New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-02-20
by certain fashionable people in New-YOrk

by certain fashionable people In NeW-AOrA
Cash or caste, there is their dilemma.
This terror of losing caste is stronger mo-
tive with women in villages and inland towns
than in Cities where the ideas of both men
and women are broadened and made healthy
by friction with different classes. In all OF
the villages of the older States, probably, you
will find families of single daughters grown
old dependent on a worn-out father OF DrOln-
ers. who wish and ought to marry, but are
kept from it by this domestic weight Ihey
are cut to the quick by their humiliation; the
bread of dependence which they eat Is Dltter'
and, generally, scanty; everybody knows theH
poverty and they know that everybody knows
il: they are not ashamed to take gifts from
more lucky kinsfolk. But they Will not WORK
for pay; let them starve, it needs be, pro-
vded they can wrap their gentility about
them as shroud and be buried in It,
woman belonging to an arlstocratic family
occuped for years q handsome chamber III
fashionable clearinghouse in Philadelphia,
having her rent regularly. Nobody knew
what was in the chamber beyond the costly
lace curtains at the window. She was Iouhu
dead in it one day year ago-dead OF star-
vation-on the bare floor, without bed or
cover. But she never had wOrkeu'
and the lace curtains shut ont her
misery to the last from the canallle Outslue'
This is a fact, and it Is reduplicated IN a
thousand homes to-day where there are star
vaton and idleness behind the sham OF lace.
To 90 to the core of the matter, however,
this fear of losing caste is not altogether silly;
il is founded on a real danger Many women
believe that to lose social status Is to lose the
chance of marrying among their own triends'
Now every woman, whatever her professions,
does and ought TO wish to marry. Circum-
stances may make her teacher, n lecturer or
n trader but God meant her to be first OF all
n wife and mother. Every woman at heart
knows this, and acts on the knowledge. If
men Of the kind among whom she would wish
to marry will consider her ineligible as vile
because she works for money, she has reas-
enable apology for starving in idleness But
will they so consider her7 If they are fash
ionable snobs, yes; but fashionable snobs are
the last to marry penniess women. III they
are men of intelligence and refinement, and
hold women who work as Of a lower class
than themselves, it mist be because these
women have allowed their work to coarsen
their manners, to take from them the
mOdesty, the delicacy, the feminine charm
which men lin spite of all arguments OF the
strong -minded) will persist IN holding essen
tial to the woman they would love or marry.
Have our wOIkingwOmen done thisY Each
one must answer for herself. Has the teacher
mistaken prim affectatOn for gentle dignity;
the saleswoman, vulgar peItness for wit; the
trader. sharp stingness for business capacity
II is IN individual matter for each individual
woman to settle. OF one thing the girls may
be certain. 1t is not necessary TO become vul-
gar or forward or loud because they earn
money men do not become SO. Another thing
is equally ce:tain-men who succeed IN thls
country can choose their own rank In society.
Nobody now snubs General Grant because of
his years in q lanyard. The man who be-
yond all other Americans gathers men OF
science, princes and cmperOrs about his table,
began by peddling peanuts; the daughters OF
American patent pill-makers or soap manu-
facturers marry into the nOblest families OF
England.
Our advice, therefore, to idle, unmarried
women is, leave your poverty and false
gentility behind you; they are real and heavy
burdens go to work, as quietly and as much
indoors "a possible choosing an occupation
which you need not surrender if you marry
take this mythical bull of Society by the horns
and you will find It to m'lt into crowd of
harmless, friendly individuals, each one of
whom y0u can conquer by good sense and
good breeding Keep ycur good sense and
good breeding and succeed, and Society as a
mass will pay you homage.
One word more. Some body is to blame for
this unnatural position in which unmarried
women among us are placed. As rule, it Is
their fathers. A man should either provide a
settled sum for his daughters support or he
should not give her costly accomplishments,
Injuries, and tastes in her youth which
render drudgcry hateful to her, and marriage
a mercenary necessity when he dies and leaves
her penniless 4 French father, however
DOOR. begins to lay up his girls dot from the
day of her birth he brings her up, too, with
She inexpensive tastes and industrious habits
which suit his rank. In many ways, let us
acknowledge, European nations are wiser and
iuster than we.
----
NORTH AND SOUTH DAKOT4.
An intelligent correspondent, writing from