. or ½d. each, a practice which might be universally adopted.

The sanitary arrangements in textile mills are not always adequate, though few are reported as actually unsatisfactory. Pail closets are, however, still present in a fair proportion of the older mills. The chief complaint, particularly in reference to the needs of adolescent girls, concerns the position of the closets; in most mills the male and female conveniences are next to each other, and witnesses report that young girls are frequently too shy to make use of them, especially in weaving-sheds where the doors of the closets are in view of all. Much unnecessary suffering therefore results, and girls sometimes turn ill from this cause. These witnesses recommend that the sanitary conveniences be placed outside the sheds, and that male and female accommodation be in different parts of the mills. It may be noted in passing that this difficulty was only represented in north-east Lancashire, where the social position of the operatives is generally somewhat superior to those of other districts, and where reticence in such matters is more likely to be intensified.

Lighting and ventilation of closets is frequently faulty, and stress must be laid on the necessity for washing facilities, generally entirely lacking in textile factories.

Meals.—Attention has been drawn in the section devoted to hours to the value of good feeding in mitigating the injurious effects of long hours of labour. It must be remembered that the evidence from the engineering industry was collected towards the end of 1916, so that the reports refer to the period before the increase in food prices had balanced the rise in wages. It seems to be fairly established that where good wages are earned adequate food is eaten, though one or two observers reported that girls are still eating unsuitable food, with the result that gastric troubles are common. As a general rule, however, particularly where canteens have been set up, good meat dinners are eaten, and the girls appear to be well nourished. Welfare Workers report on the improvement in health which follows the opening of canteens, and they note especially how anaemia is reduced. Inquiries by club secretaries and the experience of district nurses who visit working-class households show that improved feeding invariably follows an increase in wages. As one witness says, "If they have the money they eat good food, and once in the habit they do not easily fall back." This is encouraging in face of the widespread belief that girls are careless about their food and willingly live on tea and bread. The only complaints concern the lack of variety in the food provided in the canteens. One Welfare supervisor lays great stress on the value of a long dinner-hour, and she attributes the absence of digestive troubles at her factory to the hour and a half allowed at midday.[11]

One witness pointed out that when work starts at 8 A.M. many girls get no breakfast, and when dinner-time comes at 12 or 12.30 they do not feel able to eat ordinary food and take only bread and tea, or something "tasty," but not nourishing. This point should be borne in mind when the arrangement of hours is under discussion, especially in view of the suggestion of one doctor who thought that the ideal working-day when long hours are necessary for output, would be from 7 A.M. to 12 and 1 P.M. to 6 P.M., with ten minutes break for tea, etc., in the middle of each spell. His reason for opposing an earlier start with a breakfast interval at 8 o'clock depended on the fact that the earlier spell (6 A.M.–8 A.M.) would probably be worked fasting, which he considered to be very injurious. How much more harmful then must be a whole morning's work with only a very light refreshment at the interval. The Sick Visitor of the United Garment Workers' Union at Hebden Bridge also draws attention to the difficulty of obtaining an adequate breakfast at 7 o'clock in time for the 7.30 A.M. start general at Hebden Bridge, and she attributes the prevalent trouble of indigestion to this cause.

In the textile industries such amenities as dining-rooms are practically unknown. A benevolent employer here and there, or a Co-operative Wholesale Society, may provide a canteen, but such examples are exceedingly rare. In south-east Lancashire most operatives who work at a distance from their homes arrange with a family in the neighbourhood of the mill to provide them with hot water for tea, and possibly to cook some food for them, for breakfast and dinner. Those who do not do this take their meals in the mill, and as seats are non-existent they have to sit on skips or on the floor. When one realises the atmospheric conditions of most mills, the heat, the damp resulting from steaming, to say nothing of the smell from oil and size, one cannot imagine a worse arrangement. In north Lancashire conditions are somewhat better in that most mills provide hot water for tea at a charge of 1d. or 2d. per week, and a certain few provide ovens for heating food, but here again the meals have to be taken in the vitiated atmosphere of the mill. Practically all operatives remain at the mill for their breakfast, but the majority go home to dinner. The standard of living is high, but too much carbo-hydrate and too little protein food is general; bread and tea, chips and fish (mostly batter), and cakes and pasties, and potato pie with very little meat, form the staple diet. Doctors especially remark on this, and they attribute the distaste for nourishing food to the long hours of confinement in the close atmosphere of the mill. Industrial employment of the mothers is also held to be responsible for faulty feeding, and when the mother leaves the mill to look after the needs of a large family the taste for unsuitable food is settled, and the diet continues as before.