LAUNDERING IN ENGLAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21344, 19 November 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

LAUNDERING IN ENGLAND

A bYING HOME INDUSTRY

"\ story is told of a bov who was asked io' write an essay on history repeating itself. His effort was short and simple, for be wrote: " King John lost bis clothes in the Wash, and mother says our family does too." In these davs, states an English writer, this is perhaps an overstatement.. But everv laundryman must be a freemason —otherwise how could he possibly invent, the cabalistic signs which appear on the coiner of each garment, whether marked by initials or otherwise, and by which plone he knows the particular-family from which each consignment comes. It is within the memory of many th.u "birr houses, in addition to brewing thenown ale, kept a private laundry. Alas laundrymaids, like old-time thatchers, are fast disappearing. No longer do large private houses run thcr own laundries: it is considered more economical to send linen to the nearest steam laundry, with wlrch most towns, small and large, are equipped. Travelling almost anywhere in the world, except in Britain, one sees rows of women along the river banks busily washing. There, except for the linen hung on an occasional clothes-line, it is difficult to believe that any washing is ever done at home. It. is curious that English women, foi the most part, are indifferent cooks and worse laundrymaids. A few years ago a certain titlpd" lady decided to start and run a laundry. Her charges are high, but the work is excellent. But in order to obtain any degree of proficiency she had to import French laundry hands as teachers.

" For." she said " in France you never get a stiff napkin, nor are you ever chilled to the bone when you get between clean Sheets."