Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1843-07-14
From Chambers Edinburg Journal.
THE LAUNDRESS OF PARIS,
A TRUE STORY.

H LIN ~ ~ - ELDE9 OE EAhISs
TRUE STORY.
Accessible as Paris has been for wears
past TO our conntrymen, and freely as they
have availed themselves Of the facilities for
visiting it, some of our readers may not be
aware of the minute features of Partisan
humble life; among others, Of the difference
of our own plan for the publication of linen
and that pursued by our continental neigh
bors. In the first place-the Joint conse-
quence, probably, of fine climate and the
scarcity of fuel, the operation, instead OF
being carried OIL, as with us, under cover
with the aid of hot water, and generally in
boats or RATS moored to the river side,
where the running stream is made to per-
form the office of soap, and the rubbing
practised by our laundresses is replaced by
beating with wooden mallet-a process not
very conducive, in the opinion of our trav-
oilers, to the durability of the articles
Few of our countrymen who have visited
Paris can have failed to observe as one Of
its most singular objects, these amphibious
communities Of washer women, plying from
morning till nigh: their laborious vocation,
perpetually ascending and descending under
heavy loads of wet linen, the steep stairs
leading to their floating laundry, enduring
in winter the seventies or the weather, in
haling in summer the unwholesome exhala-
tons of the river, and exposed at all seasons
to aperpetnal damp, which saturates their
garments, and prematurely stiiiens their
limbs; yet preserving throughout national
cheerfulness, finding vent in many song !;
sharing with each other cordial fellowship,
the goods and ills of life; in short, forming,
in the midst of Paris, peculiar colony,
whose habits, morals, and above all, strong
spirit of community, require only to be
known to inspire good will, nay, to COM
mand respect
Earning at an average little more than
two francs per day, out of which they are
expected to provide their own mallet. and
the large leather apron which their dripping
vocation renders necessary, they nevertheless
agree to deduction Of FIVE sous each from
their daily wages, towards fund for unlore-
seen calamties, and, above all, to prevent
any of their number, who may be laid aside
by illness, from being reduced to seek other
relief. The greater part of them are mar
ried women with families
1t is also their custom TO elect every year
at the season of Mid-Lent, head. whom they
style queen, to preside over their little festiv-
tiles, and decide disputed points among the
community, the slightest misconduct or want
of strict integrity in any of whose members
is deemed sufficient reason for her expulsion
This fundamental law Of the aquatic corpo-
ration is the more necessary and strictly en-
forced, that the linen entrusted to each (oE-
ten of great value) being, as it were, in keep
ing of all, the least individual dishonesty
would bring suspicion on the whole sister
hood.
Few things can be more curious and in
teresting to the observer of popular manners
than the moral aspect of perhaps hundred
women, carrying on, elbow to elbow, their
wholesale vocation, without theft or even
bunder being ever SO much as heard of
among them; their immense bark, some
times equal in length to the hull Of man Of
war, becoming thus a huge depot, rendered
secure by mutual confidence, and guaran-
teed by the strictest honor.
One of the vast machines, moored at the
foot of the Quay de la Cite, alongside of the
beautiful Pont dc la Grevc, was lrequented
by numbers Of women from that popuIons
quarter, who were so famous for whitening
without destroying linen, that their Washing
boat was styled the normal school for Paris
laundresses, One of the best work-women
was girl of twenty-three, named Blanche
Raymond; endowed with fine, open, smi-
ling countenance, great strength of body,
and uncommon cleverness of hand. She had
lost her mother some time before, and being
now the only stay Of her old blind father, a
superannuated laborer on the quay, she had
to work double-tides for their joint support
though the old man, by earning a few pence
daily by weaving nets, was saved the feeling
of being altogether burden on his child.
Blanche, after preparing her father's break
fast, at his lodgings just opposite the stairs
leading to her boat, went down to it at sew
en- every morning, came home at noon to
give the poor blind man his dinner, and then
back to work for the rest Of the day. Re-
turning at its close.to her humble hearth,