St. Landry democrat., 1885-06-13

port It is shame for daughter to be
idle while her mother tolls at the wash
tub. It is as honorable to sweep houses,
make beds or trim hats as it is to twist
watch-chain. AS far as l can understand,
the line of responsibility lies between that
which is useful and that which is useless.
If women do that which is of no value,
their work is honorable. If they do prac-
tical work, it is dishonorable. That our
young women may escape the censure of
doing dishonorable work, / shall particu-
larize. You may knit a tidy for the back
of an arm chair, but by no means make
the money wherewith to buy the chair.
You may with delicate brush beautify
inantel ornament, but die rather than
earn enough to buy marble mantel. You
may learn artistic music until you can
squat Italian, but never sing "Ortonville"
or s'Old Hundred" Do nothing practical if
you would in the eyes of refined society
preserve your responsibility.
| scout these inical notions. tell you
a woman no more than a man has a right
to occupy place in this world unless she
pays rent for it. In the course of life
time you consume whole harvests and
droves of cattle, and every day you live
you breathe forty hogsheads of good pure
air. You must by some kind of usefulness
pay for all this. Our race was the last
thing created-the birds and fishes on the
fourth day, the cattle and lizards on the
fifth day and man on the sixth day. II
biologists are right, the earth was a mill
ion of years in possession of the insects,
beasts and birds before our race came up
on it. In one sense we were innovators.
The cattle, the lizards and the hawks had
emption right The question is not
what we are to do with the lizards and
summer insects, but what the lizards and
summer insects are to do with us.
NATURE SAYS "PAY."
If we want place in this world we must
earn it. The partridge makes it's own nest
before it occupies it. The lark, by it's
morning song, earns its breakfast before it
eats it, and the Bible gives an intimation
that the first duty of an idler is to starve
when it says that if he twill not work
neither shall he eat" IdIeness ruins the
health, and very soon nature says: 'This
man has refused to pay his rent; out with
himW Society is to be reconstructed on
the subject of woman's toll. A vast ma
jority of those who would have woman in
dustrious shut her up to few kinds Of
work. My judgment in this matter is that
woman has right to do anything she
can do well. There should be no depart-
ment of merchandise, mechanism, art or
science barred against her. If Miss Hos
mer has genius for sculpture, give her a
chisel. It Rosa Bonheur has fondness
for delineating animals, let her make s'The
Horse FAIR If Miss Mitchell will study
astronomy, let her mount the starry lad
der If Lydia will be merchant, let her
sell purple. If Lucretia Mott will preach
the Gospel, let her thrill with her womanly
eloquence the Quaker meeting house.
It is said If woman is given such oppor-
tunities she will occupy places that might
be taken by man. I say if she have more
skill and adaptedness for any position
than a man has, let her have it. She has
as much right to her bread, to her apparel
and to her home as men have. But it is
said that her nature is so delicate that she
is untitled for exhausting toll. | ask, in
the name of alIpast history, what toll on
earth is more severe, exhausting and tre-
mendous than that toll of the needle to
which for ages she has been subjected?
The battering-ram, the sword, the car
bine, the battle-axe, have made no such
havoc as the needle. [ would that these
living sepulchers, in which women have
for ages been buried, might be opened, and
that some resurrection trumpet might
bring up these living corpses to the fresh
air and sunlight Go with me and I will
show you woman who, by hardest toll,
supports her children, her drunken hus-
band, her old father and mother, pays her
house rent, always has wholesome food on
the table, and when she can get, some
neighbor on the Sabbath to come in and
take care of her family, appears in church
with hat and cloak that are far from indi-
eating the toll to which she is subjected.
Such a woman as that has body and soul
enough to fit her for any position. She
could stand beside the majority of your
statesmen and dispose of more goods. She
could go into your wheelwright shops and
beat one-haIf Of your workmen at making
carriages. We talk about woman as though
we had resigned to her all the light work
and ourselves had shouldered the heavier.
But the day of Judgment, which will re-
veal the sufferings of the stake and inqui-
sition, will marshal before the throne of
God and the hierarchs of Heaven the mar
tyrs of wash tub and needle. Now, I say
if there be any preference in occupation
let woman have it. God knows her trials
are the severest. By her acuter sensitive
ness to misfortune, by her hour of anguish,
l demand that no one hedge up her path
way to livelihood. Oh, the meanness,
the despicability, of men who begrudge a
woman the rightto work anywhere in any
honorable calling
EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK.