The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1878-03-07
For the Disnatch,
FUr lHe DISI1ulCT.J
The Movement to Help the Women.

1He MOSeMeHt 10 fnclp INC "O"cu.
There may be feasible plans to help the
women of the city who want work. II so,
by all means put them into practice. But
any plan calling for large capital will
doubtless be found impossible of execu-
ton unless some one possessing both skill
and capital should take hold OF it.
The best way to help this deserving and
needy class is to give employment to their
husbands, fathers, and children in shops
and factories already built. There are not
less than a thousand places vacant now,
in which, il they were filled by men and
boys. these operatives could earn double
what the same number OF women would.
Their wages, in the main, would 60 to
help feed the females Of their families.
How to do this, and the best way to do it,
are the questions OF paramount import to
this city just now. Railroads, canals, docks,
and deeper water, all are important, but
they will fail to make the city grow as it
should unless the raw material of our mines
and forests and farms is worked up here
for distribution abroad. Without it this
city will continue to be what it is now to q
great eXtent-a way-station on the highway
to other cities.
Give one strong man fair wages and you
feed on an average five people. The wages
usually paid to woman would hardly suf-
flee to feed herself. The morals Of society
require that woman should be kept in her
normal sphere-at home, providing in her
way for the males OF the household, whose
natures tit them better for the work
shop and outdoor labor. This does
not imply that unmarried women should
live in idleness and dependence. II their
time cannot be protitabIy and usefully
employed at home they should have employ
ment of some kind. and it is for this class
that all the openings possible should be
made. An idle woman, whose time is spent
in nothing but displaying the best clothes
she has, when her husband or father knows
not where the next days food is to come
from, is bane and blight to society. Many
a poor man has been forced to drown his
troubles in drink by such.
II all the articles which could be made in
this city as well as anywhere else were
made here, their manufacture would give
employment to every man now out OF work
at fair wages. If any one doubts this LET
him walk our streets and take an inventory
as he goes. Every article, from the cradle
to the caflin, in the main, comes from
abroad. He Will see some strange things
such rs baled hay from indianapolis, and
farrn-wagons from South Bend, Indiana
stcam-engines from Ohio, &c, &c.
To the practical man these are signs OF
acknowledged inferiority and incompe-
tency as ominous OF future decay as the
signs on the wall which scared BelshaZZal
50 much. II the farmers Of this land can
not raise hay as cheaply as it can be gotten
thousand miles away, with freights by
land and water added, or il after they have
raised it cannot find mechanics who can make
and sell them wagons as good and as cheap
as those from the same distance. then the
Immigration Board had better be dissolved
1t is useless, and, more, 4 cheat, to induce
people to come to such a country. II orl1
people would exercise some consideration
about this matter they might not have such
heavy demands on their charity. r.