Our hoes and our grindstones passed from us long ago, when the ploughman
and the miller took our place; but for a time we kept fast possession of
the kneading-trough and the brewing-vat. Today, steam often shapes our
bread, and the loaves are set down at our very door--it may be by a man-
driven motor-car! The history of our household drinks we know no longer;
we merely see them set before us at our tables. Day by day machine-
prepared and factory-produced viands take a larger and larger place in the
dietary of rich and poor, till the working man's wife places before her
household little that is of her own preparation; while among the wealthier
classes, so far has domestic change gone that men are not unfrequently
found labouring in our houses and kitchens, and even standing behind our
chairs ready to do all but actually place the morsels of food between our
feminine lips. The army of rosy milkmaids has passed away for ever, to
give place to the cream-separator and the, largely, male-and-machinery
manipulated butter pat. In every direction the ancient saw, that it was
exclusively the woman's sphere to prepare the viands for her household, has
become, in proportion as civilisation has perfected itself, an antiquated
lie.

Even the minor domestic operations are tending to pass out of the circle of
woman's labour. In modern cities our carpets are beaten, our windows
cleaned, our floors polished, by machinery, or extra domestic, and often
male labour. Change has gone much farther than to the mere taking from us
of the preparation of the materials from which the clothing is formed.
Already the domestic sewing-machine, which has supplanted almost entirely
the ancient needle, begins to become antiquated, and a thousand machines
driven in factories by central engines are supplying not only the husband
and son, but the woman herself, with almost every article of clothing from
vest to jacket; while among the wealthy classes, the male dress-designer