The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1881-10-25
WOMEN IN GERMANY.

L. rope there Is contempt for and an
oppression of woman. Everywhere
there is laid on her the mental drudgery
that must be DONE but which men will
not assist In doing, nor for the perform
ance Of which will they provide mechan-
ical appliances az American men do.
Every where she Is robbed of proper
compensation for her labor But Ger
many, the land of literature, science,
scholarship, music, art, culture - to
whose universities we send our sons for
thorough mental equipment-the land
that boasts of its advanced civilization
this Germany leads in mean treatment
of women, and has a pre-. emlnence in
that kind of civilization which leaves
nothing undone to exalt man, but is
content to regard and treat woman as
serf.
The country was in the perfection of
its midsummer beauty as we journeyed
through It. But 1 could not enjoy its
beauty, for here, as in Virginia years and
years ago, women were forced into EN-
iployments unsuited to them, degraded
to extreme menlal service, and robbed of
all that makes life worth living to
woman.
Eight-tenths of all the agricultural
flaborers were women. They were hoe
ing the immense sugar beet fields, or, on
their hands and knees, were wedding
where hoe could not be safely used
Staggering under heavy loads of manure,
which they brought from distant place
of deposit, they distributed 1t as It was
needed. They were moving, raking,
pitching the hay on carts, or loading it
as 1t was pitched. They were reapng,
and stacking the grain in the fields, or
bearing 1t home on their heads and
shoulders, which had been so loaded that
we scrutinized long and closely, before
we discovered the motive power of the
peripatetic grain stacks marching away
IN the fields where the first crop had
been removed, women were driving the
OK or cow to plough-for we saw no
ploughing with a yoke of oxen-cE the
OK or cow was dispensed with, and one
woman drew the plough while another
held it.
If there was extra hard work to be
done, loaded carts to be hauled away,
wheelbarrow loads removed, the work
was assigned to women, who bent them.
selves to the task with patient and per-
sistent energy, while men looked on,
smoking their eternal pipes, without so
much as lifting finger in help. Scan
tily dressed, generally bare-h headed in the
blazing sun, quite as often bare.footed
and bare-legged, they were bronzed in
complexion, thin of flesh, bent and inc
iastic in figure, without joy in their
work, or hope in their faces.
For work of day, twelve hours long,
when these women boarded themselves,
they are paid an average of twenty-five
cents. When they are boarded by their
employers, their wages average ten and
twelve cents day. Men doing the same
work, working side by side with these
women, receive nearly twice as much.
Hard as is this farm work, women pre-
fer 1t to house.service, when they have
the strength for it-as the great majority
of house. servants work for board and
clothing, and very meagre board and
clothing at that.
When we went to German cities we
saw what was more repellantl Women,
bare-footed, or wearing modern clogs,
were at work everywhere in the streets,
with brooms of rods, and stiff brushes,
with hoes and shovels and hand. carts,
directing the floods of the cutters, clear
ing them of debris, shovellng it into
carts, and repairing whatever damage
the heavy rain had wrought.
We took an early drive through Mum
ich, before the city had awakened. Early
as was the hour, the sun only just touch
ing the lips of the majestic Bavaria,
women were astir everywhere. They
were collecting the offal and refuse from
houses and stores; sweeping yesterday
dirt from the streets into piles, which
other women shoveled into hand carts
clearing the tracks of the tram-cars from
obstructions; harnessed into bakers and
milk carts, and distributing their sup