The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1888-08-04
FEMALE DRUG CLERKS.
A New Avenue Opened TO women In
Search Of Employment.

Search OF Employment.
Another portal that is being opened
to girls Is the door OF the drug store.
"If had an application for an appren-
ticeship from q smart, neat young
woman, whose parents l know" said
an Eighth avenue druggist, to the re-
porter, in answer to a leading question
on the subject. II should be glad to
take her behind my counter and teach
her the business. am sure she would
do better than plenty of the young fell
lows we have to take, and she would
find the preparation of Doctors pre-
scriptions exactly suited to her abili-
ties. Such work requires deftness and
carefulness, and has as little of the dis
agreeable about 1t as any other busi-
ness and is fairly remunerative. Her
good taste would have plenty OF scope
in the arrangement of the pretty things
we sell in addition to drugs, and plenty
OF our female customers, / am sure,
would often prefer woman to wait up
on them"
For girls who aspire higher than
this, medicine presents more and
more attractive field. Twenty-Five
years ago u woman doctor was stared
at as some rare and abnormal growth
of civilization not one male physician
in five hundred would consult with her,
no medical society admitted her to
membership, but since DR.. Elizabeth
Blackwell opened her office in New
York in 1851, the path has grown
steadily more smooth and straight, till
now there are more than one hundred
practicing female physicians in Now
York and its adjacent cities. Some of
| the best medical schools are open to
her, her worth is recognized, and the
profession offers, perhaps, the best OPP
portunity of any to an educated woman
for usefulness and money-making. For
others who can not compass the ex-
pense incident on attaining degree
in medicine, there is that beautiful
profession, not yet filed, though many
are already in it, of the trained nurse.
Two or three years of study and train
> ing and hard work will establish for a
sensible, healthy girl in this line u reg
ular clientage that will insure her a
respectable living, with less anxiety,
hard work and privation than falls to
the lot of thousands Of actresses.
Speaking of actresses, the wonder
never ceases that so many girls stand
continually and beg before the locked
doors of this profession. Not that the
doors are locked in any but a meta
phorical sense. Almost any girl can
get u chance to try her hand at the
stage in one capacity or another, but 50
many and so great are the obstacles in
the way of any success when on it, that
much of the T. honest but misguided
efforts would be ludicrous if 1t were not
so pathetic. 1t is the same way with
literature. Numbers of women waste
time, money and the brains they have,
writing stories and poems of perhaps
medium merit, but absolutely worthless
from marketable point of view. and
think themselves uniustly treated
because publishers will not pay for
them, when like perseverance and
energy in more prosaic but less
crowded calling, would insure them
satisfactory returns.
For the less ambitious class of womer
who must be eself-sustaining, sewing ha.
long been the old standby, but the
slavish toll and pitiful pay in connec-
tion with most of it makes the higher
branches of it alone attractive. Oh
these branches millinery is one, and t
novel method of following the pursuit
is now coming into vogue. Shilful
milliners are now beginning to go out
to work by the day at the houses of
their customers. A girl of good taste
and skill can in this way easily com
mand $5 a day and get more work thar
she can do, after once establishing {
round of customers who approve hel
work and ideas. Needless to say it i
much cheaper for her patrons (ant
this is the secret of the success of the
innovation) to buy their own materia
under her direction and have it made
up under their own eyes according tt
the notion of the milliner or after any
design that has caught the eye of the
owner in shop-window or fashion-plate
Such bonnet or hat may be made fol
IS that will be fac-simile of the gen
uine imported 500 French article. N
y Tribune.