The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1872-05-24
Woman in France.

Legouve's Moral History of Woman,
nrstdelivered as a course of lectures before
the students of the College of France,
anu afterwards published as a volume,
contains many interesting statements
relating to the condition of woman in
France.
lie says women are employed specially
IN SILK, cotton, and wOOlen manufac-
lures. The first has two dangerous OPP
eratlons; the threshing and the dressing
OF the cloths. The threshing raises in
the air thick cloud of irritating dust,
ana brings on terrible malady Of the
lungs, which the expressive language of
WORKSHOPS has named ''cotton cOnsump-
tloh. Almost all the threshers are
women. The dressing of the cloths re-
Pulres so high a temperature that no
operative can endure it who is more
MAJ 1IIiii ItWehty-hve or thirty years of age.
ne uTessers are nearly all women.
IN lne Wooien manufacture there is no
rear danger, except in carding. The
| carders are women. In the silk manu-
laeture there are two murderous pro-
eesSes; the unwinding of the eOcOOns,
anu the cardlng of the floss. Women
alone unwind and card. Those who un-
Wlhu, seated all day long in the hottest
season close by basin of boiling water,
oDllged every moment tOput their hands
| INTO IL 10 take out cOcOOns, breathing
the injecting exhalations from the de-
eayed chrysalides, are taken with putrid
fever, and vomiting of blood. The card
ers, young, fresh mountain girls, in n
few months fall i'll of tubercular con-
sumption.
But all is not told OF these fatal oc-
eupations not one pay the working
woman enough to live upon! She Is
driven by want to vicious life. Re-
cruits are wanted and she becomes a
soldier. Any life with its novelty, its
idleness, with pay, food, and uniform
guaranteed by government, must un-
doubtedly offer attractions to women
overwOrked and ill-paid; and the chance
is, certainly, that the future NAV be am
Improvement upon the past.
Even should the individuals eompos-
ing the AmazOnian regiments never
have experienced the horrors of factory
life, still the terrible story must be
known to them, and there could be little
hesitation in selecting the ranks of war,
with its chances, rather than the physi-
cal and moral death to which such un-
requlted labor must eventually doom
them. If, as soldiers, they proved cruel,
sueh had been their treatment, and such
VIII always be the action of oppressed
. masses when the yoke is raised.
. Charles Dickens has told the same
story in his "Tale of Two Cities" and its
moral is very plain. Why, then, is the
world so surprised when a dOwntrOddeu
class in rising display the qualities al.
ways engendered by oppression. Love
begets love, and its reverse is father tC
its own kind. a short, suffering, i'm,
moral life, and nameless pauper grave
could scarcely be the choice of the rest
less, impassioned French peasant WON
an, in comparison with the glorious eX
citement of a patriotic war, and th'
? possibility of a record among the deliv
erers of the beloved soil. COntente,
wOmanhood loves peace and home life
but desperate women take easily tn
sword even to perish by it, and end tn
life from which all joy has been with
drawn.
Wendell Phillips said, "Scratch tn
back of New York and you will find I'LL
: derneath the Paris mob" shall not W
then, the enlightened heart of our eouT
try, woman suffragists, make haste wit
renewed effort and steady determine
tion to raise from the necks of our Ow
: countrywOmen the yoke under whic
: they are languishing, and in settin
r them free help to emancipate our dow
0 trodden sisterhOOd throughout the worlC
4 Let the silken fabric with whiC
r women enwrap themselves be ever a
n sociated in their minds with those su
: fering lives that Mr.. Legouve has r
f vealed, and their time and abilities give
!, to hasten the period of universal emanC
[ patton, when the possibility of well-r
n munerated labor may be secured to a
; women rs well as to all men.-RerOt
4 ton.