St. Landry democrat., 1885-06-13
WOMAN'S WAGES.
DR.. Talmage on "The Despotism of
the Needle"
The Blessing of Honorable Industry and
the Misery of Idleness-The Mistake of
Parents-Equa1 Pay for Equal
Work-Woman's Oppressors.

Needle or q DISCOURSE on w OhdusS WSto
He took his text from Ecclesiastes w., 4:
$50 returned and considered all the OPP
pressions that are done under the sun, and
behold the tears of such as were oppressed,
and they had no comforter; and on the
side Of their oppressors there was power"
Following is the sermon:
WoMAN's TOLL.
Very long ago the needle was busy. 1t
was considered honorable for women to
toll in olden time Alexander the Great
stood in his palace showing garments
made by his own mother. The finest
tapestries at Bayeux were made by the
Queen of William the Conqueror Au-
gustus, the Emperor, would not wear any
garments except those that were fashioned
by some member Of his Royal family. So
let the toiler everywhere be respected
The needle has slain more than the sword.
When the sewing machine was invented
some thought that invention would al
leviate woman's toll and put an end to the
despotism of the needle. But no! While
the sewing machine has been a great bless
ing to we'll to- do families in many cases,
it has added to the stab of the needle the
crush Of the wheel, and multitudes of
women, notwithstanding. the reinforce
ment Of the sewing maehine, can only
make, work hard as they win, between
two dollars and three dollars per week.
NO HAPPINESS IN IDLENEss.
The most unhappy women in our COM
munities to-day are those who have no en-
gagements to call them up in the morning;
who, once having risen and breakfasted,
lounge through the dull forenoon in slip
pers down at the heal and with disheveled
hair, reading Ouida's last novel, and who,
havind dragged through wretched fore
noon and taken their afternoon sleep, and
{ having passed an hour and half at their
toilet, pick up their card case and go out
to make calls, and who pass their evenings
waiting for somebody to come in and
break up the monotony. Arabella Stuart
never was imprisoned in so dark dun
geon as that.
There is no happiness in an idle woman.
1t may be with hand, it may be with brain,
it may be with foot; but work she must, or
be wretched for ever. The little girls of
our families must be started with that
idea. The curse of our American society
is that our young women are taught that
the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth,
seventh, tenth, fiftieth, thousandth thing
in their life is to get somebody to take care
of them. Instead of that the first lesson
should be how, under God, they may take
care of themselves. The simple fact is
that a majority of them do have to take
care of themselves, and that, Too, after
having through the false notions of their
parents wasted the years in which they
ought to have learned how successfully to
maintain themselves. We now and here
declare the inhumanity, cruelty and out
rage of that father and mother who pass
their daughters into womanhood, having
given them no facility for earning their
livelihood. Madame De StaeI said: sit is
not these writings that am proud of, tut
the fact that / have facility in ten occupa-
lions, in any one of which / could make
livelihood"
You say you have fortune to leave
them. o, man and woman, have you not
learned that, like vultures, like hawks, like
eagles, riches have wings and fly away?
Though you should be successful in leav-
ing a competency behind you, the trickery
Of executors may swamp it in a night; or
some officials in our churches may get up
mining company and induce your
orphans to put their money into hole in
Colorado, and if by the most skillfuI
machinery the sunken money can not be
brought up again, prove to them that ii
was etarnally decreed that that was the
way they were to lose it, and that it went
in the most orthodox and heavenly style.
Oh! the damnable schemes that professed
Christians will engage in until God puts
His fingers into the collar of the hypo-
critics robe and rips it clear down to the
bottom! You have no right, because you
are well off, to conclude that your children
are going to be as well off. A man died,
leaving large fortune. His son fell dead
in Philadelphia grog-shop. His old COM
rades came in and said, as they bent
over his corpse: What is the matter with
you, Boggseym The surgeon standing
over him said: Hush upi He is deadn
"Ah, he is dead" they said. Come, boys,
let US go and take drink to the memory
OF poor Boggsey."
THE CRIME OF PARENTS.
Have you nothing better than money to
leave your children? If you have not, but
send your daughters into the world with
empty brain and unskilled hand, you are
guilty Of assassination, homicide, regicide,
infanticide. There are women toiIing in
our cities, toiling for two and three dollars
per week. who were the daughters of mer-
chant princes. These suffering ones now
would be glad TO have the crumbs that
once fell from their fathers table. That
worn-out, broken shoe that she wears is
the lineal descendantof the twelve dollar
CATERS in which her mother walked, and
that worn and faded calico had ancestry
of magnificent brocade that swept Broad
way clean without any expense to the
Street Commissioners. Though you live