The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-12-09
A DEFENDER OF HER sen.
FELICIA HoL1's REPLY no Pro
EESsOR L. ID. COPE.

Aoout tne faSh1On
Felicia Hole writing in the Ladies
Home Journut jubs her pen into Prof
&. d. Cope in the manner reproduced be
low. 1t is the old family quarrel IL
the great household of humanity, bui
like smaller domestic difficulties it is in
terestiEg to the spectator when it doesn'
get too bitter. Unfortunately the simiI
arity goes further, tor very little goot
results from these controversies. If the
great household is to be r~eorganized fol
its beneft-which heaven grant--it must
be done on scientific principles.
According TO Prof. Cope" says Felicis
Holt, women of a niger race or family
Will display superior traits to men OF q
lower race or family. and hence women
of superior lineage provoke favorable
COMPARISON with men whose ancestors
have emerged from ~semi-sayagery within
a comparatively recent period"
1t is not my intention to go into an ex-
haustive reply to all the professors state
ments, but / should like to speak a few
words of defence for "weak women
whose frailties seem to increase as the ink
flows from the writer's pen. Taking up a
few of the charges such as;-"We find in
men q greater capacity for work in those
departments of Intelligence which require
AlCClActhACll IA VI u llISI OIdCIs ~ Ii VIZ
remember the very short time hat wo-
men have had opportunity to show what
they may do in those departments, and
how limited the opportunities are as yet,
and then consider how feminine deftneSS
has already given great promise, we may
reflect with pride hat in the coming
years woman viii compete with, and fair
ly rival, the master workman of her
time.
WOMEN BREAD WINNERS.
AS to the sop which the critic would
US in the possession of capacity" in the
department of aesthetics of the person, we
could scarcely claim a monopoly with
justice when IN remembers that anon
oily called the dude" AS to woman's
deficiency of endurance of the rational
faculty and a general i~ucapacity for men
tai strain" Mary Sommerville's superior
ity was admitted by the first scientists in
Europe, and Christine Ladd Franklin, a
fellow of the Johns Hopkins university.
is one Of the best nlathematicians in this
country, Il so | might go on citing
many brilliant females whose reputa-
ton are world wide, but what end would
be gained, as | should be told that they
are the exception, moi the rule.
True, but give us time and justice, and
then behold the result.
To the statement that 1.-The best emo
lions are aroused in the man who finds a
woman dependent upon himf for support"
l would reply, had the critic carefully
noted the police accounts, he would have
found that many men refuse to contrib
ute, from the marriage day, one cent of
support for either wife or child, hence
the constant appeals before the magis-
trate and suits for non-support. AS to
the difficulty of reducing the male mar
to condition of the drone bee,o of the
process itself / shall not speak; but how
about those who are TO the manner born,
who have been, and ever will be, drones
creatures who are fed and clothed by
the wife's earnings, and who do not hest
tate to accept all the comforts of life from
the inferior animal? There has been
more than one kind of Mantellini, and
Dickens could more easily have reduced
him to the turning of the mangle on pa
per than in real life.
Scores of weary women who are the
sole bread winners for their families can
testify to the hard earned weeks wages
being wrested from them by their So
called lords and masters, while they and
their little ones go ~supperless to bed.
Surely hose who are studentS of human
nature in the alleys and byways of life
who have visited the hospitals and pris-
ons, in the first, ministering to the vic
Tins of the cowardly ruffian whose
rational faculty. is the boast of his sex,
and whose right to vote is never chal-
lenged, or, in the second, counsefing
patience to the forlorn wretch who finds
4 barred cell q safer refuge than 1.-The pro-
lection afforded her by the male''-surely
these nave seen far more SignificantS
sights than s'the loading up of wagons
with women to vote the mems W
ticket" which the Professor declares in
italics, he has witnessed in Wyoming
Territory.
It is not Il rational reference that, if the
labor of man and woman was recognized
DC hauirp anno1 alQinu no1Jroopt fhara-
fore would be the same? Whereas now
there are always SO many per cent.
locked OFF for the weaker vessel, although
it carries as much weight.
FULL DAYS'S WORK.
The woman teacher who performs the
same duties as the man teacher, and who
| gives equal satisfaction to the Board. but
who is unhesitatingly cut do xn in the
matter of salary because she is a woman;
the woman clerk, no matter how inteili-
gent or ready u peninau, who canno OBJ
tain equal pay with a man; the man
tailor, who doubles his price and gets it
over the woman tailor, even the little
''cash" girls in u great stores, who
mus. submit to q smaller dole than their
little masters-an of these suffer simply
because they do not wear the pantaloons.
So it is from highest TO lowest in posi-
ton, woman is often the object of the
greatest injustice She is kept tolerably
wen QuLltI, dlh u SICt ID Sdld ny IlOIe
than one Noah Claypole; not that s'she is
so full of aimlessness and pe~ttishness,"
as the professor kindly states, but simply
because her sex is against her. Being
under the old law the woman that was
given to be with the man." the new dis
pensation has not yet sufficiently emanci-
pated her to permit her recognition in
| much, as mans co-wCrker, and entitled
IL simplest justice TO the same remuner-
alton.
It is for this large proportion of our
population that every clear souled woman
must feel q righteous indignation. The
| more sheltered and tende the condition
OF the one. the stronger the appeal of the
| other; pushed as she often is by the in
| capacity of the male into the hurry
burly OF the market place, finding
that man, who should be the readiest
to help her on. regards her as put Of her
sphere or simply as a venturesome enemy
who must beat u rapid retreat at the
first fusilade. The best of men will give
women compliments and caresses, but
they refuse them, with a strange irration
alitv attributed only to the weaker sex,
the earnest acknowledgment of their
rights.
In the street car ami in the crowded
highway may be seen, night and morn
ing, the women toilers going TO and from
their daily labor. Surely they must be
less frivolous and Illogical chan some
charge them with being, or places could
not be found in which they might work,
Or is 1t that the capacity OF man is
greater than is generally supposed. and
that he ayails himself of these women
employees. finding them quite as able and