The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1888-04-05

TYPEWRaTHNG AND WOMEN.
had little talk with pretty woman
yesterday, whom have known for seve-
eral years as the head of typewriting
and stenogrsphical Office in big down
town Office building.
81 am going to be married in the
spring." said she.
All" l replied. 81 suppose we shall
see you no more down here"
"Oh, yes just as usual. shall not
give up my Office. Of course, my be-
trothed feels something Of the usual pre-
judice against my going on with my own
business, but can soon bring him around.
lie will want me to do as please. Ihave
very good assistants in my Office, and
am not closely confined there. We shall
not be rich and will not have a large es-
tablishment, and should either simply
become demoralized with idleness or have
to do as 80 many women do, make up
work for myself scrubbing the under side
Of chairs and busting the inside of he
coal scuttle. No; 1 am good no Sc
keeper, if l do say it myself, but Why
should l do the drudgery of no Sc
keeping when can make enough i. a
day to pay servant for a month, givi ,g,
in that way, too, another woman emp ,y-
ment. Ny husband will be making. q
struggle, and in some way / am going to
bear my part of the burden"
"Do you think other people will l,ok
at it that way? I've heard of some 'vo-
men who were severely condemned by
the others of their trade when they did
got man to support them.'"
81 don't believe that will be SO mach
80 down here as in the shops up t. vi.
that is where you have heard of the girls
rowing about married women being en-
ployed, isn't it? There are good many
married women among the typewriters
and stenographers. Some of them have
married since they went into the business.
Oh, l am not a great original. Some
times it is not even generally known.
You see, it is getting to be in business as
it is on the stage-marriage does not ne
cessarily change woman's name. You
see, it is very troublesome and injurious
to business 10 change your sign, cards,
etc. The women use their husbands
names in private and social life, but down
here they 60 under the one they went into
business with.
81 knew one woman whose marriage
hurt her business. Some of her custom
ers came to me, but that was because she
apparently INDUCED in a husband as a
personal luxury and kept him in hel
office all the time. The man seemed to
have nothing else on earth to do, and her
customers took the notion that he was
there to examine their papers and
peddle their secrets out to rivals
and enemies. Men are terribly sensi
tive about that sort of thing. They
will not patronize an office which any
man has the appearance of haunting"
Why, do women never tell secrets p
"No; in all these years that l have
been down town l have never heard of q
woman being accused of that. Curious
evidence of feminine honesty, isn't it
1t was only last week that had quite q
scene here. was dong some work
that was instructed to be very particu.
lar about keeping private. l was laying
the sheets face down as | took them out
of the machine, when a man came in to
speak to me, and caught sight of the name
of certain patents on the paper l was jus,
going to take out of the machine and
snatched it out of my hands, saying We
control these patents. am going to see
this / sprang and put my hand over
the sheet and said:
you are not going to see it; Miss
Norton take those papers off the ma
chine; Nellie, be ready to call for help
now, sir, give me that paper this ins' ant
or I'll have you disgraced in this build
ing Well, of course, he couldn't at.
ford to have fuss about thing like
that-he is prominent lawyer-and he
sulkily apologized and went off,"
Will he take away his custom, d. you
think 2"
"Perhaps for week or so, but | think
he'll be apt to remember this Office when
he wants some secret work done, don't
your"
&c see you go on taking pupils contlr-
uallY; don't you think you and the other
teachers will finally run yourselves out by
overstocking the market ?"
"The demand for typewriters increas 8
wonderfully all the time. There WIS
three millions of dollars worth Of or.S
done by them in New York last year, and
that was gain of hundreds of thousands
of dollars over the year before. If this
law for enforcing the writing of all legal
documents on thick paper goes through
there will be room for a whole army more
of typewriters, but the pay will be poor
unless the Offices agree on a change in the
schedule Of charges. You see our charges
increase according to the number of
copies we make, and we can take three,
four, five and six copies at once on thin
paper. Men typewrlters They don't
seem to be increasing in number half as
rapidly as the women. Women are very
popular, for the reason talked about .
while ago. Men don't fear that they will
trade in their secrets. You see women
don't have the political affiliations that
men do, and 80 they are less liable to be
tempted by knowing just where certain
facts would be marketable. Then they GER
tainly do seem in this respect to be more
generally. honorable. Women stenog-
raphers are not generally first-class, but
they get on very well, it seems to me, in
proportion to their ability. They are Of.
ten preferred because they are more relia-
BILE than msnv of the men. Men are very
apt to drink. 1t is q life that induces
vice, evidently. No, don't see any sign
that business women are at all likely to
succumb to the same temptation. They
have very much the same ideas about
drink that other. respectable women have,
and don't think they are likely to lose
them" ua5