New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-05-08
THE HARRINGTON CASE.

| THE HARRINGTON CASE
The story of the woman who had apparent
ly started in life with education, intelligence
and responsibility, and who put an end to her
life the other day at the Stevens House, be-
cause she chad neither means, nor employ
ment, nor friends to help her to either" has
its companion picture az sad and suggestive
in an account which comes to us from Wash
ington of the struggle to obtain the place left
vacant by the death OF lady employed IN
one of the departments Eighty-twO women,
we are told, applied for the situation in forty
eight hours, many of them bringing letters
giving the strongest Endorsements from high
officials.
Some of our exchanges find occasion in this
to comment virulently on the greed for office
and unsecmly scrambing for dead mems shoes,
which is bad enough among men. but disgust
ing in women. We confess we can see MOTH
ing unsecmly in the honest effort OF a hungry
woman to get bread for herself and her chill
dren.
CARLYLE says the most pathetic sight in the
world is man who wants work and cannot
Gnd it, He might have found darker shadows in
the hordes of needy women who throng our
cities, compelled to gain their own livelihood,
and struggling to get work for which when
found they are incapable. We have set forth
the facts in this matter so often that we are
almost wearied with it. The need of woman
in this country is, first and before all, the
means of living. Suffrage, mental develop
ment, ulster laws on her behalf, may or may
not come afterward but bread she must have
If by honest means, well if not-still bread.
Owing to the war, and to the stringent pres
sure following it in North and South, there never
has been 80 large number of women among
us compelled to support themselves as now.
From all parts of the country the cry, " Give
Gus work, or we die,n comes from vast help
less mass Now, the work is there waiting for
them. Nothing can be more ludicrOus or fee
bic than the whining of some of their spOkes-
men about tyrant man or relentless fate. Fate
has nothing to do with work or wages and
tyrant man, having job to give out, Will as
suredly find and pay the most skillful. trust
worthy laborer, be it man or woman. Com
mon sense suggests the real causes of failure.
First, woman in search of employment, as a
| rule, aims too high If she is educated, she
| either attempts to write, to teach, or to lee
ture failing in these from natural deficiency,
she sits down in despair, or joins club OF
" Advanced Females where at least she Is
secure of hearing and full scope for her nabili-
| ties, quite blind to the existence of unDum-
bered kinds of work, both head and handi-
crafts, by which men of her caliber support
themselves with comfort and honor. If she is
uneducated, sewing is the only resource she
sees open to her. Domestic servltude Is 50 re-
pugnant to the proper spirit OF the free Amer
lean woman, that she calmly tells US that If
the needle fails she is driven to starvation or
the town. Women who, for the sake OF nOt0-
riety or personal advancement, are the most
clamorous in urging the rights of their sex,
sustain them in these false ideas of their own
mission. When we have suggested from time
to time practical, feasible means of relief to the
needy women in the city-the lighter kinds OF
agricultural work, nursing, or the easier handi-
crafts-the women's journals have been viru-
lent in their shrieks Of rage and contempt
"Was woman, then, to be made the drudge
" of society g-she whose refining and purify
"ing nature, whose subtle magnetism"-etc.
ETC., etc.
Fortunately, the mass of women in the cOun-
try know little of these would-be politicians
while they do know their own necessities
They will, we believe, speedily find out the
rational means of relief. Places are not open
to women simply because they have not
hitherto been fitted to occupy the places
When a man feels it as obligatory to educate
his daughter to a profession or a trade as he
does his son. professions and trades will be
| az accessible and remuneratiye to one a.
to the other. Twenty years ago, how many
female physicians were there in the country
how many editors, clerks under Government
lecturers They will tell us, no doubt, they
have fought their own way. They have fought
it just as any laborer does who learns how
to furnish good work, and is paid for it
When they teach themselves to equal men as
architects, GLACIERS, carpenters, or farmers
they will be in no lack of work and will
receive equal wages. Labor and its in
flexible market value admit of no schoolgirl
sentiment. The next generation, perhaps, vii
understand this better than ours. Women will
educate themselves, as men do, for any EN-.
ployment for which their natural ability
qualities them, without regard to its gen
tility and then we shall have fewer
tragedies such IA that of the troops of hungry
disappointed ofice-seekcrs at Washington, OF
the poor woman who lies now dead in the
MOrguc.
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