The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1874-07-10
UNFAIR AND UYJIANLY.


Fourteen women clerks tainted Oh the
floor of the Treasury Department upon
the general discharge Of clerks which
took place June Both, to reduce the
force ia accordance with appropriation
bills. When women get their rights
what a fainting time there VIII be at
those rotations Of office holders which
are the chief feature OF Our blessed instI-
futions The idea Is enough 10 give
US pause" in our course. Ia tins coui-
try no person can lie considered consti-
tutionally qualified for otiice-hoidIng'
who can not be rotated out without HAY
ing a Cincinnati Gdzette-
There are maHy who viii find in the
covert sueer which is hid in the above
paragraph that which they will regard
as an argument in favor of depriving
women of the ballot. There are some Of
the male sex who are 50 extremely and
purely selfish that they cannot bear 10
think Of others enjoying equal rights
with themselves. We Will not say that
the Gazette belongs to this class, but we
feel perfectly safe in saying that what
ever of logic there is in the above para
graph can only be appreciated by the
class of which we have spoken.
The Gazette does not pretend TO say
that the same means of obtaining a
livelihood are open to women that are
enjoyed by men. Neither will it assert
that women are as well paid for the
work they perform as the men. Custom
makes law, and how many Of the pro
LESSONS is woman allowed by custom, to
enter and practice for the purpose Of
obtaining bread! If she ''pushes" her
self into any of them does she not call
down upon her the sneers and ridicule
of such liable and influential journals
as the Gdzettel Even in the teachers
profession, for which Of all Others, wO-
man appears TO be particularly adapted,
she is not allowed fair chance with her
male competitor. In the rural districts
she may teach in the summer at about
one-half the wages paid to n male teach
er, but in winter she must give way to
some beardless boy of the opposite sex,
who. for the first time in his life, wields
the birch, doing the same work (only not
so weID and receiving therefor nearly
twice the wages that is dOled out to his
more weakly sister. In the cities and
villages her services are accepted as n
matter Of economy, and she is forced to
accept the pro1ered means of livelihood,
at any price, because it is the one pro
fession that she may follow without sub
jeeting herself to sneers and ridicule.
Men will not accept such wages, because
they can better themselves; women ac-
cept them, because they cannot better
themselves. Why this distinctionl The
one is Fl man and the other womanl
Twist and distort as you will, and the
answer is found in the fact above stated.
And the same thing holds good in almost
every trade and avocation of life that
women are allowed TO enter, and when
we take into the account the fact that
there are many avenues of obtaining
livelihood enjoyed by men, which are
closed against women, is the comparison
which is drawn between men and wo-
men in the above paragraph, fair or
manly.
1t is quite an easy matter to coldly
criticise the weakness of these ladies
under misfortune; it is quite another,
We judge, to see the pittance which has
barely supported them and their depend
ents taken from them and then cast
homeless and perhaps friendless on the
world. Consider, also, what the world
offers them, and is it any wonder that
they shrank back with a shudder from
the prospectl We hope when the Ga
zette again has sneers and ridicule to be
stow, it will seek some less unfortunate
class than the lady clerks who were so
cruelty cast adrift by the departments at
Washington