The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1874-03-27
A Late Tea Party.

1t is a hundred years since the fifty
Boston radicals flung into Boston har-
Dor the famous cargo of taxed tea in the
name of the rights of man. The other
night some hundreds of BOstop radicals
met at Faneuil Hall to pledge, in COM
Portable, untaxed tea, the rights OF
woman. Since it was the women on
whom the loss of the colonial invoice
bore with special hardship; and since
it was they who urged and accepted its
destruction, it was quite fitting that the
centennial observance of the sacrifice
should be dedicated to their service.
And, on the whole, though to some ea-
ger and impatient spirits the field
seemed discouragingly wide and the Ia
borers deplorably few, the tone Of the
assemblage was jubilant, as well it
might be, seeing what the century has
wrought
1t is not many decades since Charles
Lamb, that gentle and charitable soul,
said: "a female poet, or female author
of any kind, ranks below an actress i
think" Mrs. SOmerville, Harriet Mar
tineau, Mrs. Mill, Frances Power Cobb,
Margaret Fuller, Mrs. Howe-scOres Of
women of our time are the sufficient ref
utation of the unworthy sneer. When
the brilliant Fox stopped DR.. Aiken in
the street to praise his volume of essays,
and, approving one after another, was
told, THAT one my sister wrote" the
wit and gallant shifted the subject, not
being prepared to concede to a woman
any powers of original thinking. But
our ablest critic reads George Eliot
with profound respect, bending the best
powers of his mind to comprehend her
subtle yet bold thinking. Grave theO-
logians and eminent casuists are set at
naught by the audaciOus wit of Gail
Hamilton And the Ithuriel's spear of
a woman's genius, touching the hideous
wrong of slavery, which was above law,
revealed ii to its swift destruction.
1t is not two generations since the
laws Of every State in the Union bore
most unequally and unjustly upon mar
ried women i'm the matter of property,
of wages, of divorce, of the custody of
their children or of the claim to their
services. In at least nineteen of these
States the influence Of the agitation
about the "woman question" has modi-
fled the statutes TO absolute or approXi
mate justice. Moreover, wives them
selves have not only obtained admission
to the bar, but have even delivered from
the bench eXpositions of that science in
whose own words "the very being and
existence of the woman is suspended
during the overture (of marriage), or
entirely merged and incorporated in
that Of the husband.n
Elizabeth Blackwell took her reputa-
tion I'm her hand, when, twenty years
ago, she went TO Europe to walk the
hospitals. Fashionable women feared
to lose caste if they employed her on
her return, and the college Of physicians
I 1f.nt~aI u5l- ot nsrf lTar
Putnam comes home from Paris with 4
European reputation for scholarship
and capacity, and finds confidence, adj
miration, competence, and the profess
sional esprit da corps awaiting her.
IL is not twenty years since Lucretia
Mott was refused permission to preach
in Federal Street Church, Boston. We
do not remember how many women
preachers to-day have congregations.
But counting those who speak from that
broad Church pulpit, the Lyceum plat
form, the list is not small
When Florence Nightingale wished
to take charge of the Female Sanitarium
she could find no opportunity of instruc-
tiOn i'm England. Now there is model
training school for nurses in Liverpool,
which is but the predecessor of others;
while our own, though but in their in
ception, give promise of great useful
ness.
When n school of design for women
was proposed in England, petition
was presented TO the authorities praying
that women might not be taught, at the
expense of the Government, occupations
which would take the bread out of the
mouths of the men already engaged
/ therein. Schools of design give suffi-
cient employment TO many women in
France, Germany, England and Amer
! lea to-day.
Eighty years ago Mary Wollstone-
craft published her "Vindication of the
| Rights of Woman" 1t was book laid
under ban as irreligious and immoral.
! Yet il consists simply of a forcible and
| logical plea for the higher education of
women, an exposure of the false senti-
mentality of Rosseau and Gregory, and
a claim that morality should mean the
same thing in both sexes. Half of her
demand has been conceded, and the rest,
if still denied, is not denounced.
The question of co-education and of
equal education attains more prosperous
answers day by day. The question of
wider emplOyments is almost lost in
concession. The question of wages,
though far enough from fair solution, is
debated by whole community instead
of by a handful of needy women.
The question of suffrage alone seems
not to command the public thought,
and seems only. The Churches pay a
modern respect TO the capacity, intelli-
gence and business aptitude of women
unknown before our day. The Grangers,
Good Templars and other powerful sOei-
cites recognize the eligibility of woman.
l-ChFistidR Union Of January 7h.