Hacton Green, as I’ve worked for. (A Lady in crowd, who knows Mrs. H.  “Ah, she’s a beauty!” Cheers for Mrs. HIRONMOULD.) Well, I’ll tell yer something about ’er—­it’ll jest show you what she is!  Why, that woman, as I know myself, she acshally ... (She relates a personal and Rabelaisian reminiscence of Mrs. H., to the huge delight of the audience.) I’ll tell yer another thing—­I’ve worked for a man down at South End, Healing, and this’ll show yer the amount o’ hinsult and hill-treatment we ’ave to stand, and never say nothing to.  I’ve seed ‘im, hover and hover agen, walkin’ about among us in his shirtsleeves, with ’is braces ‘angin’ about is ’eels! (Cheers from the crowd; demonstration with scrubbing-brush by the old Lady in the drag.) I ’ave indeed, and I don’t tell yer no lies. (Here a Lady in the crowd suddenly exhibits a tendency to harangue the public on her own wrongs, and has to be suppressed.) And that man ’e’d come up to me and say, “Ain’t them shirts finished yet?” he sez.  “No,” I’d say to ’im, “they ain’t, and I don’t deceive yer.”  “It’s time they was,” he’d say.  “Beggin’ your pardon,” I’d tell ‘im, “it’s nothink o’ the kind; and, if you don’t believe my word, you may go and call your Missis out of the back kitching, as knows more about it than you do!” An’ are you goin’ to tell me we ain’t to ’ave a Factory Act, after that?

[She stands down, having made the speech of the afternoon, and is rewarded by approving cries of “Good old girl!” An employer of labour is next introduced, and received at first with suspicion, until he explains that he is heart and soul with them, that he does not dread the application of the Factory Acts to his own establishment, and considers that it would be an excellent thing if all the smaller laundries were closed to-morrow, whereupon the ladies habitually employed in these places cheer him heartily.

A Common-Sense Speaker.  It’s all very well for you to come ’ere and protest against the laundresses workin’ too long hours, but I tell yer this—­it’s yer own fault, it’s the Public’s fault.  You will ’ave yer clean shirts and collars sent ’ome every week! (Several of the unwashed betray that this thrust has gone home.) A fortnight ain’t a bit too long to wait for your linen! (Unanimous and hearty assent by people in dingy flannels.) And if some o’ these swells and aristocrats weren’t so partickler, and didn’t send so much linen to the wash as they do, why, it stands to reason as the hours the washerwomen ’ud work ’ud be shorter!

[Chorus of agreement; sudden unpopularity—­especially, oddly enough, with lighthearted young laundresses—­of persons in the crowd whose collars are at all aggressive in their cleanliness; universal feeling that the blame has been fitted upon the right shoulders at last.  More speeches; simultaneous passing of Resolution; the Processions march away with colours flying and bands playing, and, if they have succeeded in advancing the true interests of labour, no one will be more gratified than their friend, Mr. Punch.

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