Page:Pioneer work in opening the medical profession to women - autobiographical sketches (IA b28145227).pdf/205

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spinning, weaving, and finally measuring and folding the cloth. We went up and down, by movable trap-doors, underground from street to street, all through the immense establishment. The noise was tremendous, the dust and heat oppressive. I noticed closely the workwomen, who seemed brutified by their toil; their physiognomies were assuming the projecting mouth of the lower animals. Most of them carried their hair-comb stuck in the back of their head; they were mostly youngish women, sallow and perspiring, and I noticed one woman so exhausted that she was obliged continually to sit down; they had often more than one loom to feed. They keep the men and women separate in their work as far as possible. . . .

Saturday, 26th.—Actually my last day on this noble British land! I left pale good Cousin S. standing in the street of Dudley; watched dear H. running up the railway bank as I rushed off in the train; and then I felt that I was indeed severed from England, and only anxious to get through my journey. I found myself at night on board ship, out in the Mersey. Another most important page in life fairly closed!

Adieu, dear friends! Heaven keep us all!