Part 6

Spent unusually little on holidays this year.

Includes five months’ contribution towards payment of one relative to live with and take care of another.

Details of dress expenditure for one year have been given me by Nos. 5 and 6, as well as by No. 4. In addition, I have received the dress accounts for one year of a clerk living at home and receiving board and lodging free, and those for nine years of a lady receiving an allowance for her personal expenditure. I give the accounts of the wage-earning women first.

TABLE V.

Accounts of Expenditure on Dress of No. 4 (a High School Mistress), Nos. 5 and 7 (Clerks), and No. 6 (a Journalist).

AMOUNT SPENT ON

+-------------------+------------+-----------+-----------+------------+ | | 4. | 5. | 7. | 6. | | +------------+-----------+-----------+------------+ | | £ s. d.|£ s. d.|£ s. d.| £ s. d.| |Dresses | 3 16 1 |16 10 0 |23 2 11 |19 1 9 | |Coats, cloaks, | | | | | | umbrellas, &c. | 2 7 11 | 8 10 0 | 2 16 0 | 2 4 0 | |Millinery | 1 11 1 | 4 10 0 | 5 5 9 | 3 11 7 | |Underclothing | | | | | | and handkerchiefs| 3 9 11 | 6 0 0 | 5 2 1 | 6 17 8 | |Boots and shoes | 2 15 11¹⁄₄| 3 0 0 | 3 4 2 | 6 5 8 | |Gloves | 0 15 8 | 1 15 0 | 1 13 6 | 2 0 0 | |Ties, collars, &c. | 0 15 11³⁄₄| 0 15 0 | 1 6 5 | 0 19 9 | |Miscellaneous | 0 8 11 | ---- | ---- | 1 0 11³⁄₄| | +------------+-----------+-----------+------------+ | Total |16 1 6 |41 0 0 |42 10 10 |42 1 4³⁄₄| +-------------------+------------+-----------+-----------+------------+

Included in “petty cash” and not separable from other items.

Sponges, toilet soaps, brushes, &c., should have been included under this head.

No. 5 (a clerk) adds the following note to her dress account:--

“To give a true impression I think detailed dress accounts should cover three years’ expenditure; things like, e.g., winter coats and best evening dresses cannot come out of the same year’s income on a £40 dress allowance. In considering the effect produced for the money, people should certainly state whether they are a ‘stock’ size. I can wear nothing ready made. People who can may reduce the cost of all their outer garments by about half.”

No. 7 (a clerk), who is perhaps more representative of the middle class working women of the future than the others whose accounts are given here, inasmuch as she appears to regard bicycling, tennis, hockey, society, and pretty dresses as being as much the right of the girl wage-earner as of her stay-at-home cousins, has given me the list of additions to her wardrobe made by her family during the year, the items being: one pair of good evening slippers, one blouse, one dozen handkerchiefs, one lace collar, a total value of £2 4s.; and sundry veils, ribbons, and belts, value not known.

She writes:--

“What comes so expensive when one has to go to work straight on, say for the first six months of the year, is the having to keep up the same standard of respectability in the ‘between season’ time as at other times. The holidays always come between the seasons at school or college, and it does not matter much what one wears. But at the office by April I felt that I had simply ‘nothing to wear,’ and yet I hardly knew what to buy, as it was too early to get summer things. If one once got into the way of getting inter-season clothes as well, the expenditure would be enormous.”

No. 6 writes:--

“I walk a great deal in all weathers, and boots and walking dresses are subjected to hard wear. I generally have about three new walking dresses a year, at about 4¹⁄₂ guineas each on the average. My boot-bill is extra heavy, because my boots have to be made to order.”

And in answer to further questions on this latter point:--

“I find that my average expenditure on boots and shoes for the year I gave you and for the year just ended (September 30) is £4 14s. 9d.; I never kept my accounts before, so that I cannot be sure about my permanent average, but I should say it was generally about 5 guineas. This year was a very dry year, and not so ruinous as usual, and I cycled more and walked less.”

It should be noted that the three office workers who spend over £40 on dress are all dissatisfied with the result, and consider that they have to exercise rigid economy to keep their expenditure down to that limit. At the same time, all three are a little ashamed to find that they spend so much. This arises from the fact that the expenditure is always compared with that of the girl living at home on an allowance. The comparison is not justifiable. The office worker wears out more clothes and has no time for making or mending.

I lay stress on this because one difficulty in the way of obtaining accounts is a fear of incurring the disapprobation of the censors who think that to devote half one’s time to managing to dress well on £30 a year earned by some one else is less extravagant than to earn £300 a year and spend £50 of it on dress. I asked a journalist, one of the very few working women of my acquaintance always suitably and prettily dressed, if she would let me have her accounts. She owned she had not the courage to confess what a large proportion of her income had to go for clothes. Later on, after reading the journalistic comments on the expenditure tables submitted to the British Association, she told me how thankful she was she had withheld hers--“They call £40 a lavish expenditure!” And yet I have little doubt that few people could under the same circumstances produce so good a result at the same expense; while at the same time from a business point of view such an outlay in my friend’s branch of journalism repays itself with high interest.

My last set of tables, as I have already said, are not those of a wage-earner. The average expenditure is here given for three sets of three years, the personal allowance being £30, £40 and £50 for the successive periods (rising to £60 during the last year of the third period). Books and subscriptions and presents are the other items of expenditure not given here.

TABLE VI.

Accounts of Expenditure on Dress of No. 8, living at Home, and receiving an Allowance.

AVERAGE AMOUNT SPENT DURING THE THREE YEARS.

+----------------------------+-------------+-------------+------------+ | | 1883-85. | 1889-91. | 1894-96. | | +-------------+-------------+------------+ | | £ s. d.| £ s. d.| £ s. d.| |Dresses | 13 9 8 | 17 15 6 | 22 1 0 | |Coats, cloaks, umbrellas | 3 16 11 | 6 5 0 | 5 12 9 | |Millinery | 2 14 4 | 3 3 6 | 4 10 3 | |Underclothing, handkerchiefs| 3 0 8 | 3 7 6 | 5 13 10 | |Boots and Shoes | 3 13 5 | 2 19 2 | 3 9 2 | |Gloves | 2 2 8 | 1 18 1 | 1 16 11 | |Ties, collars, &c. | 0 13 1 | 0 17 8 | 0 18 4 | |Miscellaneous | 0 8 6 | 0 9 0 | 0 19 9 | | +-------------+-------------+------------+ | Total | 29 19 3 | 36 15 5 | 45 2 0 | | +-------------+-------------+------------+ | Personal allowance | £30 | £40 | £50-£60 | +----------------------------+-------------+-------------+------------+

No. 8 writes:--

“In addition to the allowance I had various presents of money. While receiving £30 I had evening dresses given me. My mending and altering are done by a maid at home. Up to 1888 I occasionally had dressmaking done at home, but now put it all out. Being so busy a person and not caring for dressmaking or millinery, I have done none myself for the last seven years or more. The average yearly glove expenditure of the three periods is less now than in 1885. This is probably accounted for by the fact that I don’t require so many white evening gloves as when I had many dances.”

The accounts I have presented here have no claim to be regarded as typical. They are merely samples of the kind of material needed to enable us to discover the type.