The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-05-04
The sewing Machine and the Needle
STARVING wOMEN-EIGHT CENTS GAR
MENT-DRIvEN TO CRIME.

The Rev. Mr.. Talmadge, preached tn,
third of his series of sermons on "Thi
Curses of Great Cities" Sunday night, Al
bis church in Brooklyn, before crowded
congregation, taking for his text Proverbs
XXI, 19-"She layeth her hand to thu
spindle, and her hand holds the distaff.
He remarked: In olden times labor was
not considered dishonorable and labo,
ought always to be considered honorable
The best thing that could have happened
to Adam and Eve was being turued out OF
Paradise as soon as they sinned. What |
say of man I say of woman. think the
most miserable of women are those who
have nothing to do; lounging through the
forenoon, slippers down at the heel and
hair dishevelled Women must toll, with
brain, or hand, or foot, or be miserable in
time and eternity. One of the
GREATEST MISTAKES yss
is in bringing up daughters to know how
to do nothing. All their efforts are spent
10 getting somebody to take care of them,
when their highest ambition should be to
take care of themselves. Father, if you
send your daughter into the world with
out any skill you are guilty of assassina-
ton. 1t is an everlasting disgrace to your
daughter not to know how to work.
declare it shame for young woman to
be idle in a large household when her
father dies from exhaustion.
SOCIETY MUST BE REoRGANIzED.
There is work for woman to do. Many
people would shut her up to a few occu-
pations. I undertake to say tonight that
woman has a right to do anything she
can do we'll. If Lucretia Mott wants to be
minister let her thrill the old Quaker
meeting-house with her eloquence. Can
not women do hard work? There are wo.
men who support the family of drunken
husband and all.
We talk as though we give to woman all
the light and easy employment. Oh, the
martyrs of the washing-tub and needlei
I demand that you hedge not the path of
woman. advocate
EQUAL WAGES FOR WOMEN.
Should woman who does her work as
well as man get only half as much
There are women iu Brooklyn and New
York who have only to choose between
crime and starvation. / tell you when the
Lord God shall rise up in defence of these
women South American earthquake
would be as nothing compared to what
will happen.
In New York there are 10000 sewing
women. / hear their cry. Look at their
faces, showing plainly that they haven't
enough to eat. Others keep back women's
wages and call them angels. They are
not angels, they are fellow creatures who
get hungry and cold as we do. Women
want
JUSTICE, NOT FLATTERY.
Last Sunday night, after our service had
closed, a woman fell in the vestibule in
convusions. The doctor said, "It isn't
medicine this woman wants it is steak"
She was making garments at eight cents
apiece. There are now such cases lying at
the doors of the christian church.
Some of the worst villains of New York
have these sewing women in their hands.
What is the cure for this? Some say give
women the ballot. That may rectify many
things, but not this. Don't you know
that women are just as hard on others as
men are? Don't you know that when
the washerwoman earns a dollar women
ask her to take ninety cents ?
There is work Tor the young women /.
of this country. Let them start out with
the idea that
WORK Is HONORABLE.
The poets talk great deal about the
oak and the ivy, but | tell you there is
something better than an oak for an ivy to
climb on, aud that is the throne of the
Lord God Almighty.