Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1879-06-03
WOMEN WORKERS IN PARIS.

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 pile of nice green salad leaves, and
there a basket of bits of bread. Perhaps
they have a little donkey-cart to haul
these out of the city, where they will feed
the proycnder to rabbits, chickens, etc.
These people in general have not the de-
graded look of our rag-pickers. How
few people in France have a degraded
look Perhaps two-ffths Of the women
in Paris wear caps, and | did not note a
dirty one. See women helping to sweep
the streets with big heavy hrooms made
of twigs. Other women, hard looking
but tidy, | sec waiting on the Place st.
Augustine for some one TO come and hire
them. One woman sets down a heavy
basket of bread and takes a loaf into a
grocer's; another has a great load in her
apron, her long apron whose ends are tied
Over one ShouItiSi. III itl hAilV9 oi'S HN9
three of those long slender loaycs that Tc
cut into bits at the restaurants. The
loavcs are about two yards long, looking
like poles or stakes. She wears no bon
net, 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
the street saw one Of the infinite num-
Der of cap-womcn seated behind the little
box on which she cleans shoes. She had
fallen asleep, and her knitting and folded
newspaper lay on the box before her. |
see woman walking the street and
knitting. Did some Of the women of
Paris really take their knitting and sit
down in the street to sec the heads cut off
in their great Revolution; Paris is the
great hotel of the world. 1t is now fun
Of guests. Paris is content But what
if Paris were sullen or sad What if
Paris were desperate:
At the Restaurant Duval, at the EX-
position, notice the force of waters with
black dresses and white caps and hand
kerchicfs. One says that they used to
pay on coming each morning q franc and
half, but now they must pay two. At
a bench in the Garden of Plants sits a
woman working button-holcs in machine
made collars-military 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 a
day. Poor woman In the same neigh
borhood | 90 into little creamery and
yet a bowl of chocolate for five sous. \
woman says that the shop is hers, and
she has a small custom. Her husband
works on the railroad, and her two chill
drcn are boarding with her parents, who
are alone near the Nosges Mountains.
Not far off, upon the street, a woman is
frying potatoes very nicely. She has a
stove in which she burns coke She sells
her potatoes for one SOU and two sous,
and sells a good many at breakfast and
dinner time. She has a cubby hole or re-
cess in the house front, and pays ten sous
rent a day. Riding on the circular rail-
way to the Exposition, there is nice
Young woman in the car with basket
and can. She buys milk and makes that
soft cheese of which the French are so
fond. She puts hers up in bits of cloth,
and lays each pat into bit of basket.
She has a custom at the restaurants out
side of the Exposition. In her can is the
cream to pour over and make tromdge q
Ia creme. She has been married 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 load
cd with flowers, there another with
meat and fish. In the corner of court
yard sits a woman carding wool for mat
treSses. They can open the mattresses,
card the wool, and put it into q clean
cover. My porter's wife tells me that
this wool is mixed with hair. l 90 one
morning to the grocers and find only a
woman there; and when / 90 to the office
near us-the government office-to buy
postage-stamps, what a pretty woman is
at one counter ready to sell stamps or the
precious taxed weed! l 60 the druggists,
and find Mrs. Apothecary at the desk on
one side with her crocheting, and the ac-
count-book open before her. After her
husbands death the law allows her one
year to settle his affairs.
At the Exposition l see my friend Mrs.
c., from "the provinces" Her hus-
band exhibits, and she explains that she
must see that the sales-womcn are polite.
| visit public school where three of the
four teachers are married. The directress
or head teacher tells me that she has
taught in the public schools seventeen
wears, 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 Ver-
onesc's picture of 1.-The Marriage at Cana
in Galilee."
Widows are engaged in business at
Paris. l go into a bookstore and find a
woman. She says that she is all alone,
and gives me her card-"Widow -"