Wichita eagle., 1888-02-09
WOMAN AND HOME.
THE GROWING SCARCITY OF YOUNG
WOMEN FOR HOUSEWORK.

Good Health and Physical Beauty-Made
Dishes-Plain Talk for Husbands-''No-
abs Ark" ouilt-A Fat woman's Com
plaint-Hints for the Household.
An elderly wife, who had advertised in
vain for several months, said:
''The great evil in America, as have
learned it from many housewives from many
cities, is the growing scarcity of females for
homework The factories, mills, sewing
rooms, offices of all kinds, shops. etc. are at
tracing young women, who consider house
work disgrace. Very many young women
would rather toll from morning until night
for So week and pay for their own board
than do homework, which would yield them
twice as much money. There is entirely too
much false pride among the young women of
the country. They imagine doing homework
is disgrace. They forget the honest toll of
, their mothers. In many instances mothers
are to blame Of course. They don't want to
see the delicate hands of their daughters
soiled. They don't want them to be drudges
in any family, for fear their chances for suit
able marriages will be lessened. All that is
false and pernicious teaching The ability to
do homework as il should be done should be
the aim and object Of every young woman,
rich or poor But as long as this false idea
Of the humiliation of doing housework exists,
so long will young women rather work and
starve at doing something else. With the
present custom of abstaining from hGEse-
work, the dearth Of suitable help in the
household has become an alarming annoy
ance. We find it almost impossible to get
any well trained help. Families are giving
Up housekeeping and going to boarding.
There are too many ladies' with beautiful
hands.
They want TO be taught the dignity Of
labor. They want to be informed that hon
est young mechanics want wives who can
keep house. They want to know that sewing
girls are not wanted for housewives and the
entire community must know, sooner or
later, that the great underlying cause for so
much unhappiness in the home circle, not to
say poverty, distress and absolute crime, is
the fact that young women who marry know
nothing of housekeeping Their mothers are
deserving Of the most severe censure for this.
They connive with their daughters to deceive
prospective husbands, and when the young
women become wives they disappoint their
come Of the husband is frittered away nothing
issayed and chaos comes into that home circle
have no pity for young women who starve
at fifty cents a day and who must board
themselves If they would shake off their
false pride, think less of the fine texture Of
their hands, leave the mill and factory, drop
the needle and vacate the garnet, and take
up respectable Homework, they would be far
better off. Such young women can solve this
whole problem themselves.
The supply of housework girls is drained,
and the supply of needle girls with beautiful
hands is flooded Both must be adjusted,
and poverty among women will disappear,
but false pride must lead the way. The best
women in the land do homework of some
kind, and no honest girl need be asha ned of
that sort of employment. On the contrary,
she should be proud of it, because every
sensible man viii think the more of young
woman if he is told that she is doing house
work for living and thus being correctly
schooled for the practical responsibilities of
married life Then, if she is well married
and does not need to do homework, she will
know how it ought to be done and her help
cannot deceive her. She will be independent
and thoroughly capable to care for herself.
Therefore to sum up, would advise sewing
women to drop the needle and take up house
work. New York Sun.