But for Kitty’s entertainment time would have been a heavy burden. There is nothing so enervating to the spirit as a repetition of totally useless work, and the only alternative to the re-scrubbing of tables already scrubbed, the re-polishing of handles already shining, is to pick oakum. This is of all tasks the most cruel. It tears the finger nails and soils the soul; it has no value, social or economic. Oakum is employed, it is true, as hospital swabs, but, like all mechanical, impersonal labour, it is untouched with any satisfaction. Oakum-picking is part of the system deliberately designed to deter people from claiming a night’s lodging to which, as members of a community heavily rated, they are entitled.