The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1865-11-01

them distwbs the even flow of thought, the
women must and should get out OF the way.
z 1t is painfully huniiating to any lover of
the race to see American women of education
holding important places in the grandest Gov
ernment the world ever saw, and initiating
the costume and manners OF Partisan girls
cites. Let any thinker watch the troops of
women stump, stump, stumping, or rather
thump, thump, humping up and down the
long stone staiIways Of our different depart
ments, with their feet crushed into shoes so
TIGHT that all elasticity of step is gone, and
the foot comes down like an old-fashiOned suck
LEG. while the shoe, which, if large enough.
would last easily six months, must burst in
one: let him or her look at the spreading
hoop and fashily festooned and ornamented
skirts which invite attention to these poor,
crushed and crippled feet; let him or her note
the jaunty hats and @cunningD feathers: the
Door hair stuffed with ''rats" and ''micei and
bundles of buffalo hide, which make one sick
with disgust, and then bedizened with buds
and spangles enough TO satisfy the vanity of a
brace of Chippewa Squaws, and let him say what
these women are, externally, but bad imita-
tionS OF the genuine grisette. 1t would GER
tainly be better for humanity that all OF this
class of Government employees should starve
at home than they should corrupt public NOR
ais, and we lower the national standard of
womanly delicacy by recognizing their right
to ill the honorable positions many of them
occupy. Ia N lsl s
| know that some, perhaps a. majority, of
these dress thus from misapprehending the sit
uation. They fail to see the distinction be-
tween business and social life, and so drag the
drawing room with them, with its coquetfies,
on to and into the Office, s5a ,., 60 ~ 4.
Mrs.SwisheIm- relates some incidents of her
own experience of Office hfe, and attributes
her entire freedom from all annoyance to a
resolute persisteney in maintaining the purest
business status. She says:
For ten years came and went at will, and
think was never in the way. 4 The men folk
and had tacit understanding that they
should not swear in my presence; but If they
forgot was not deaf, some little act of kind
ness was usually the apology. Otherwise than
this | think it seldom occurred to ang of them
that I was notone of them. This may appear
unwomanly, but insist that If women are to
be the companions of men in public employ
ment, the idea of sex must notbe the prevail
ing thought of their lives. They must estab-
lish business relations" and keep them pure
ly and entirely business relations.
Hume, in speaking of Elizabeth, the great
est Of England's soYereigns, says: e One must
not judge her as woman, but as q ruler" AS
"a wife, mother, sister, daughter, let woman be
judged as woman: as a clerk, let her be iudg-
ed as clerk. The display OF personal charms,
of adoTnments, of dress, of graces of conver-
sation, should be reserved for the social circle.
What man of sense and delicaey could value
the secondhand articles of this description
which have been hawked around through pub
icofices as the price of some trifling privilege,
some immunity or preference When one
takes place in department, she contracts to
work certain number of hours daily for a
certain sum. 1t is understood that she is to
work faithfully during these hours, and when
she spends portion of them, habitually. in
reading or gossiping, or in any other way
shirks her duty, she is a swlndler- -only this,
and nothing more; and the man she induces
to overlook her delinquency is an accompliee
lin the dishonest evasion. He is her best
friend who holds her most firmly to the fulfil
ment of her contract. Il g,.st .-..,,, \.
y Nor should the sickness. brought on by fol-
ly, be any excuse for a failure to fill the com
tract. The headaches and backaches and dvs-
pepsias and endless niiseries brought on by
impeded circulation from pinched feet and
crushed waists; the colds and chills and ca
tarrhs caught from half-clad feet, and arms,
and shoulders, should be no apology for undone
or half-done work. ~ .8slaz4 j
Women as well as men are under moral OBJ
legations to use all lawful endeavors to pre-
serve their own lives and the lives Of Others"
and their failure to do so is no justification of
their failure to perform any other duty. That
nineteen-twentieths of woman's sickness is
the direct result of improper dress, is a fact
patent to- all thinking physicians; and until
women can make up their minds to study the
laws of health rather than those of fashion,
their demand for equality in employment and
salary is simply ridiculous. ~ sfg
81 r.. JANE G.. SwIssHELM.