Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1858-07-19
FemnIe nestitn1lon.
From the Englishwoman,s Review.1

From the Englishwomants Review.
Never since the times of the Saxons, among |
whom, according to andquarians, the term
"lady" practically signitied benevoence to the
tingushed themselves in their efforts to anne
liorate the condition of the less fortunate of
their sex than within the last few years. The
Institutions for GoverneSSes, the different Ser
wants Homes, and the Society for the Assist
ance ofSeamstTesses, are some examples, among
others, of the prevailing feeling. But the ter
rifle SuffeTings to which the great majority of
female laborers are increasingly liable, appear
beyond the power of the most active well wish
erS to reduce-much less to subdue. Their
desires are earnest, but their means are insult
ticlent, even to the utmost of their wealth. In
dividuals may be made to rejoice through their
aid but numbers must still weep. The reports
from day to day of suicides and attempts at
suicide by unhappy females, are suggestive of
the many wretched remaining unrecOrded, who
would have sought any other asylum than death
had it been open to them. OF course the un-
rejecting may point to work house, but we
Shall merely remind them that the quick sensi-
tiveneSS of a woman respectable in her station,
and DESTROYS Of honestly supporting herself,
such place conveys an idea of degradation and
torture to which death is preferable. Horrible
indeed must be the state of her mind, when
driven to an utter disregard of all human and
religious obligations, she resorts to the dreadful
alternative.
Tho now prevailing distress is of recent
growth, and peculiar to the nineteenth century,
the like of it not being found in the English
History. 1t is true that at few periods the pop
ulatiOn have endured great deprivation from
war, failure of harvcstS, &C., which have result
| ed from definite temporary causes; but no.
where can parallel instance be traced of such
n degradation as that into which the working
classes have now fallen, commencing with the
end of a long war, continuing, with one brief
interval of prosperity, during nearly forty years
| OF European peace, and daily increasing until
it is almost beyond the hopes of the benevolent
to stay its progress. The disorder being recent,
shows that the origin of it is recent. Again,
when it is said in accounting for it that an ex-
cess of population is driving men, women and
children, TO compete with one another in the la
Dor market, and thus reduce wages to starvation
point, we advise our readers, before readily
granting this assumed postulate to inquire why,
in neighbOring territories under the same Queen,
more than twice our population within narrow
err and less fruitful limits, is free from this fierce
competition? Why the necesSitouS abound in
the former, while they are scarcely, if at all, to
be seen in the latter? A comparison impartial
| ~ pursued, not merely between this and other
countries, but between different periods of our
own history, will satisfy every candid thinker
that the unnatural state of things in this coun-
try is local, and therefore not beyond discove-
ry-particular, and therefore not the result of
any genral law of Providence.
\ social inquiry like that proposed, conduct
ed free from political or party bias, and with a
pure desire to discover and not to conceal will
elicit the truth far better than any other means.
We do not forget that committees of both
Houses Of Parliament have deliberated on "Com
mercial Distress" but, to waive other objections
their inquiries were too limited in their range,
They rather sought the causes of periodical
crises than of perpetual restitution, which
knows no cessation. Their searches were di.
rected more to an explanation of the fall OF
merchant princes and their dependents than of
that deep poverty which knows of no rise above
its own wretchednesS; and thus their reports
are barren Of beneficial results to the unwilling
INDECENT We wish to see an inquiry, the re,
premises, will ultimately prove advantageous tc
the whole community.