, 1863-11-18

mean kilchen from early monng until
bedtime, to whom evenings and SUNDAYS
are like all other hours and days, has eight
dollars, whle lazy John, who cares Tor
but one horse, blacks the boots, builds the
fires, and stutls his hide with the best that
the la1der and cellar contain, thinks him
self fll-used and persecuted if he cannot |
command sixteen dollars month. BE !
may be right; but why should his duties,
which certainly require not half the /
experience and sense that =, good |
cook must possess, be thus recon- |
pensed while she works for a pittance that |
would not keep her mistress in fashionable t
hats. And in the mechanical employ
ments to which 80 many of the young |
women Of the cities are condemned
ing, notwithstanding aud the like-with
whatbeggariy wages are the female oper-
atiyes put of. In New York, says the re~
port Of the sewing girls meeting, two dol
lars and half week for severe and IN
RENTING toll, the toiler boarding herself |
is not much below the maximum price for |
grown girls! Mems wages On the street
and at the docks, in labor that requires no
skill and only the brains Of an or OF
mule, are two dollars and a half q dayl
It is the lingering Of the old barbaric
way Of doing things which sent the
women to the field while the men lay in
the shade and slept. Modern civilization
has a new tozm Of expressing the old
wrong; but the spirit is there still. II
"am superior to you. hty toll is more
"precious than yours, therefore, though I
Fcannot, as the world now goes, lie idle
"whi1e you work, You ehall work for
shalt pay. I will tyranize over
"you thus!' is the language
that man practically uses to woman.
"Squaw, hand me my pipe, and you go
"catcl some tish for dinnerr' says big
Indian. And the sayagery that lies be-
hind tie command is that which oppresses
women to-day.
| What New York needs in this matter is
not more prisons for offendcrs-of these
she has enough; not Jellaby societies for
rcclaiming to virtues paths battered old
harridans, sold body and soul to the Evil
One long ago-of these there are too
many, If good accomplished is any meas
ure Of worth; not more charitable, soup,
relief, or provident societies, where clamor-
GUS imposition elbows suffering modesty
and. worth aside; but little Christian
sense Of justice that will say to women
that their work is worth its wages-the
wages Of men being the standard She
wants to say 1t and stand by it; and the
tyranny that men haveimposed being thus
taken of, and every healthy woman who
; will work being assured Of means Of sup
port, who that knows the superiority OF
women over men in patience, in endu-
rance, in industry, in affcctional develop
ment, and in moral instincts, eau doubt
that she would cease to be the
burden to charity that she has be-
come; who that knows whence the peculiar
vices Of great cities have their spring, and
how want Of bread huctifes the soil on
which crime grows, will dare say that,
under the new order Of things, large ma
jozity Of the offences that tester in the
body polite would not at once disappear :?
We hope that the female operatives of
New York will keep On. The wrong
against which they contend is of mon
etrous and fast increasing proportions !;
and it cannot be g1app1ed with too soon.