The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1878-05-29

THE SURPLUS WOMEN
wi and Friendly AdVice---Hf
They Cannot secure kEusba msIs.
They should Husband Ihem-
selves.

in Cincinnati journal:
There is nobody in this life 50 terrible
as your statistician. He digs down
among the dust heaps Of humanity, and
now he finds out that all people who
drink cider have weak eyes; now he
makes another dive, and drags forth the
fact that people who eat onions sleep well,
and again he startles good Jackson Dem
ocrats with most the reassurlng Int0rma-
ton that as fast a swampy countries get
drained and cultivated, the inhabitants
thereof turn from Democrat to Republi-
can en- masse.
He has an especial spite at women,
has your terrible statistician. First, he
| finds that American women are degener-
ating in health and sense; that they aud
the whole native American race are dy-
ing off by inches. No sooner have we
got over being scared about that, than
your terrible statistician claws out an
other fact from his human dust heap,
which makes Us feel even more shaky
than the other, and that is that there are
no longer husbands to 20 round for Us all.
| We must either 20 shares in a man or 90
without, and moreover, the shares will be
getting smaller and smaller, as the world
gets older
Shall woman put up with the eigh-
teenth or twentieth, or after awhile may
be even the hundrcdth OF man, or shall
she paddle her own canoe without any
man all? If this state Of things goes on,
says our terrible statistican, men will
consequently cease to worship women
and treat them so chivalrously in America
as they have always done, since, of course,
American men prize woman so highly
only because she IS scarce. Some OF US
have never observed that men hurt them
selves being chivalrous and w0rshipful
| towards women, to be sure, but that only
makes it 50 much the worse. If a man
is not going to be even as nice as he has
| been any more, what viii become Of US,
| sure enough?
Then there is the ungodly statistician
again. Not content with the uncOmtort-
able statement that men are getting
scarcer and women plentier all the time
| he clinches the situation by telling Us
suddenly that there is an alarming iii
crease Of insanity among women. What
/ does it mean?
Are women going crazy because men
are scarce?
1t is not altogether Hauering to our
vanity to admit it, but even il it Is so,
| going crazy won't make men plentiful.
| Whining does no good in the most des-
perate cases, least of AN going crazy.
There is prejudice against polygamy
in our age of the world and the only
thing which seems possible Is for the
surplus woman to SUNNI 81 mighty res
olution and 20 ON and hoe her own row.
Not plying the implement either as one
who looks forward to being married and
laying down the hoe handle in the mid
die Of the row, but hOeing on with strong,
steady stroke till the long shadows com
ing to meet her tell Of the end Of the row
and the going down of the sun.
Then the surplus woman will become
producer instead Of a consumer, and will
cease to be a surplus woman. In truth
the prospects Of the surplus woman are
theme for anthing but TESTING. Those
prospects sitted out from considera
bic nonsense, are thereal point of
this discourse. The widening Of oc-
equations for women and thorough
ness and economy among working
women are subjects III which the State
and the whole human family are inter
ested The best way of disposing Of the
surplus women on the hands of the com
munityis to make her earn her own hv
ing, and to give her every facility for do
ing it.
1t certainly seems to be approaching
in this country the condition already
reached in England, wherein society
does not know what to do with the su
perhuous woman, and the supertiuous
woman does not know what TO do with
herself Already there are thousands
Of women in America who are on the
verge Of despair because they have their
own living to make, and no way Of max |
ing it. | don't know how it is, but it |
sometimes seems TO me that l hear more |
sorrowful and tragical stories than other |
people do-stories Of infinite suffering |
and infinite despair-sometimes too, OF
infinite wrong and error. Things are al |
waIs coming to my knowledge which |
makes me think Of the names of queer
little Miss Elites S;rds in Bleak House
Dust, Ashes, Want, Waste,
Ruin, Despair, Jargon, Cannon, SH1 !
mach" Stories, they are, which make |
one feel for the time as if there wasn't |
any fun in the world any more. don't |
know why it is either, for I'm sure Pm
a jolly person at heart.
Thoughts about the surplus woman |
have bothered me not a little lately. /
What is the use Of making so much fuss |
about her? Suppose | tell you: Not a |
week passes but women come to me in |
despair asking for work. In Heavens I
name don't [ know of something they /
can do which will give them bread
bread for themselves and their children,
or their parents, or a crippled husband, /
or somebody else dependent upon them?
Well | don't, and | don't know why
they come to me, but they come all the
same. About one time in fifty it is pos
sible for me to help them in some way,
the other forty nine times it is not. But
it has set me to thinking harder and
more deeply than anything else ever did
before, except, perhaps, once when | saw
a piOus lady swin0le a man awfully in a
trade on Saturday, and then go to church
next day and take communion, and come
home and discharge a servant man for
splitting kindling wood on Sunday.
That gave me a startle which | never got
over TO this day.
I've thought it over for a long time
and 1t does seem to me that widened oc-
eupation is the first thing to give the
surplus woman. Fling all the doors of
work wide open to women, wide as
Heaven itself, and let the surplus 90 in
and take hold. Let her choose her own
work, unrestricted by so called work
regulations, contemplate
.rades' unions, or a stupid public senti-
nent The very largest liberty of
choice of occupation ought to be given
RELY to the surplus woman, because it is
7ery certain that women won't do what
hey can't do, and they will be the first
o find it out too.
There are so few things comparatively 5