The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1875-06-23
WOmaen's Wages.

New York Times.l
1t is a complaint so common as to be
monotonous, with those who are seeking
I to reform social evils, that women receive
much less payment for their wages than
men. We think there is less foundation
for this reproach than appears on the sur
face. In certain fields of employment
women crowd the market with half-train-
! ed labor, and in consequence their wages
fall to very low point. They compete
with one another. Employers pay less
for their labor than for mems because
there are many of their sex seeking
that particular employment, and, of
course, Undertaking one another. More
over, in many occupations, owing to the
chance of their marrying, to their physical
weakness, and to their want of training,
women are worth less than men.
No one who has not studied the habits
of women of ordinary advantages can re-
alize how inaccurate and careless their
training is. This is often owing to the
want of ambition, or the neglect of their
parents. There is in this city, for in
stance, a very respectable and useful call
ing for mountaineering in the public
sehools--by means Of which salaries of
from 5000 to 81, 900 can be earned. The
city offers gratuitOusly a three years
course of careful and thorough training
for this employment in the Normal Col
lege. When graduate has finished this
course, she is Immediately of more value
IL the market. Her salary will be proba-
by double what it would be if she under
tsek TO teach without the preliminary
fra nj IL
seventy-five out of the one hundred of
those girls who graduate at the city
schools, and who mean to be teachers,
never enter the Normal College The
usual alleged reason is poverty. But
when one remembers the numbers of poor
families in New England who deny them
selves every luxury to give boy good
education, one can easily understand that
the cause of this neglect in this city is
rather want Of principle than want of
means. The result is that this class of
girls soon settle down into the ranks of
poor teachers, or become shop-girls and
seamstresses.
But even in these places, their want of
any thoroughness and accuracy of train
ing must at once depress their scale of
payment. For a certain period, female
assistants were employed in well-known
library and reading room of this city. A
gentleman had occasion to ask for GER
tain kind of encyclopedia. The young
lady in charge had not the remotest idea
what particular encyclopedias were in the
readlng-room, nor even of the character
or subject of the journals and magazines.
An intelligent ottiee-bOy in that position
would have naturally made it his business
to know thoroughly every book and paper
in the room. Such lad at once enters
into successful competition with the young
lady, and brings down her wages.
A few years ago some Of our footprint
ers in New York undertook to employ
female compositors. To their dismay,
they soon discovered that the New York
working girls did not know the English
language well enough, or could not spell
accurately enough, t. make good COM
positors, and they were forced to send for
Massachusetts female workers, or 10 have
the work done in New England.
We may appeal to the common expe-
rience of our lady readers if the female
clerks in our dry goods shops are not
more inattentive and uncivil than the
male. Such fact alone (ifi be general)
would depress their wages as compared
with mems. But such defects are merely
the result Of want of training. The French
petty female shopkeepers and clerks are
unsurpassed. And in this country, take
the branches where women are carefully
educated, and they compete successfully
with the other sex. The teachers, for
instance, prepared by our best female
normal schools, and drilled in the ''object
system, are more in request for primary
and other schools than male teachers. A
young lady has been known to receive as
high as 81 800 and 50, 900 salary soon
after graduating. A good Latin teacher
In this city can. earn her 50. 30 per hour.
Again, in lower kind of service, the
pay is excellent. A fair female cook will
earn S25 per month and her board, and
a skillful one $50, which is better pay
than men of the same class receive. We
have known clever operators on shoe
sewing machines TO earn $50 a week; and
many just trained on the ordinary sewing
machines will make from 81 to 81 per
day. A raw Irish peasant girl will often
earn in our families $15 per month, which.
with board, is equivalent to nearly $500
PCT ouHum. III HlgHtE DFdHCHcS, tHcHo
are many female "edItors" earning their
81, 900 or So, 900 per annum. The most
successful women novelists enjoy much
larger income than this, and the female
lecturers receive, in many instances, from
81, 900 to S10,0 per annum. Women
have no ground whatever for complaining
of being kept down" in the present day.