The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-27
THE NEEDS OF WOMAN.

From the N. Y. Tribune.
Two diverse and somewhat inconsistent
lamentations assail our ears, that of wives and
mothers dying of over-work; that of sisters
and daughters who can find nothing to do
How shall we reconcile these simultaneous
ululations?
The mistresses of households rarely COM
plain that their husbands-when they have
husbands-are too poor or too niggardly to
provide them with needful help. On the con-
trary, they tell us that they are able and will
ing to pay fairly for all they need; but money
will not buy it. Though there be a hundred
poor mems daughters growing up in their
immediate vicinity, not one of them can be
persuaded to help, for love or money, a
neighbor to keep her household tidy. When
We ask the daughters for a reason, they tell
US that they are willing to work for wages,
but they cannot endure the treatment
accorded to one who hires ont to do house
work.
OF course (you say, it is the tyrant, the
oppressor, the enslaver of woman, that treats
a hired girl thus shamefully.
No, it is not. The booted ruffian hardly
presumes to speak to her; and, if he ever does
speak, he speaks ciyilly and deferentially. He
may sometimes be too kind to her; but this ia
very rare. Usually he is so glad to have her
stay and help to make things smooth and
V,
and does not venture to address her without
removing his hat
1t is madam up stairs and her imps of
daughters who give occasion to this complaint
of an insolent and supercilious demeanor to-
wards ''help," so far as it has any excuse. 1t
is she who is dying of never-ending drudgery
who, if anybody, treats her neighbor' daugh-
ter so insufferably that the girl will starve or
sin rather than do madams housework.
There is no corresponding hitch on the
masculine side of the house: no farmers son
imagines that he degrades or exposes him
self TO insult by hiring out to neighbor to
help him work his farm. He will chop, and
plow, and NOW, and dig, and milk, and clean
stable, yet never suspect that he thereby
lowers himself in the social hierarchy by so
much as a peg. In fact, he feels, while thus
doing, that he raises himself above his school
mate who hunts, and fishes, and loafs, and
can't be hired to work out.
Who is to blame for this chaos in the
household? Is it the mistress? Is it the
maid Is there not some way Of extracting
from these diverse wants mutual satisfac-
ton? We don't know, and will not pretend
to decide. All we can do in the premises is
to tell little story
In a Mohammedan mosque, preaching is
not the monopoly of a caste or craft, but any
one of the faithful may exercise his gift, if
gift he have. So Nasreddin (the traditional
Turkish jester), going one day to the mosque
where the people were assembled for prayers,
and mounting what serves them fer pulpit,
thus accosted the expectant crowd:-"O,
true believers do you know what am
going to say to your" ''No," was
the general response. swell, he re-
joined, 'if you are such an ignorant, stupid
set, 1 may as well save my breath, and
down he came. On another occasion, he re-
peated his ascent and his inquiry, and the as
semblage, warned by their former rebuff
answered eyes" Every we'll" said he
''since you know, there is no need of my
telling you"-aud down he came again. Or
third occasion, he renewed his experiment
ond his fellow worshipers responded, "Som
of us know, and some of us don't know.
'Very good, said he, for the last time de
scending to the common level, "let thos
who know tell those wins don't know"