The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-02 00:00:00

EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.

There is a class, once in great honour, whom
knights•errant succoured in distress, for whom
saints built cloisters and aisles, and who are still

conspicuous in legendary pilgrimages and proces-
sions, but now, it would seem, without a patron.
If 11,000 virgins, or ten times that number,
chose to sail up the Rhine in quest of the
Holy Sepulchre, that would not make any percep-
tible reduction in the number of the hrgest unoc-
cupied class in these isles. When to the "young
women' of England aro added widows and married

women of all classes with time on their hands, and
to whom it is a very great object to increase their
incomes, we have an amount of neglected power,
constrained idleness, and undeserved suffering that
is not to be found elsewhere on this earth. Lament-

able as it may be, it is nevertheless true that the
disproportion of the sexes is here far greater than
in any other country, there being about half-a-
million more women than men in this island alone.
As a statistical fact this will make little impres-
sion ; but everybody must be aware of a great pre-
, ponderance of the weaker sex in his own neigh-
bourhood, whatever it may be, and of much in the
circumstances of many to excite a 'tender and
respectful sympathy. They are ladies without
position, or they have no object in life and have
nothing to do. Unless they " settle" they are
apt to find themselves in the way. They are
stranded in solitude, or driven into groups, where
they sooa- become -old-fashioned, odd in their
ways, and obsolete in their talk. If they are
poor—if they have nothing at all—their case is so
much the worse, worse indeed than can be imagined.
What are they to do ? They have generally been
educated simply to be " ladies." They are not
even properly qualified to be governesses, much less
to exercise any trade or profession. Very few ladies
indeed, if left penniless and friendless at the age of
25, would know what to do. When a small propor-
tion thus situated have furbished up and paraded
their small stock of accomplishments, and obtained
" situations? in families, some of one class, some of
another, there remains a crowd for whom no place
can be found. In England, where there is this cruel
excess of the feeble and more dependent class, there
happens also to be greater prejudices than any-
where else against their employment. Ladies
themselves prefer shopmen to shopwomen. Very
few women are ever seen in a counting-house. They
are almost excluded from railway employments.
Many thousands of dame schools have disappeared
under the new and grander systems of education.
Even in the case of female amateurs in any of these
provinces the stronger sex meets them with harsh
criticism and insulting suspicion. Bluestockings,
female artists, authoresses, lady teachers in charity
schools, lady visitors among the poor, lady nurses,
are all stigmatised as poachers, and warned off the
manor. But what are they to do, particularly when
they want not only employment, but food and
clothing for themselves and for those who depend
on their dependence ?
The question, we grieve to say, is one of in-
creasing dimensions and perplexity : and it is a
melancholy fact that it is left to answer itself. Had
we not before us in our yesterday's columns a most
able and eloquent review of some efforts that have
been made from the pen of a woman, we should
despair of seeing anything done. As for the men,
one would suppose that every gentleman in this
island had been ill-used by " the sex," so sullen
and so unanimous do they seem in their determina-
tion to leave half a million women to their fate.
All other classes have their patrons. Paupers,
criminals, offenders, madmen, idiots, orphans, sick,
aged, deaf and dumb, blind—all have the alms-
houses, prisons, reformatories, and asylums, and
any woman, of any age or rank, has only to fall
ill, to break a limb, to lose her sight, to commit a
larceny or any other offence, and she is imme-
diately claimed by some philanthropist for his
own. But women, simply as women, standing on
their own merits, are a drug in this country.
They are regarded as social nuisances. They are
in everybody's way ; counted at evening parties,
put at their right ages, and discussed by hard
men with one view alone. They cannot help being
what they are, whatever it is. They never have
a choice till it is too late for a choice to be worth
anything. Were a girl at 15 to express a wish to
learn any profession, to prepare herself properly
for the duties of a governess, a ladylike trade, an
enterprise of any sort, India or the Colonies, she
would generally be felt to have lost the delicacy
of her sex. Let it be felt still. But why do
not men do for women what women cannot do for
themselves, and open new opportunities for the
beings who are forbidden to seek their own for-
tunes ? It is a melancholy fact, that while there
are many institutions in Germany and other coun-
tries to prepare girls for good situations in this
country, and the proper agencies here, there is no
such institution, or good school, or agency, that we
are aware of, for the benefit of English girls. Nay,
since Mrs. Chisholm did so much, there is not even
any institution, or agency, or arrangement of any
kind, for sending English governesses or domestic
servants to our own colonies, where the want of
them is great indeed. In only one case mentioned
by the authoress of the paper before us is there
pretence of such a plan. There is an agency in
London for sending to the Canterbury Settlement,
New Zealand, certain proportions of all the classes
wanted there ; but there does not appear to be any
adequate provision for receiving them out there and
finding them proper places—a necessary adjunct of
any such plan.
What has been done, with great and meritorious
exertion, is but little compared with the need.
The Registry-offices cannot do much more than
other registries do, for they can more easily mul-
tiply applicants than places. The Victoria Press,
and a Copying-office, find a superior mechanical
employment, with comparative independence,
for some dozen women, and recall the historical
fact that for some generations after the discovery
of printing women were employed, and often
preferred, as " composers" and correctors of the
press. Stephanus, for example, said that he
found them more faithful to the copy and less
liable to be misled by false lights. The greatest
and most meritorious move in this direction is the
employment of women by the Telegraph-offices. It
originated entirely in motives of kindness, and only
succeeded by much tact and perseverance, in spite
of opposition and obvious difficulties. The Electric
and International Company, empl.oy nearly two
hundred young women at their various offices, and
speeches occupying entire pages of this paper have
been transmitted to the North and transferred to
writing in a few hours by young women alone, and
with wonderful accuracy. This success is a great
encouragement to those who have the conduct of
new institutions where men have not yet gained
exclusive possession. It is, however, a still more
important matter, and one lying more in the direct
path of improvement, that women should have the
opportunity of qualifying themselves for the duties
which are either their own, or for which they have
a special aptitude. Training Schools we have.
Ladies' Colleges we have. But, as the paper we
have referred to in yesterday's paper truly points
out,while there is much heroism in this country, ever
ready to show itself on any occasion, and while
that is an element which requires discipline and
education 'as much as any other, there is a lack
of opportunities. A Caroline Fry, a Mrs. Chisholm,
a Florence Nightingale must go through a long
and rough ordeal beforeshe can fulfil her generous
instincts wisely and effectually. In France and
other countries the Sisters of Charity are something
more than the disembodied Militia, or the solitary
enthusiasts that the name suggests in this
country. They are an institution, they are
State functionaries, they have a province and a
system. In France, too, there are authorised
" Inspectresses" of female prisons, empowered to
visit at all hours and open any cell. As every
father of a family knows, women have naturally
more administrative power and economical sense
than the stronger sex. Within any given scope of
moderate compass they will beat a man out and
out. Now, there are many works of charity, such
as the superintendence of " homes" and the tempo-
rary reception of young people here or in the colo-
nies, for which women would do vastly better than
men. Everybody must have felt a thousand times
what a pity it is, when there is so much to be done,
and persons so admirably qualified to do it, that
the work and the workers cannot be brought
together.
It would be vain to deny the difficulty of the
task undertaken by the authoress of " A Year's
Woman's Work," and her coadjutors.
Experience
would not exist except from
very
great
evil
causes little short of a necessity. We have often
had to notice the beginning of the evil in the dis-
proportionate demand for men involved by the peen-
liar position of this country. Every
year mire-
vates that national feature. It is not without a