The Camden weekly journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1853-1861, 1854-08-29
How Women are Employed In
France.

EVERYBODY knows Paris, which is France,
a great place"-as big to the Frenchman as
the Fourth of July is to the American The
French are peculiar The men are So. SO
are the women. To show how some Of the
women are employed, we give o paragraph
or two from a chatty and intelligent cores
pondent:
81 am induced to say word upon the very
numerous employments open to females in
France, which are not open to them at home.
The books of nine-tenths Of the retail shops in
Paris are kept by women. / do not remember
a cafe or estiminat the counter of which is not
presided at by woman. The box.oftices OF
all the theatres are tended by women-not on
ly those of the evening, but those open during
the day for the sale of reserved places. The
box.openers and audience-seaters are women.
Not only do women act as sellers in such es'
tablishments as are naturally fitted to them,
but even in groceries, hardware stores, wood.
yards, fruit stores, butcheries, &c. &c. In all
these places the book keeper is a woman,
fenced in and separated from the rest by a
framework or glass. The ticket-sellers at the
railroad stations are principally women. lhave
the pleasure of purchasing seat daily OF
good-looking young person Of about "a years.
From appearances should say she was engaged
to the conductor on the o'clock train. Wo.
men even guard the stations and some OF the
less frequented crossings. Women cry the
rate of exchange, every afternoon, after bourse
hours; and more numbers of Presse and the
Mosquetaire are disposed of by woman than
by men. / never yet saw newsboy in France.
In the porters' dodgers of the city there are as
many portreeses as porters; and landlord would
prefer to take for this service, woman with
out husband, than man without wife. In
small houses, where one person only is required,
that one person is woman. Omnibus.con-
ductors submit their way bills at the transfer
offices to women, for inspection and ratitica'
ton. Women book you for a seat in the dill
gence. Women let donkeys for rides to Mont
morency, and saddle them too. Women un-
dertake the moving Of furniture, agree with
you as to the price, and you find them quite
as responsible as men. Without multiplying
instances, you see what number OF avenues
are open to females here, which in America are
closed. At home, nearly all the situations OBJ
tainable by them are menial or involve subor-
dination. Women are either servants, clerks,
operatives, walters, or type-setters. The fore.
man is rarely woman, if | may be allowed
the expression. Here, however, females hold
positions Of authority, responsibility and con.
sideration, in the various employments OF
overseers, and book keepers, and even as heads
of establishments. 1t has not been found that
the weakness of the sex causes the empire to
be any the less energetically asserted, or obe'
!dience to be less promptly rendered.
"There are other capacities in which women
are employed in France, which / trust and
believe would never be accepted by women at
home; brigade Of streetsweepers contains
an equal number of males and females. There
are female chifoniers, and old clo' women. A
complete establishment of fruit or vegetable
peddler consists of a small cart, man to sell
and shout, and scon,an and a dog harnessed
into straps, to drag. In the country, women
work in the fields, and thresh and winnow in
the barns. Imight say that from motive of
piety, might employ an alley, tend straw:
berry bee, and hawthorn grove, in which
take an unnatural interest considering that
they grow on land not my own. American
women were not born for such occupations as
these; but I think there are many employ.
ments yet monopolized by men, to which their
labor might be usefully and successfully divert
ed" -