Page:The Woman Socialist - Snowden - 1907.djvu/85

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The Socialist Home
69

Co-operative cleaning has been the inevitable outcome, and it is more than probable that housekeeping on these lines will develop with extraordinary rapidity.

It is a common practice in many parts to take meals at the neighbouring restaurant instead of at home. Guests are entertained there, and are not insulted at an apparent want of hospitality.

Public nurseries for the children of parents who are engaged in some occupation which takes them both away from home have become quite numerous, and are an excellent and delightful discovery.

But if all these practices and institutions were to be spoken of as Socialism in operation in those particular forms, what consternation would be expressed by those good people who do not understand Socialism, and who would as soon think of doing the dirty work which they leave for others to do as try to understand it. Yet they are developments on Socialist lines; the only difference being, that the State, or the Municipality, shall in the future control these departments of domestic service as it will be responsible for the higher branches of public work.