Dayton daily empire. [volume] (Dayton [Ohio]) 1850-1865, 1863-11-20

| A vivid PtCfMre--The wall OF
the WOrkwOmen.
On Thursday evening Of last week the home
Of the Secretary of the Treasury IN Washing
ton became for few hours tho oynosure of
all eyes. Carriage after carriage Numbered
up to its doorways blazing with light, and
from each in its turn emerged its fairy freight
| of grace and beauty, cloud after cloud of
"silkeu wonders, miracles evoked bywoman's 8
taste and woman's toll from the looms of
hundred lands.
To one who watched that gay and gorgeous
| scene how bright beyond even the optimistic
dreams of Mr.. Secretary Seward must the
state and hope Of the Republic have seemed I
The daughter Of the magician who has filled
the land with green and growing promises 10
pay was that night welded to Senator whose
name should be the synonym of prosperous
patriotism" Since the marriage Of Aladdin
with the Princess Badourah no such happy
fulfillment of opulenee, woven from air and
hesped up by Dinns as potent as impalpable,
hath been seen. Wealth and power were
striking hands; and the soul Of jenkins swell
ed within him as he passed in glittering re.
view the splendid tribute which these con DIN
ed divinties Of his hearts alteration were
bringing to the shrine OF youth and beauty
Let not Jenkins be blamed nor let one harsh
thought be breathed upon that brilliant bridal
hour.
But the jewels and the flowers, the diamonds
and the laces, which turned the night to fra
grant day on that fair festival rose and fell to
the pulses of women's hearts The scene
itself was but an empty pageant, or worse,
save for the sanctity which the soul of woman
hood sheds over the wedding feast and the
wedding garments. And wherever in all the
land woman's eyes are resting with natural
and commendable delight upon the fascinating
details of costumes incomprehensible to the
masculine mind, Of jewels bright rs the stars,
and emdroideries delicate as the frolic frost
work on the forest trees of winter, we ask
that woman's heart and soul tu turn with us
for moment to another scene which marked
that night of Thursday in another city of the
great republic. In hall in the Bowery Of
New York there are gathered togethered
hundreds of girls. Itis no bridal festival
which they are celebrating Hunger is in
their eyes their hands are worn and hard
with eeaseess labor; their cheeks are wan
with care and disappointment and despair
No music flatters this sad and eager throng
into delicious dreams; no flowers wreathe
for them the gaunt realities of daily life with
whispers ot love and hope and happiness to
come. To them the coup has been dealt in
quite another measure" TOthem life means
simply living the fierce, relentless, Hnremit-
ting effort to clutch with those thin, frail fin
gers the scanty bread of every day from the
world that whrls about and above them, noisy,
clamorous needless of them and theirs These
are no daughters of the Treasury, no brides
o! the Senate, These are the daughters of
the people-the patient, sad-eyed daughters
of labor and of suffering Like the proudest
and iairest in the land, they, too, lead their
womanly life in seclusion from the public
eye. Year after year they work on uncom-
planning, unheard of, asking only to be suffer
ed to keep body and soul together in such
wise that the body's life may not be purchased
by the souls death. Content to know as
little Of diamonds as of the stars, of laces as
of the clouds, if they can but save an aged
mother, helpless father, an orphaned house
hold of brothers and sisters from the wolf that
prowls forever about the door.
The proud and the fair emerge from the
sumptuous privacy of home for brief mo-
ment at the summons of pleasure, and hap
pness, and love These emerge from their
privacy, as dear for all its poverty, at quite
another summons. They come before US,
not that we may admire the splendors of
their trosseauX, but that we may measure the
depth of their despair. The prosperous land
which lavlshes upon the Princess Badourah
its fifty thousand dollars worth of magnificent
paraphernalia, deals out to these sisters of
hers an average income of two dollars per
week. Once they lived upon this pittance
and made no sign wringing from the house
rent, clothing, FIRE in winter, food in health
where health was a kind of sickness, med-
cine in sickness where sickness revealed the
one sure hope of rest. But the wand of the
Magician has smitten their dollars and with
cred them, and they must cry out in their
agony or perish
Shall not their cry be needed?
1t is not possible, is it, that women and
men of women born can look this fact in the
face and sleep upon it; that here, in the chief
city of this mighty people, hundreds and
thousands of wsmen are working life away,
twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours day, putting
their youth, their strength their very heart s
blood into the service of our commerce and
our comforts, at such rates of pay as IN the
present condition of our national finances
make mockery of the Scriptural saying that
the wages of sin is death, seeing that some
thing more pitiful than death is thereby made,
the wages Of honesty patience and virtue,
and that every domineering instinct of human
nature is thereby enlisted in aid of sin and
IFS temptations2
Years ago all England was stirred to its
inmost heart by Hoods Song of the Shirt,
and the world has never ceased to fling that
terrible refrain in the face of British opulence
and power. We at least can do so no longer.
The cry Of our own women is ringing in our
ears, and will go ont upon tho western wind
over Christendom, 1t is a cry of suffering to.
day, How long ere it will be cry Of crime
and shame ii we be deaf 10 the nnneal2 Hnw