Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1845-12-25
MONTPELIER, THURSDAY, DECEMBER rs, Is45

The parlor, the sitting room, the kitchen and the
sleeping rooms are all one. There are two beds,
two windows, and three chairs. The inmates are
poorly clad and poorly fed. They are poor, but
strive to obtain good living; but they have been
unfortunate, and are now destitute This young
woman who talks about not working in a kitchen,
has not sufficient rament to render her comforta-
BILE. These are facts. Verify we may exclaim
with another:
go, world how apt the poor 20 be proud"
Maine Farmer
REMARKs.-Too many of the Vermont girls 90
to the factories. We fear that manufacturing les
peciay of cotton) is destined ere long to a revu-
sion which will sweep away most if not all of the
small factories: then thousands of girls will be
thrown out of this employment and the wages of
those who may still find work will probably be re-
duced This may not come speedy-but come
sometime it will. What shall become of the null
titude who will be thrown out of employment?-
Will they be fill to go back to the kitchen and the
dairy? Will they be ceiling to do it, if they shall
be able? Not if they esteem this labor degrading.
And here is the source of much difficulty in the
kitchen. Domestic labor is most enormously look
ed upon by too many as less respectable than other
labor: indeed any sort of labor is too often regard
ed unady-like, and the acme of gentility is to be
as nearly as possible like the lilies of the field
"They toll not, neither do they spin: and yet
say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory,
was not arrayed like one of these"
Girls brought up under such notions are very Of
ten ruined by Incidence or fashionable dissipation,
before marrage-and then must have help in the
kitchen as q matter of absolute necessity; or if
fortunately they have some little measure of health
and strength remaining, domestic labor is despsed
and real ,coman must be hired to do that, which
a lady cannot condescend to do, without losing
caste in the fashionable circle.
So it is that the ranks of young bachelors are
kept full by the real inconvenience and cost, if not
the real terrors, of attaching at least two three
women to ones household if he shall marry one
lady!
And can smart, spruce young bachelor marry
any body but lady? He, too, may be in the train
of the despot Fashion, and as much devotee as
any silly girl.
But to return: the erroneous notions, inculcated
by the ton are reflected back upon the domestics
If the lady in the parlor shows by word or deed
that the work of the kitchen is degrading then saws
the hired girl it is degrading-and if she is a girl
of spirit, two to one it she does not abandon that
vocation for the schoo-house, the milliner's shop
the taiors counter, or the factory. IF the lady of
the house considers it mark of gentity to dress
at the top of the fashion, and spend her nights in
balls and routes, then the maid of the kitchen must
dress and dssipate too: her pay will not allow it
and hence come complaints of short wages; in
some cases Come more questionable devices to raise
money to be expended in dressing; or again comes
the other recorse Of quitting the kitchen for more
profitable employment
To some extent this is all true, and examples
may be found in city and village. We do not say it
is universal; there many ladies at the heads of
families who entertain juster notions of the true
dignity and the duties of woman but it is enough
that few are in the wrong That gives faint to
the whole, and widespread is the idea among the
daughters of the land, that to make butter and
cheese, TO card and to spin, to wash and to ron to
sweep and to mop, to cook and to nurse, Just as
their good grand used to do, is all unfash-
onable-beneath the dignity of smart, free and in
dependent Yankee girls, Sand that all who are sub
jected to this sort of labor objects of sincere
pity at least. No wonder, then, that girl-hunting
is already difficult and perplexing business. If
matters shall go thus, it will ere long become
serious queston-What is to be done to secure la
Dor in the dairy and the kitchen?
The evil will work its own remedy in time
| Though domestic labor be universally despised, me-
cessty will be stern; the work must and will be
done. We know of no present remedy but to in
fuse uster notions; to hold up all necessary labor
as honorable; to respect the aborer of every sort
and to scout fashionable foes, borrowed from the
social systems of foreign countries whether it be
the follies of dress, which convert man and woman
formed after the image of their Maker into talors
and milliners' signs-or the graver errors of sent
ment, which make vice, dissipation idleness ant
wealth respectable, at the expense of religion vir
tue and honest industry. Thus public sentiment
will get back upon the right track, and those whc
labor in the kitchen, the field, and the mechanic.
shop, will feel and respond to the truth of the ole
! lines
Honor and shame from condition rise:
.4et UeH pour pdTt-theGe all the honor lies"
| coon SIGNS I'M UJpnINIA