The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1873-02-07
Working Woman.
HER DIS ADVANTAGES N THE STRUGGLE 70
EXrsTENCF

=
EXISTENCE.
Miss Emily Faithful expresses in fbe
Preside Companion the following onin-
ion of the disadvantages to women who
seek to earn q livelihood here and in
England;
If any one could give q satisfactory
answer to this question, he would de-
serve we'll of the whole human race. In
England-or, should say, Great Britain
we have 9l3, lG2 women who can
never, by any possibility, find husbands
at home. These women must, there
fore, become self-supporting. L am not
rs well acquainted with the dispropor-
tion of the sexes in the United States:
but although there is an excess of men.
l have already learnt from what I have
seen in America that there is the same
necessity for enabling women to earn
money here as in the old country;
though to some s-tent it seems to me
that they have already a better chance
of doing so. For instance, while we
count our female doctors on the fingers
of one hand, find several with estab-
lished regulations in every one of your
principal cities, and while n few female
writers in England are occasional con-
tributors to our daily and weekly papers,
/ find them in New York recognized
members of the staff. Gradually, how
ever, even in conservative England, the
old assertions are being abandoned
that woman's claim to fair chances of
livelihood is a morbid and an exagger-
ated one, and that young men struggle
with equal difficulties. People are be-
ginning, though slowly, TO acknowledge
s.Fg TO III g..
take n larger share in the Industrial
pursuits of their male relatives are not
made with n view of removing them
from their 'proper sphere" and natural
duties, but in order TO save them from
positions into which they are now
actually thrown, TO the destruction of
their highest instincts and their physi-
cal health and development. There has
never been any dislike in England TO
the employment Of women in the lowest
branches of industrial eallings; the OBJ
lection is their introduction into places
of responsibility and trust. Until my
friend the Earl of Shaftesbury brought
the matter before Parliament, women
were allowed to work in mines i'm Stat
fOrdshire; they prepare, to this very
hour, the clay which is to be converted
into porcelain. Only three months be-
fore j left England, | spent day in our
potteTies, and there were women and
girls turning heavy wheels and lifting
enormous weights; their physical
strength was being drawn upon ad lib
itum, but they were carefully excluded
from the lighter branches of the busi-
ness; they were freely used as beasts of
burden, but no encouragement was
given them to undertake any skilled
labor. And yet,-by the way, we are
told that women cannot serve i'm haber-
dashers shops, because they are too
weak TO lift the bales of goods. In
Liverpool and Ieiblin women earn six
pence day by carrying immense loads
of sand; nearly $1,000 hawk fish, fruit
and hardware through the streets of
London, their average earnings varying
from 50 cents to s. week.
Numbers throughout the country
weed, dig and hoe potatoes, pick stones
ont Of the soil, spread the manure, reap
during harvest, and load the wagons in
all weathers and seasons. Women are
to be found in the lowest and worst-paid
departments of our chemical works,
glass-houses, rope-wOTks, paper mills,
glue-works and nail factories, rs well as
in our brick fields and nursery gardens.
WOMEN
are employed there is work going on of
less unsuitable kind than what they
are actually doing. was once going
over n factsy Of this description, and,
leaving number of women employed
in work Of the coarsest sort, emerged
into clearer, gutter atmosphere, to find
men engaged in what seemed to me
quite feminine branch of the manufac-
ture. "Is not this work women could
do ?n / asked.
"Certainly,n - replied the foreman; "but
We apprentice to that"
"And would you apprentice girls?'
inquired.
1--WE have never done So" was the
reply.
This is the root of the whole mischief
No skilled work can be done without
apprenticeship. It is not customary tC
apprentice girls, and so it is taken fol
granted that they cannot do skilled
work. An English factory woman
! labors under adverse influences. The
men of her own rank are jealous of hel
competition with them. The overseer:
and higher wOrkmen are jealous lest in
any department she rise to their place
and it is the employers interest to keel
down her wages. But / still think thal
these difficulties arise from want o.
thought rather than want of heart.
/ cannot persuade myslf that men wOulC
deliberately oppress women through
any selfish fears; at the same time
must admit the determined opposition
of the ribbon-weavers, at Coventry, t
the admission of women into the higher
branches of their labor, and the threat
ened strike of the China painters o
4 a hf
use of the maui stick, which alone ena
bles them to do the best work, and con
sequently get the best pay. Iwish, EN-
phatically, to point out the necessity fo
definite training. Women are already
extensively employed i'm various indus
trial pursuits; they ought TO have thu
advantage of special training, and thl
most lucrative branches Of their Occupa
tions ought to be opened to them. They
should not find themselves shut ou
from any post merely because they ar,
women.u Neither are we, justified il
drawing upon their physical strength
and ignoring their mental capactity-re
partling them, in short, as mer,
mechanics, hands without heads.
cannot enter at length on one very seri
Gus consequence of the restriction o
women TO the inferior branches of in
dustry, but must say, in passing, tina
l regard it as a two-fold evil, for it de
prives the workwoman of the stimulu
found of value to the most conscientiou
and cultivated man in the kingdom, an,
it prevents the younger women from
having the supervision of their owl
sex. If girlssaw older women in posi-
tions of trust and authority they woul,
not only be encouraged to develop tina
business-like capacity and those quail
ties of mind without which they mus
, remain individually and socially in tn
lnt..nat rnnln Int fhnr. ,,-nrII fnnl tlnr,,