The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1886-08-27

WOMEN FOLLOWING voCArIoNs FIT ONLY
FOR THE STRONGEST MEN.


Whether il be the existence of enor-
nous standing armies, the havoc of
centuries of war, the absence of prac-
tical educational facilities, or the low
ness of laborers' wages, that compels
so many women on the continent of
Europe to seek to gain living in oc-
cupations which we deem fit ONLY for
the strongest and rudest of men, GER
tain it is that one of the commonest
and, TO American eyes, the strangest
sights there is the number of women
engaged in agricultural and other Sc
we're manual labor. In France women
are still occupied in the mines, drag
ging or pushing the heavy trucks of
Goals through the narrow tunnels that
run from the seams to the shaft. OF
course, in such work they adopt the
ordinary costume of working miners,
and at the first glance are not to be
distinguished from the men. by whose
side they are working.
Some of the entries in the French
census as to the laboring population
are strange enough. In Paris there
are 9 female boatbuilders and Pas
"wheelwrights, farriers and saddlers, u
sawyers, 46 carpenters and joiners,
masons and plumber 1t is, however,
in Austria that we find the greatest
proportion of women engaged in
heavy physical labor, not merely in ag-
riculture or the mines, but in paving or
cleaning the streets, or in carrying
huge trays of mortar or hods of bricks
up to the workmen on the caffolding
of buildings in the course of erection.
These women do not seem to complain
of their lot; they have been bred up
to hard work from their infancy, and
are used to nothing better; their Ian
guage and manners arc as coarse as
those of the male laborers, whom in
figure they resemble-high chested,
broad shouldered, no trace of waist,
and possessed of great strength. To
such stout daughters of the plow' it
is an easy task to wheel street sprink-
Ter or pull about hand cart laden with
milk, as may be seen any day at Ant
werp, where the milk woman, with her
neat white cap and kerchief and her
assistant dog is striking picture.
WORKERS IN THE MINES.
In Prussia about 5000 women are
workers in mines, quarries and foun-
dries, and about 1000 are classified as
''drivers, positions, and railway labor
ers,' and about 1000 as 'ship's crews,
sailors, boatmen and ferrymen;' in the
last category will come women en-
ployed in towing canal boats. 1t has
been asked, why do not women adopt
callings more adapted to feminine
hands The reason seems to be the
industrial condition of a great part of
the European continent, which affords
to them no better means of earning a
living, and the fact that these occupa-
tions, which are so utterly unfeminine,
are just those in which unskilled labor
can be employed. A change, however,
is slowly coming about by the growth
of important industries in every coun-
try. The factory system has been
found in Germany to have strong
tendency to improve the condition, not
only of the women Immediately en-
ployed in them, but of those working
in the country around.
A large employer at Freiburg. after
thirty years experience, said: "The
condition of the agricultural laborers
is not satisfactory one. There is
much misery among them, especially
moral misery. When mothers apply
to us for work for strong, healthy
girls, we tell them such girls are more
fit for labor in the fields, but too fire.
quently receive an account Of the hard
and immoral life associated with such
service. The scene changes when 8
well managed factory comes into the
village. The poor girls must ther
either receive better treatment and
better wages or they go into the fac
tory. The moral benefit of well or
dered factory is still greater; it affects
the whole village. ."-Harper's Bazar