The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-04-17
Woman a Beast Of Burden.

Woman a Beast OF Burden.
With all their fine culture and artistic
instincts, the Germans are not admira-
Bile in the arts and elegancies of life.
There is among men none of the chiy.
alrous Difference and regard for women
that marks American manhood, In the
; upper ranks women hold toIerable
place, but in the lower and middle sta
tions, she is breeder or beast of bur-
den, merely; in the lower ranks she is
merely the latter, beast of burden.
The work that men do in America is
done wholly by women here. There is
no kind of farm work that they do not
perform no nanual labor on field,
or mandatory that they are not called
on to do. Indeed, there are but two
classes of laborers in the German cities
and villages, men over As and women of
all ages. The youth of the land, when
too old to go to school, must go into
places in the field. You may walk from
the Rhine to the Danube, and you will
see in all the operations of toll, on the
farm especially, seven women to one
man at work Under these conditions
is it wonderful that German woman are
shriveled and unlovely? That softness
of voice or delicacy of feature have
persisted wholly from the feminine part
of the population You will find fine
looking men, for army life is by no
means laborious. Rejecting on the
conditions under which these later gen.
erations of Germans came into the
world, it is simply marvellous that the
whole race is not one Of hideous de-
formity and mental imbecility. It is
impossible to think that this race of
mothers could bear anything else than |
physically decrepit and mentally inn
perfeet beings. It is atrQcious enough |
to see women doing the hardest labor |
exhibits other phases of feminine use-
fitness, to which this is the lilies and |
langors of Life. In every country of |
Germany it is q. common practice for
women to do the work of horses. You
may see it in this elegant capital of |
Dresden and in the surrounding vii
lagos, if you walk block. With wide
straps over their shoulders and across
their breasts, their feet shod in wooden
shoes, their hands generally bare,
the women of the land may be seen
in masses taking the places of horses,
day in and day out, through every
province of Germany. These masters
of the European world see nothing
wrong in this. They continue on their
way perfecting the machinery of war,
swallowing up the manhood of the ma
ton in the pursuit of dominion. At
America, and her ways. means, and peo-
pie, the German raises the voice of
scorn. A benighted people, they say, in
the wilderness as to education, and bar
barous as to manners. None but the
Germans know how to enjoy life ration
ally, they as good as declare. Mean
time, what is the enjoyment of the
millions of mothers who share the har-
ness before donkey carts with COWS and
dogs? If we have no universities of
Heidelberg, Liepsic, Bonn, and Berlin,
with their wonderful diffusion of prac-
tical and elegant learning, we have
nothing of this degradation at least.
From five in the morning until long
after dark at night as you stand by the
city gates you will see this singular
spectacle kept up, the employees pre-
here woman and two dogs, there a
women and no dog, and SO on. These
carts supply the produce of daily con-
sumption in the towns. wood, coal, po-
tatoes, and the like. In most cases the
head of the house accompanies these
novel cortege, but never in harness. He
holds the reins, or the whip, and
smokes the stump that you see inva-
riably in the Germans teeth. Having
disposed of the load by dint of tug
ging through miles of cobbIed streets,
the weary women return at night home
ward, the master of the cortege, who
aided with his counsel only in the work
Of the day, not unfrequently stretching
himself In the empty cart to be hauled
home by the docile drudges of his house.
hold. Yet these are the mothers of the
sons that conquered the first military
nation of Europe, France. Even I'M
der the best conditions, women do not
hold the place in Germany that is con-
coded them in America. A mans wife
is virtually his chattle. The law
awards it SO, and custom sanctions it.
This is marked in hundred ways. In
the streets, for instance, there is none
Of the respectful courtesy shown the
sex that may be seen in the remotest
town of America. The slice
walks in all the German cities, save the
new part of Berlin, are merely single
blocks of pavement jutting from the
building. No matter how wet the day
'r how muddy the streets, a German
never thinks of stepping out to give
he lady the walk. Quite the contrary,
f she doesn't fee she is rudely jostled
INTO tho slush as if she were a beast.