St. Cloud visiter [sic]. [volume] (St. Cloud, Stearns County, Minn.) 1857-1858, 1858-05-27

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ton has grown to be robust, the child has
grown strong. When woman, not far
away from this, refuses to pay taxes without
representation; when the Sorbonne in Par
is gives diplomas to 200 women as teach
ers; when the most eminent men in mod
ern times protest against the injustice done
to their wives; when women everywhere
doing more than half Of the most menial
work in the world quickens the humanity
and the invention of man, and as society
condemned the great mass of woman to
the needle, the sewing machine comes in
to relieve the few and send the many into
the street or the grave yard. The woman
question, or the candid inquiry whether
women are to have the same chance in the
world as men, has become very robust
question, and is not to be put off with slops
and sugar much longer. The question is
not whether women are men, Men are
men, and women are women; no boy is so
contemplate as the she boy, while the he
woman puts all men to flight. But we men
have treated women as slaves, or have al
ways made them subordinate to ourselves,
and for no other reasons than the same by
which the big boy takes the apple away
from the h5tle girl, and the white man
makes the black man his slave. In the
earliest times women were absolute slaves;
they belonged to the man who could take
them. The Hebrews and Egyptians were
polyganists, and in Athens, as among saw
ages now, they were not allowed to sit at
table with their lords. Yet even in Greece,
Sappho sang, and Arcte lived, and Corinna
bore away the palm. True, they called
Sappho hard names; but that we do to the
Sapphos nowadays The Romans did
better, and among the northern nations,
there was mysterius religious respect for
women. Chivalry was the offspring Of
this respect, but it was only beautiful
form of selfshness. Nowhere in literature
did respect for women appear until the
days Of Shakespear, when Elizrbeth ruled
England. Soon this was over, and men
praised only. handsome women Defoe
spoke noble words for women in the midst
Of the dirty drama of the 18th century,
The essayists, vino came next, patronized
women; they gave them advice about
hoops, and treated them as elder brothers
treated very little sisters, Pope said every
woman was rake at heart, and yet he was
called poet! What dreary women were
portrayed by Fielding and Smollet, and
even Goldsmith's women were only milk
and water and water and milk. Until
this century women were the toasts
of convivial hours, the toys Of moment,
the puppets of court, the slaves Of parents
and brothers, the drudge of the household
an the field This was in the days of good
old England, when the King said ''if beo-
bles will be boets and bainters, let 'em
sdarve" In France there was then a
bloated and sensual court, while thousands
of women were crying for "bread! bread"'
and sucking the French revolution. An
English Judge then decided that man
Mad right to chastise his wife with stick
as large as his e1trrnb, but if it were nc
larger than his wit cr his 1,onhooa, 2 cord
of such thumbs would no form a stick large
enough to make a babe tingle. The whole
theory Of modern society is in the Cochin.
China proverb, that "woman's hearts bear
a good deal Of breaking" Itisnot changed
so very much. Women are sold by par.
ents from Circassia, and they mean by the
sale precisely the same as the fashionable
woman now means when she calls good
match for her darling Jane anything in
trowsers with twenty thousand year
J This was in early times; and while there
have been some variations in the social con
dition of woman, there has always been the
same general estimation that she was of an
inferior sex. And although the loveliest
traditions of Christianity are interviewer
with the names of the Madonnas, the Mag
dalens and the Marthas- although in its
theory woman is brought to an equality
yet she practically has no legal and indus
trial equality. In the celebrated debate in
England, Mr.. Gladstone said, when the
Gospel came into the world, woman was
elevated to an equality with her stronger
companions. So She was in theory. But
if Christianity taught the equality Of wo-
man, it taught that men were brothers; yet
in Christian nations, as matter Of fact,
women have not enjoyed that equality any
more than man have enjoyed that brother
hood. At that very time the English law
Of divorce was denounced as disgusting
and demoralizing in its operation, barbar-
GUS and a disgrace to the country, shocking
to the sense of right.
I have thus far spoken of other times,
but # we now come atrai ght to this land Of
the free and the home Of the brave, We
discover whole people bowling and giving
the best seats in cars and lecture rooms,
and even not allowing woman's drunken
husband to squander her wages: we shall
exciaim, here is a nation where woman has
her rights as member of society; and
there is doubtless general feeling in this
country that women are about as well of
as they can be, and it is very silly to talk