Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-06-13
Women Workers in Paris.

find in my notebook humorous
entry that I have seen no country in
the world where the right to labor is
more generally conceded to women than
in France. In the early morning one
is helping to sort the refuse from the
houses. See that basket with bits of
paper. Here is a pile of nice green
salad leaves, and there basket of bits
of bread. Perhaps they have little
donkey.cart to haul these out of the
city, where they will feed the proven
der to rabbits, chickens, etc. These
people in general have not the degraded
look of our rag-pickers. How few peo-
pie in France have degraded look!
Perhaps two-ffths of the women in
Paris wear caps, and did not note q
dirty one. See women helping to
sweep the streets with big heavy brooms
made of twigs. Other women, hard
looking but tidy, see waiting on the
Place st. Augustine for some one to
come and hire them. One woman sets
down heavy basket of bread and takes
a loaf into grocer's; another has a
great load in her apron, her long apron
whose ends are tied over one shoulder.
In her hands she has three of those
long slender loaves that are cut into
bits at the restaurants. The loaves are
about two yards long, looking like poles
or stakes. She wears no bonnet, and
to rest herself she sets the ends of them
down on the pavement, or rests them
against the wall. How much they carry
bread uncovered in Paris! Once on
&1,ro kr 49, h< s,~E
Der of cap women seated behind the
little box on which she cleans shoes.
Ae had fallen asleep, and her knitting
and folded newspaper lay on the box
before her. l see woman walking the
street and knitting. Did some of the
women of Paris really take their knit.
ting and sit down in the street to See
the heads cut off in their great Revolu-
ton? Paris is the grand hotel of the
world. 1t is now full of guests. Paris
is content. But what if Paris were sui
len or sad? What if Paris were DIES.
perate?
At the Restaurant Duval, at the Ex-
position, notice the force of walters
with black dresses and white caps and
handkerchiefs. One says that thew
franc and half, but now they must
pay two. On bench in the Garden
Of Plants sits woman working button
holes in machine-made collars-mili-
tary false collars. She is working them
beautifully, five in each collar. She
gets ten sous for the dozen collars, and
she can earn thirty sous day. Poor
woman! In the same neighborhood
go into q little creamery and get bowl
of chocolate for five sous. A woman
says that the shop is hers, and she has
small custom. Her husband works
on the railroad, and her two children
are boarding with her parents, who are
alone near the Vosges Mountains. Not
far of, upon the street, woman is fry
ing potatoes very nicely. She has
stove in which she burns coke. She
sells her potatoes for one sou and two
sous, and sells good many at break
Sst and dinner time. She has cubby-
EDle or recess in the house front, and
pays ten sous rent day. Riding on
the circular railway to the Exposition,
there Is a nice young woman in the car
with basket and o can. She buys
milk and makes that soft cheese of
puts hers up in bits of cloth, and lays
each pat into bit of basket. She
has custom Mt the restaurants outside
OF the Exposition. In her can is the
cream to pour over and make fronsage a
Ia creme. She has been married a year,
and her husband sells flowers near the
Madeleine Church. How many women
are helping to pull hand-carts, or push
ing them themselves! Here is one
loaded with flowers, there another with
meat and fish. In the corner of q
courtyard sits woman carding wool
for mattresses. They can open the
mattresses, card the wool, and put it
INTO clean cover. My porter's wife
tells meithat this wool is mixed with
hair. go one morning to the grocers
and find only a woman there and when
L go to the office of tobacco near us
the government office--to buy postage
stamps, what pretty woman is at one
counter ready to sell stamps or the pre-.
cious taxed weed! l. 60 to the drug.
gists, and find Mrs. Apothecary at the
desk on one side with her crocheting.
and the account-book open before her.
After her husbands death the law al
AWE AeH ouo year u SeCCle his aHalrS.
at the Exposition 1 see my friend
Mrs. C, from "the provinces. !"
Her husband exhibits, aud she explains
that she must see that the sales women
are polite. visit O public school
where three of the four teachers are
married. The directress or head teach
\er tells me that she has tauhgt in the
eublic schools seventeen years, and has
been married fifteen. Her son is
twelve, and attends the college -,
where his father is professor. She tells
me that living is very dear.
In the Louvre gallery, among the
artists at work, there are number of
women. One of them is drawing from
Paul Veroneses picture of "The Mar
rage at Cana in Galilee."
Willows are engaged in business at
Paris. l 60 into bookstore and find
awoman. She says that she is all alone,
and gives me her card" Widow -"
She asks me to send my friends, and
sells me Drpttv nOte-naner ak fwo son