The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-24
The JULY MAGAZINES.


hOiOhHhNlSn, JbcOb ADDOlU WIN OAONoh
illustrations. "Border "reminiscences, r. b.
Marcy. With six illustrations. Making
Watches by Machinery" A. ID. Richardson
With twenty illustrations. 'The Birds of Pa
radiso, Alfred r. Wallace. With eight illus
trations ga Night at Sea, j. W. De Forest
'Giants and Dwarfs, w. A. Seaver. "Grant
on the Battlefield, Eugene Lawrence. "a
Street Arab, N. G. Shepherd. With an illus
tration. "A Brave Lady, by the author of
'John Halifax Gentleman With two illus
trations ''The Lovers Interdict." Alice
Cary. ''Eotes for Travellers in Europe"
Lyman Abbott. ''My Enemys Daughter
by Justin Mccarthy. With an illustration
Fishing in Mists, Sarah e. Chester "The
Button-hole Bouquet, Jane Splatters. Squire
Suffolk's Subscription Mary n. Prescott.
'Mother and Child, Alice Gary. Editors
Easy Chair Editors Book Table" Ed
tors Record of Current Events" Editors
Drawer With twelve illustrations
The EASY Chair always has something
good and sensible, and we commend the
following TO those who are agitating the ques-
tions of womens work and wages:-
There was recently in Boston a meeting OF
working-women to consult upon their condition.
The persons who spoke told a Very~ simple tale
of labor and suffering from their own expe-
rience, and a very pitiful tale it was to read.
1t reminded you of that picture in which John
Leech represents a skeleton figure of Death
sewing Shirts in illustration of the slopshops of
London
Perhaps, however the sequel of the revela-
tion made at the meeting is still more painful.
One of the newspapers, which was unwilling to
believe the stories as they were told, added the
remarkable statement that, if there were
many women so sorey pressed to live by the
needle. there plenty OF places where thew
would be thankfully employed as domestic SER
, wants at good wages. This is probably true,
and yet they will not 60 The one thing which
they cannot bear is what is technically called
service. What change from the time when
country girls came to town and, without losing
self-respect, did all the household work of fami-
L lies II hope ] can do better than slave in
kitchen" is the instructive and indignant reply
to a remote suggestion of this kind.
But can thing that ought to be done be more
4 than well done, and if well done ought not the
prospect for it be as pure in kind for the doing
of any other necessary thing, although it may
be less in degree? Lois and Jerusha leave home
to earn an honest living. Lois is quick, handy
full of tact and TASTE and she is presently mil
liner in high repute. 1t was her neas equpage
that you passed in the Central Park yesterday
afternoon. Jerusha is slow and heavy, and she
is after dozen years the same honest chamber
y maid she at first. We all acknowledge the
superior gifts of Lois. But unless labor be in
itself disgraceful, we ought not to feel that Je-
rusha is stgmatzed by the kind of work to
is honorable is it not, oh, good American
Then there can be no dishonor in engaging in
necessary labor can there
Look at the case of the Boston workwomen.
An employer says to them, let us suppose,
Here are dollar week, garret, cold, and
starvation for sewing shirts" Another employer
kn,says, "Here are home, plenty OF food and ire,
Bnd eight dollars month for chamber-work."
Brains if you please, do not much enter into the
calculation. Yet there is a recoil as of insult
y and injury from the last, and bitter acceptance
of the first. If the reason of this recoil be what
is called pride, is it an honorable pride? Jane
goes into Il cotton-mill, Jemima into a kitchen
May Jane, for that reason, take airs and feel
that she is the lady, while poor Jemima is q
menial? And menial is not originally word of
discredit or humiliation. 1t means merely
family or households and servile is only the
quality of serving; and we Christians, you re-
member, do not speak ill or think i'll OF serving
others.
"Ah, indeed, Mr.. Easy Chair" exclaims very
lively young person who has just dropped in.
"And how would you like to be waiter at Del
monicos?"
Well, my young friend the Easy Chair would
| not prefer that profession, because there are
natural tastes and choice. One man would be a
musician, another carpenter, another prin-
ter, another an author another barber, and
= another waiter. But, obliged to make an
honest living, if the methods which it preferred
\ were impracticable for it. 1t would lay cover
and firt a napkin without the least sense of dis.
grace. And If the alternative were to run abom-
Unable errands at starving rates. or to wait at fail
wages, which would my young friend prefer fol
I himself? This last is the Boston alternative, as
! understand it? The 'pride" of the poor
4 women, it appears, or it is assumed, prefers the
I starving wages for shirt-making with 'gentle
- man friend" to the household service.
a Now It is clearly not the labor which decides
but it is another kind of consideration 1t is thu
feeling that to do the one is to be more of lady
y than 10 do the other. More of lady? Why
- good woman, what is lady? If she coul(
81 answer she would say to dress finely and dc
nothing Yes and for that theory which poison
- and ruins this poor life of hers-how many o
- these poor lives, indeed we, that is, society
4 must bear the responsibility 1t is not the poo
women and their pride that are to be blamed; i
M is we and our folly that make the public opinion
to which they sacrifice every thing that is mos
precious and sacred, who are the real sinners
Now when the Biddy question has become 81
- important, it is perhaps worth while to think o
this little. Suppose, dear Madame, that W
should begin a reformation in the parlor, AM
free our minds of the feeling with which do
n nestle service is usually regarded by being hU
name and courteous masters and mistresses.
If some good angel should smile some morn
inc from the roof of the magnificent Park Ban
and the Easy Chair beseeches the reader nc
VI to expect it of the worthy stone angels who pei
~ maneptly reside upon the facade-and announc
that he would straghtway introduce race G
S@ neat-handed Phses, and artists not less skile
M than Monsieur Blot, would we not grateful
M build him a statue in the Central Park? But
we doubt and despair of angels, why not cult
vate an opinion that domestic service is not
be contemned by women, and by removing sue
stigma as may now rest upon 1t, persuade thef
# hapless women of whom we were speaking th
il is quite as honorable and ladylike, quite
X harmonious with the truest pride to serve
I'D a household to sew in SHOP or starVe IN