Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-10-14
FEMALE LABORERS.-

european " omen Engaged IN
and Other Manual Labor.
Whether it be the existence of snor-
NOUS standing armies the havoc of
centuries of war, the absence of practi-
cal educational facilities or the lowness
of laborers' wages, that compels so
many women on the continent of Eu-
rope to seek to gain living in occupa-
tons which we deem fit only for the
strongest and rudest of men, certain 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 severe manual
labor. In France women are still oc-
cupied in the mines, dragging or push
ing the heavy trucks of coal through
the narrow tunnels that run from the
seams to the shaft. OF course, in such
work they adopt the ordinary costume
of the working miners. and at the first
glance are not to be distinguished from
the men by whose side they are work
ing. Some of the entries in the French
census as to the laboring population
are strange enough. In Paris there are
nine female boat-builders, and PAS
..wheelwrights, farriers and saddIers,"
eight sawyers. forty-six carpenters and
joiners; eight masons and one plumber.
1t is, however, in Austria that we find
the greatest proportion of women en-
gagged in heavy physical labor, not mere
" in agriculture or the mines. but in
paving and cleaning the streets or in
carrying huge trays of mortar or hods,
of bricks up to the workmen ON the
scaffolding 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 infancy and
are used to- nothing better; their
language and manners are as course as
those of the male laborers, whom in
figure they resemble -high-chested,
road-shouldered, no trace of waist,
and possessed of great strength. To
such stout daughters of the plow'' it's
an easy task to pull astreet-sprinkler or
pull about hand-cart laden with milk.
as may be seen. any day in Antwerp,
where the milk-woman, with her
| neat white cap, and 'kerchief and her
| assistant dog, lisa striking street pict-
ure. In Prussia about 6, 900 women are
| workers in Mines. quarries and
foundries, and about 1000 are classified
as ssdrivers, postillions and railway
laborers," and about 1000 as ''ships'
crews, sailors, boatmen and ferrymen;"
in this last category will come women
employed in towing canal boats IT.
has been asked why do not women
adopt callings more adapted to fem
mime hands,? The reason seems to be
the industrial conditioned great part
of the European continent, which af-
fords to them no better means of earn
ing living, and the fact that these oc-
equations. which are SO utter unfem--
mime, are just those in which, un-
skilled labor can be employed. A
change, however. is slowly COM
ing about by the growth of inn
portant industries in every country.
The factory system has been found !,
in Germany to have strong tendency
to improve the condition, not only of
the women Immediately employed in ,
them, but of those working in the coun-
try around. Alarge employer at Frei--
burg, after thirty years experience,
said: 'The condition of the agricultural
laborers is not satisfactory one. There
us 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 frequently
receive an account of the hard and i'm
moral life associated with such service.
The scene changes when well-managed
factory comes into the village. The
poor girls must then either receive bet
ter treatment and better wages or they
90 into the factory. The moral benefit
of a well-ordered factory is still greater;
IT affects the whole village '-Harper's
Bdsdr