The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-09-21
FEMALE LABOR ABROAD.
Woman on Her Muscle in Va
rious Lines Of Work in
Europe.
Moving Looks Hard, But IL Prob
ably as Healthful a.
Homework.

Outdoor Work for Women in Germany.
France, ireland and Other Coun.
tries-Is It Degrading?
Especial Correspondence of THE INDEPENDENT
HEDE1BERa, Sept. 1.-As the train pulled
slowly on the brightest morn ng OF last
week up the steep grade from Interlaken to
Lauterbrunnen, German-Swiss peasant
woman carrying basket of potatoes on her
back nearly kept pace with us on the road
way which climbs parallel with the rails.
The sun Just beginning to peep into the
deep valley struck her blue petticoat. white
chemise and black bodice, and her head,
covered only by braids of hair, heavy but
faded by exposure. Her face was brown
\ like her arms barred to the elbows. The
basket was large and funnel shaped and its
contents heavy, but she bent to the ascent
with the long step, slow to the eye and un-
graceful but easy, of the practiced noun
taineer, knitting steadily as she climbed.
"Do see the poor creature," said the Brit
ish matrcn who was my vis-a-vis, ''the
women hereabouts are like go many beasts
4 of burden, they are nothing more than
slaves"' And paterfamilias, who had been
debating to her about her wraps and the
window shades, and to his two daughters,
during the entire trip, after the amusing of
your true EnRlishman, leaned from the
window with corroborative smile.
! Arrived at the station paterfamilias
grasped his alpenstock and the two girls
mounted mules for the ascent Of the
WenRern Alp to see the JunRfrau in her
majesty. Materfamilias looked at her long
cared steed, then down at her own portly
person, then hesitatingly at chaise por-
teur. Her husband permitted the substitu-
tion, but only three little bearers were i'm
mediately available, whereupon the knitter
came forward and offered herself for the
vacant pole, lifting her share of the 200
pounds accumulated by a too easy life and
too much novel reading, and starting up
the STONY path with an alacrity that pro-
not walk should pity the woman who could
carry her.
The amount of hard manual labor per-
formed by the German women is a subject
\ of universal comment among people of
other nationallties, and the returned tray
deeradations OF the sex as evidenced by
the saving and cutting of wood by wo-
! the work Of women with the pick
and shovel on the roads In South Ger
many, the carrying of hods of mortar.
with dogs in the drawing of milk carts,
and other customs which appear to him
strange.
In point of fact the employment of women
in outdoor labor is not peculiar to Ger
many, but is found in every country of
farm labor which is general attracts less at
tention from the hurried visitor, than the
town work, of which one sees most in the
realms of the Kaiser.
The few figures in the almost deserted
OF sps to
hang on the hawthorn hedges while they
pull the weeds from the potato hills, on
hands and knees, instead of using hoes. In
the equally forsaken Scottish highlands,
the tail Gaels. who come stalking down the
hillsides at evening, each with a bushel OF
more of freshly cut peats in her
apron, and a struggling root dug from
the bog, slung over her shoulder
belong to the Landscape, which would
not be complete without them. In
England the hardest and toughest lives are
in point of endurance, equal or surpass all
that one sees of the Swiss or Germans. On
the boats that ply up and down the Thames
and in Lancashire you may see the weather.
beaten face of the master" standing at the
door of the little square box that serve for
cabin, her hand on the helm. There she re-
mains, Sundays and weekdays alike, fifteen
hours or more day. The wind comes down
on the water with swoop, driving the rain
in her face and blowing her coarse shawl
almost off her shoulder, but she does not
stir. During the dismal passage through
and the "master." who does the smaller
share of the work and takes the lions share
of the spoils, disappears, but the woman
stands resolutely at the helm. Most of them
were born abroad, few can read or write,
and one never sees their silent, patient fig
with the gay houseboat crews and punters
who look on the rivers holiday side.
In France women oftener than men guard
the railroad crossings, raising and lowering
the gates. One afternoon on the edge Of
the forest of Fontainebleu ] remember
wheat harvest. All the color notes about
her were low toned. from the blues and
grays Of her apparel to the yellow brown Of
her skin, and her eyes were like those of a
patient animal. She was not a romantic
looking peasant as she bent lifting the
& OoV yOuOW OuAOASoS AdUAOI OAO VI tAo
women of Bastien Lepage, the honest
painter; but q would-be female Millet
or second edition of Marie Bash
klrtsef, seemed to have found her pic
turesque enough to be interesting, for an
easel was planted in the shade of straw
stack and the chic Parisienne, her high
heeled ribbon-tied slippers peeping from
under her skirts of muslin and Vaienciennes:
her broad brimmed, poppy-covered hat
pushed back from her forehead, was meas
uring the harvester against the sky with her
pencil while she sketched and ate apricots to
idle away the afternoon. The Parisienns's
sketch was a baddish one. while the har-
westerns sheaves were securely bound, and
vet one would wager the busy idle woman
achieving vast amount of nothing looked
down on the state of the other simply doing
La little of something.
When one gets into Switzerland the ap-
pellation of weaker sex as applied to women
seems altogether misnomer. In point of
endurance and often even of muscular
strength the peasant women of the remoter
valleys appear quite the equals of the mon.
One sees them moving on those green. beau
tiful slopes over which the snow peaks tower,
and party of girls swinging the antique