Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1885-05-25


bis life away for her support. 1t Is shame
for daughter to be idle, while her mother
tolls at the wash-tub. 1t is as honorable to
sweep house, make beds or trim hats as 1t is
to twist q watch-chsin. As far as l can un.
derstand, the line of respectability lies be-
tween 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
practical work, it is dishonorsble. That or
yonng women may escape the censure OF
doing dishonorable work. shall parhcu-
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 mantel
ornament, but die rather than earn enough
to buy marble mantel. You may learn
artistic music until you can sQual Italian,
but never sing "Ortonville" or "Old Hun.
dred" Do nothing practical if you would
in the eyes of refined society preserve your
respectability
scout these
FInical Notions.
tell you woman, no more than man,
has right to occupy place in this world
unless she pay rent for it. In the course
of a lifetime you consume whole harvests
and droves of cattle, and every day you live
breathe forty hogsheads of good, pure air.
YOU must by some kind of usefulness pay tor
all this. Our race was the last thing Great
ed-the birds and fishes on the last day, the
cattle and lizards on the fifth day and man
on the sixth day. II geologists are right
the earth was million Of years in the pos
session of the insects, beasts and birds be-
fore our race came upon it. In one
sense we were innovators. The cattle,
the lizards and the hawks had preemption
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.
five want place in this world we
Must Earn 1t.
The partridge makes its own nest before it
occupies it. The lark by its morning song
earns its breakfast before it eats it; and the
Bible gives an intimation that the first
duty OF an idler ia to starve when it says if
he will not work, neither shall he eat
Idleness ruins the health; and very soon ua-
ture says: This man has refused to pay his
rent; out with him" Society is to be re-
constructed on the subject Of woman's toll
A vast majority of those who would have
woman industrious shut her up to a few
kinds Of work. Myjudgmentin this matter
is that woman has right to do anything
she can do well. There should be no de.
partment OF merchandise, mechanism, art
or science barred against her. If Miss
Hosmer has genius for sculpture, give her a
chisel If Rosa Bonheur has tondness for
delineating animals, let her make The
Horse Fair" If Miss Mitchell will study
astronomy let her mount the starry ladder.
If Lydia will be merchant let her sell
purple. If Lucretia Mott will preach the
gosIel, let her thrill with her womanly elo.
uuence the quaker meeting house.
1t is said if woman is given such
Opportunities
she will occupy places that might be taken
by man. say if she have more skill and
adaptedness for any position than 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 all
past history what toll on earth is more Sc
we're, exhausting and tremendous than that
toll Of the needle to which for ages she has
been subjected? The battering-rsm, the
sword, the caroline, the battleaxe, have made
no such havoc as the needle. would that
these living sepulchres in which women
have for ages been buried might be opened
and that some resurrection trumphet might
bring up these living corpses 10 the fresh air
and sunlight Go with me and | will show
you woman who, by hardest toll, supports
her children, her drunken husband, her old
father and mother, pays her house rent al,
ways has wholesome iood on her table aud
when she can get some neighbor on the
Sabbath 10 come in and take care OF her
family, appears in church with hat and
cloak that are far from indicating the toll
to which she is subjected
Such 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 60 into your whee Wright shops
and beat one half OF your workmen at max
carriages. We talk about woman as though
we had resigned to her all the light work
ard ourselves had shouldered the heavier.
But the day Of Judgment, which will reveal
the sufleripgs Of the stake and inqulstion,
will marshal before the throne of God and
the hierarchs of heaven the martyrs OF wash
tub and needle Now say ifthere De any
p1eierance in occupation let woman have
it. God knows her trials are the severest.
By her acuter sensitiveness TO misfortune, by
her hour of anguish, demand that no one
hedge up her pathway to livelihood. Oh,
the meanness the despicability OF men who
begrudge woman the right to work any
where in any honorable calling.
l go still further and say that woman
should Have Equal Compensation
with men. By what princi pie Of justice is it
that women in many OF our cities get only
two thirds as much pay as men and in many
cases only half? Here is the gigantic in
Justice that for work equally well, if not bet
ter, done, woman receives for less compen.
sation than man. Start with the national
government; women clerks in Wash
ington get nine hundred dollars
for doing that for which men
receive Sl,80O. The wheel Of oppression is
rolling over the necks Of thousands of
women who are at this moment in despair
about what they are to do. Many Of the
largest mercantile establishments of our
cities are accessory TO these denominations,
ard from their large establishments there
are scores of souls being pitched of into
death, and their employers know it. Is
there n God VIII there be a iudrment?
l tell you if God rises up to redress wonsn's
wrong many Of our large establishments
will be swallowed up quicker than South
American earthquake ever took down a
city. God will catch these oppressors be.
tween he mill stones of bis wrath and grind
them to powder.
Why ISN
that female principal in school gets only
S825 for doing work foz which male prin-
cipal gets 81, $50? / lear from all this land
the vail of wonanhood Man has nothing
tn onsver IN ths+ vail hut nattarias He