The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-29 00:00:00

OBJECTIONS TO FEMALE PRINTERS.

Female printers have now had a long and fair•
trial in the United States, and it is at last generally
confessed that they are a failure. Their practice of
the art does not extend_ There is no reason in the
world why women should not be compositors, if they
had not men to compete with. They can set up
types as quickly and correctly as men, bat the mis-
chief is that, with few exceptions, when they become
proficient in their art, they get married, and when_
the woman is married the compositor is as good as
shot, There could never be much profit in training
men for compositors, and as soon as they grew skil-
ful drafting them from " the case" into the army or
navy. Yet a transformation as thorough and as
wasteful takes place when the compositor becomes
a wife and a mother. This dangage of the entire skill
of a long apprenticeship being lost would always of
itself operate as a high differential duty in favour of
male over female labour. But in the work itself the
tenacity and strength of the man gives him other
advantages over the woman. For instance, a com-
positor works with mere ease and rapidity standing
than sitting, but a woman cannot stand and work
through a whole day as a man does. The physical
endurance demanded of compositors in many news-
paper offices altogether exceeds the strength of a.
woman's organisation. We know compositors who
once a week, and unavoidably, work from the morn-
ing of one day through the night into the morning
of the next. Such a strain is very exhausting, and
as a compositor remarked to us, "we never feel
right afterwards until we have been twice through
the sheets," or, in other words, have been twice in
bed. Now, a compositor who is able to exert him-
self in this way at a pinch will always have the
preference over one who cannot. There might be
room for women as printers if male labour were,
scarce, bUt in America, where such labour is much
scarcer than here, women do not find that they can
compete with men ; and certainly in England,where
there is a superabundance of the better article, there
is little providence in bringing the inferior into the
market. The experiment in London which is going
forward under Miss Emily Faithful's management
is not one, for these and various other reasons,which
we regard with any expectation. We are not in
the least surprised that the Victoria Press should
turn out a well printed volume; there is nothing
to hinder. Bat we see no chance for the women as
printers alongside men. The Victoria Press is a
philanthropic speculation which will never bear ex-
tension on economical or commercial gron nds. Those
who wisely help women will educate them for oc-
cupations in which they need as little fear the com-
petition of men as men need fear theirs in the
printing-office.—Literary Budget,

EXTENSION OF THE MONEY O.RDI"':E

SYSTEM 10 SOUTII AUSTRALIA.

1. On the Ist October, and thenceforward, money
orders will be issued by all money-order offices in
the United Kingdom on the undermentioned places
in South Australia, at a charge of ls. for any sum
not exceeding £2 ; 2s. for any sum above £2 and
not exceeding £5; 3s. for any sum above £5 and
not exceeding £7 ; and 4s. for .any sum above £7
and not exceeding £10; beyond which latter sum
no single money order will be loaned. From the
above date money orders will also tie issued for any
sum not exceeding £lO at the undermentioned
places in South Australia on any money-order office
in the United Kingdom.
2. The issue of money orders under this arrange-
ment will be in all respects on the same conditions
as those which regulate their issue by one office on
another office in the United Kingdom, except that,
in consequence of the distance between the United
Kingdom and South Australia an interval of six
instead of two months will be allowed after the issue
of an order in one country payable in the other, be-
fore such order will become lapsed.
3. For the renewal in the United Kingdom of
lapsed order, for the issue there of a duplicate order,
or for the stoppage there of payment of an order, ap-
plication must be made to the controller of the metro-
politan office of that part of the kingdom (England,
Ireland, or Scotland) in which such order is payable.
island commission In the case of lapsed orders, an additional inland rate
of commission will be deducted from the amount a
the new order, and the lapsed order must be trans..
witted with the application for renewhl. a the
t
t
other cases an additional
fr uaccompanym uue officethe application.
toanother
If transfer
office in fe Unn:
be made payment
Kingdom be required, application ho
to the money order office at which
the order is pay-
able, the order being forwarded with such appli-
cation.additional i
The
nland ,
commission in this
-11 be deducted from theCBSO new order.
4. For repayment of the amount of a money
order, or for the corroction of any error respecting
the name of the payee or remitter, application,
accompanied with an additional
inland rate of com-
mission, must be made to the controller of the me-
tropolitan office of the country in which the order
was issued.

5. As all advices of colonial money orders must
pass through the metropolitan offices of this coun-
try and of the colony in which the orders are issued
or have to be paid, unavoidable delay in payment
must is some instances arise, since such advices may
Occasionally arrive in the United Kingdom or in
the colony one post after the orders have reached
Itheir destination.