The Portland daily press., 1869-01-29
DAILY PRESS.
PORTLAND
Friday Morning January 20, 1869.
PORTLAND.


The Rev. DR.. Thompson, writing in this
January number of the New Enplando. .,
How to Build Nation" takes occasion 70
utter word of solemn warning against tbe
"unwomanly dogmas" of the advocates of fe
male suffrage and other reforms. We have
not seen the article in full, but we find ex
tracts from it in number of our exchanges
accompanied by admiring comments, and tn,
warmest recommendation of the Doctor.
temperate and philosophical views" to the
| consideration of the female sex. We invite
our lady readers to examine with us some O
the reverend gentleman's suggestions.
DIR. Thompson thinks that the much talk
ed of "woman's right to labor" is a cry full oI
evil omen. it is, he says, a return to Old
World degradation OF women, where they
pow, and sow, and reap, and bear burdens
like so many dumb animals, and to that con-
dition ofsociety in Africa, where, as Baker
tells us women are so far appreciated as
they are valuable animals" He believes
that "woman is not so constituted as to COM
pete with man in labor, since there is an ap-
the proportion of red corpuscles, upon which
depend both vital activity and the capacity
for sustained exertion whether of muscle
or of the BRAIN" Instead of this endowment
nature has impaired TO woman "a more sub
tile vivacity and grace, showing that hers are
the beautiful mysteries of life, and mans its
rugged toll"
This is extremely pretty, but what strikes
us is the airy way in which the Doctor ig-
nores the fact that women, with such "cor-
puscles" as they have, are at this moment ac-
tually doing and always have done, in nearly
all countries of the world, civilized and un-
civilized, the hardest and most unwholesome
of the worlds work. In fields, in mines, in
building roads, in carrying burdens, in the
close air of factories, in shops, in schoolrooms,
in kitchens, and in thousand other spheres
these creatures OF inferior ''vital activity and
capacity for sustained exertion" are doing the
drudgery which man rejects, for a wage which
he would scorn. And that men do not
trouble themselves about this fact is an evil
dence of how little genuineness there is to
much of the talk about "chivalry" and ''def-
erence." How many of these fastidious
sticklers for the delicacy of womanhood are
shocked at seeing poor Irish woman scrub
bing floor? 1t is only when women threat
en- to invade the profitable employments
which they have reserved to themselves that
they begin to talk about red corpuscles. The
fright to labor" has always been accorded to
women; it is only the demand to be paid for
her labor that is revolutionary.
But DR.. Thompson declares that if women
insist on competing with men in every field
of industry in which men labor, they will
lose that chivalrous regard for their sex on
the part of the men which now exists in this
country.
We fancy we hear our lady readers respond,
swell, and what then? 1t this boasted chiv-
airy does not arise from the real dependence
of the female sex upon the male for protec-
ton, as exhibited in nearly all the animal
amere fancy, mere foppish regard for "the
ladies'" if it is not the generous chivalry
which makes the man of muscle protect the
man without muscle, the stronger sex protect
the weaker sex; if this chivalry of the hu-
--------a- a. st1isao f4rerIoI InaG WHICH
makes the antlercd buck fling h mself before
the herd of does when danger comes; if, in
short, it is chivalry founded on contempt
for honest labor, and not on manly respect
for womanhood, then away with it, for we
will have none of itr-And our lady readers
would be right in so saying.
Many women in this country are obliged
by misfortune, by the death of fathers and
husbands, and by other circumstances, to en-
ter upon fields of labor which are popularity
considered exclusively masculine. They
have no option; they must work there Oh
starve. If the fastidlous chivalry of the
male sex in America excludes these women
from the benefits of its respect and protec
tion how much is it worth?