Juliet signal. [volume] (Juliet [i.e. Joliet], Ill.) 1844-1???, 1862-01-07
Idle Men and OVer-WOrked
women.

Mis- Frances d Gage writes as follows
to the Ohio Cultivator:
Que of the window, on the pave in trent
Of our printing house block, | can count |
seventy three full grown mtn. On the |
square on the other side, nearly or quite as
many more. Lo1k which way | will, |
groups Of men stand idling away time,
smoking and chew ing to keep them content
This is net an uncommon occurrence, but
en- almost every day affair. IL you take a
hstle jyurn,y, the crowds that stand upon
the platforms at every depot. or loiter round
the shops and hotels, will astunish you
Men, idle men, everywhere.
Who sustains all these luiterers Who
gets their mea's2 Who washes their
christ who mends, wEo works {, r them?
do not know dozen in all that crowd,
and yet see among them three or four who
have not earned dollar for the last month.
Each one has wife and family at home -
One Of these wives goes out washing every
day in the week, after getting has breakfast
milking the COW, measuring out and selling
oil she can 81 are Of the milk to her
neighbors, and fitting out two pretty chill
drsu for school. lie takes her hard earned
money, and keeps himself too near mad
man or foCl all the week through, TO be
either q safe or comfortable companion -
Another has q wife who sews, or dues
whatever her hands find to do, to make the
weeks ends meet; and anOther-but why
continue the picture? these things glare at
us everywhere.
The washwoman's husband is a good
mechanic and laborer, and could eaIn. in
his ten hours, two dollars; she, by her
long days work, gets but fifty or seventy.
Gra apH NTH all L -
wonder that women are desparing? and
that when a contractor for army clothing
opens his doors, and offers fifty cents day,
there is u rush Of hun !reds, asking to work
ten hours, for half the poorest laborer's
wages; and obliged to board themselves
out Of that, and often children also?
Is it any wonder they go away weeping,
when they find they can have no place, no
privilege in that crowded hall, amid its
dust and noise, at the paItry price that
would hardly keep a common gentleman in
cigars and drinksH
Thousands Of women have given their
husbands over to the service of their coun>
try and are standing alone, bufetting with
poverty, and are watching and waiting
upon little children, who will many OF them
coon be fatherless thousands Of other sud
denly hn1 themselves in pc erty that q
year ago were in prosperous circumstarc es
and bands that could hardly arrange their
own toilettes, are now hired to do the work
of others; many others have dismissed the
nurse, girl end cook. and are toiling il
their own kitchens. This is turning more
and more Of those who were servants and
had their places short time since, adrift
il the world
There are idle women, but fewer by far
than 10 our country's prosperous days
There are those, too, given over to frivulity
and fashion, bnt the number is every dav
dwiniling, and the tone Of resolution ard
good sense one hears in all places, give
hope and faith that out If all this turmoil
and suffering, good many come, teaching
us, through the cipline of adversely,
lessons of wisdom for the future, which
alas we all need