The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1886-09-17

do"
You have a family, | suppose?
"Yes, l have four Children" She wa
an American, not Irish, and had compro
missed between 'childer'' and children,
and said ''childern."
"a husband 2" ! asked this question
with a blush of shame for my impotence,
but | did want to know if she vas scrub
bling Offices to support one of the ''supe
rior" creatures who refuse to 'demanc'
themselves at work.
"No-o-o,' she answered, in an uncer
tain tone, bending closer and scrubbinG
more vigorously than ever, while her as
sistant turned her head away altogether
| made up my mind that she had a hus
band, but he wasn't worth counting. III
spends his summer fishing, perhaps, like
many of the lalndresses' husbands.
Tits hard for you to be away from yonr
children all the time | said.
''Mother lives with me and takes care of
them while I'm at work, she answered.
Il don't soc much of them. Pm gone
when they get up in the morning, and in
the winters they re all in bed but the Oldest
one when I get home"
turned away musing on this woman
humble life. She was passably good look
ing, but had no self-assertion and lacked
intelligence. Some would say that she il
in that mental position because she is fit
for no other; that she is to blame for il
herself. Perhaps so. The subject is too
vast for me. | only know that those who
accept mental work must do it. Those
who insist on having something better
usually get something better. The theory
woman. She is in embryo, intellectually.
She doesn't know that there are any pos
sibilities in her other than %scrubbing aud
securing ones. She spends her life on her
knees, in old, stringy clothes, wet and
sandy around the ankles. Her feet are
water soaked, her hands are wrlnkled like
parchment by constant contact with hot
suds.
There are men who dislike to hear any
thing in favor of women voting, because
they would then''lose their softness. 7"
Women are ''arc too fine for anything SO
coarse as politics, they say; but it never
offends them TO see women down
on their hands and knees scrubbin. out
mems dirty offices. They are not too fine
for tnat II +Ia sfr.nal IF pnlifta,if Ia apu
dirtier than their floors, I for one am not
aware of it. Whenever | see the scrub wo-
men toiling away | think of these thought
full souls who want to protect women from
everything save work too mental for men
to perform.
The system of scrubbing practieed here
is an old country one, No modern
Yankee invention has lessened the New
York scrub woman's work. The split
broom and the mob are not for her. She
refuses to be enlightened. The old way is
the only way she cares TO know. In fact,
she resents any suggestions toward SIM
plifying her toll. She is in the state of
mental development which would not per-
nit her to respect herself if she did not do
everything the hardest way, wear herself
to the bone and draggle her clothing to
the knees.
Women's clothing is sadly against them
in performing such work. For that reason,
if no other, men ought to do it. Think of
a woman living day after day with wet
skirts clinging round her ankles. Health
and cleanliness are both outraged. Yet if
she were to put on clothing that would
enable her to scrub under few embarrass-
ments, no end of a hubbub would be raised,
and she might even be arrested and call
ed to account for outraging the proprieties.
Sometimes | think this world is very far
astray, and in nothing is it farther from the
right than in the matter of woman's attire.
! notice, too, that most women who do
very hard mental work wear the most in
appropriate garb. Instead of having a
gown Of decent, serviccable material, made
simply and of a cut to give the wearer free
dom of movement, the scrub woman goes
about in a dress originally male for some
richer woman. 1t is dabbed over with
trimming, which is falling to pieces here
and there, and gets fringed and dragged
and unsightly and contribute S largely to
the forlornness of her appearance.
She goes home in the evening laden with
packages bought here and there at cheap
groceries. These are eatables tor the family
or whom she tolls, including the husband
who fishes. But tlen, in her station of life
it in highly respectable to have a husband,
no matter of what brand. Her neighbors
can't accuse her of being wholly destitate
of attractions. She has captured a man;
that settles it. No, they can't throw that
~insinuation in her face.-EHis Ctarmei.