Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1852-07-22


personally acquainted with rural pursuits;
and his wishes are readily gratifed. for
girls who have been carefully trained and
well educated, are happily, at this day, far
from being rare, or difficult to find. A gen.
uine love Of good books, skill and taste
IN music, and the arts, combined with
depth and strength Of intellect, are possess
ed by many oflhe young girls who have en-
joyed the privilege Of country birth
aud residence.
Such person, not unlrequently uni,es
her fate with that of farmer, thinking no
doubt. from what she has read in perodi-
Gals, that thus she can more certainly graf
ity her taste for horticulture, and the en-
Enlistment of her home, and at the same
time fulfil more exalted destiny than she
could expect to, ii she was to,become part
or the fashionable circle of the city or viii
lage. Yet she is ambitious to perform as
much labor as her neighbor, who has for
years been engaged in household labor, and
therefore assumes the duties Of housewife.
and maid-of-all-work, and her husband who
has been accustomed to see his neighbor.'
wives toiling from morning until night, in
the cook and dairy room, thinks it is all
right with as little reflection as the peasant
of Europe bestows upon the coupling his
wife and mule together at the pillow or the
cart and thus from mere custom, and want
Of thought he allows the woman of his love
to become his most devoted slave.
From this time forth, the life Of the
farmers wife is one of strict confinement
and unremitting toll. From early dawn
til late at night, it is nothing but mend
and botch, cook and bake, wash and sweep,
churn and make cheese, wait upon her hus-
band and his band of laborers bear children
and nurse them No time for relaxation
or enjoyment, or the Improvement of her
mental or social faculties is found. AS the
means of his family increase, the husband
becomes more noticed, and his circle of ac-
qualntances and friends enlarges he daily
meets his associates and mingles with the
world, but his wife tolls on in the old dull
routine, with nothing to break in upon the
monotony of her existence, except perhaps
the advent of another child, or the death of
one TO whom her heart is bound in the
strongest ties.
The husband, it may be, is engaged in
some public business or drives frequently
to town for market or for his pleasure, but
he never thinks of his martyr wife, and the
necessity there is ia her nature, that she
should share with him his pleasures and re-
iaxatIons. Her labors are never ended, her
cares never cease, until premature old age
has come upon her, with wrinkled brow and
with blanched and bowed form, she sinks in
to an early grave, leaving the children of her
love, and the property she had saved and
earned, to the care of more youthful sue
cessor, who not seldom avenges these
wrongs by tyranising over the husband aud
abusing the children.
This is no fancy picture, or delineation
ofwhat was in by-gone days, but unfortu-
nately the original can be found in almost
every neighborhood, and even among those
who are called model farmers. Neither is
it confined to the cultivators ofthe soil All
classes and occupations Of men include too
many in their ranks, who practically scout
the idea that their wives aud daughters are
human beings, with sOuis in some way con-
nected with their bodies, and that they are
endowed by their creator with certain in
alienable rights and privileges" among
which are life and the rights to enjoy the
pure air Of heaven, uncontamnated with the
odors of the kitchen OF the steam of the
wash tub-that their social and intellectual
nature is an essential part of them, and that
to live, in the full sense of the word, is to en-
Joy aud increase the ability of enjoying these
higher attributes, by free and varied inter-
course with the pure and gifted oflheir own
and the opposite sex.
We hope to see the day when men, even
those who consider it privilege as well as
duty to gain livelihood from honest toll,
will take as much pains to secure these So
cial pleasures and innocent amusemenis for
their wives and their daughters, as they doto
give proper exercise and recreation to their
horses aud their cattle"
To Kill CANADA THIsTLEs.-Cut
them at the right time of the year, or
rather at the proper stage of its growth,