Elizabeth daily monitor. [volume] (Elizabeth, N.J.) 1868-1880, 1868-12-01


forms Of politeness. solicitude, and
duty.
Bat this sketch has darker tints.
These lower. class women not ONLY per-
form mental services. but they are
treated far worse than any other ser
wants in the world
INGLl,;H MISTRESS
May of them are married only in
name From vali,ns causes. but
mainly from lack OF education. the
marriage rites are lightly esteemed by
these poog women--or rather by the
women, who would give almost their
live f3r honest marriage lines. bui by
thea fathers AMI III 'aIhcrs Of tleir
children, As among th> negroes OF the
South before emancipation, man and
woman agree to live Together; their re-
lafives, friends, and neighbors ac-
knowledge the implied relationship by
calling the woman Mrs." and the
upper class care nothing about it, since
it does not Immediately concern them,
and IS pretty sure to provide another
generation of laborers for the work of
the future. La the South emancipation
had to be attended by the solemnization
of thousands of marriages, which
might have been made in heaven
years before, but had not legally rati-
fed on earth 4; and SO in England, any
genuine reform among the lower orders
will have to be commenced by q joint
crusade of clergy men and teachers-the
former for the parents, the latter for
the children. At present, all congratu-
late themselves upon having saved the
parsons fees, and spend more than
their fees in drink to celebrate their
economy, and women, having lost their
virtue, often find themselves linked
with brutes who had no virtue Of their
own to lose, and who soon deprive
them of every comfort of life.
THE RELATIVE TREATMENT.
Even when things turn out better
than this, the man never treats his mis-
tress quite SO we'll as his wife. He feels
that she has no hold upon him, while
he has every hold upon her. The
language he uses to her is colored with
conscious superiority. If she offends
him, he knocks her down and beats her,
and she has no redress, fearing to go to
the magistrate lest thereby she should
lose homo. If she be his wife, her
tounge is tide quite as tightly; for then
she is obliged to go'home to him to suf-
fer fresh brutaliaies. do not say that
all laboring class of Englishmen are
drunkards, but the most of them drink
too much, and they drink poison of
which the women feel the dire effects.
FEMININE DRINKING.
The women drink also, and society
countenances them in this vice. To
see an English ale-house or gin-place,
with women standing UP at the counter
and behind the counter, is u positive
shock to a stranger. Nowhere else can
you meet so disgusting sight, so bru-
talizing custom. On the Continent,
women are to be seen sitting in cafes or
bier-qdrD}eas, sharing their little wine,
an al, lafa fr,o Il
but nowhere on the Continent is
there such a licensed Pandimonium as
an English bar. In America the drink
ing saloons are countless but in none
of them would woman be permitted
to enter and call for a drink. There
is no express law against the admittance
of women, but there is the unwritten
law of public opinion that would pun
ish not only the woman who infringed
it, but the proprietor of bar-room in
which such an outrage upon decency
occurred A drunken woman is a
rarity in every other country but in
England this woful spectacle is as COM
mon as the rain.
CUSTOM
may blind the eyes and deafen the ears
of Englishmen to the sights aud sounds
of vice among women that startle the
foreigner at every turn; but this mon
ster, Custom, is part of the ill-treat-
ment of English women. No man has
a right to accustom himself to crime
Custom permits women to drink gin at
public houses in the most freouented