Speaking in Sydney yesterday, Mr A. K. Trethowan, M.L.C., said that if idle women would go to the baker for their bread and to the milkman for their milk, and so on, instead of lying in bed waiting for it to be delivered, the cost of living would be greatly reduced. Cost of distribution ate up enormous profits.
"A woman's work is never done,"
Said she.
"From dawn to setting of the sun,"
Said she.
"I toil and moil and work and slave,
And do my best to pinch and save,
And yet you say I don't behave,"
Said she.
And twenty men in twenty carts
In that suburban street
Long, long before the daylight starts
Are setting out with cakes and tarts
And fish and milk and meat
And cauliflowers, beans and bread
What time my lady lies in bed.
"All day I have to live alone,"
Said she.
"Attending to the door or 'phone,"
Said she.
"While you go gaily into town
To meet your friends, I want a gown,
A hat! This life has got me down,"
Said she.
And twenty men when day is done,
In that suburban street,
Who have performed the task of one
(If things more orderly were done),
Drive back along their beat. . .
It seems absurd. But, all the same,
Is it my lady who's to blame,
For all these economic cares,
Or just man's muddling of affairs?
First published in The Herald, 8 January 1931
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
