DeSoto times. (Hernando, Miss.) 1879-1898, 1890-05-29
IN WOMAN'S BEHALF.
PREPARING FOR ACTION.
Reforms Necessary to Enable Woman to
Successfully Compete With Men In Busi-

| successfully compete with heh IN buSl-
| ness,
The remarkable thing in the recent
rapid transit of young lady round the
| globe is not 50 much that she accom-
| plished the feat in a week less than the
| famous hero Of Jules Verne, but that
she came back, according to the news
papers, in the same dark blue cloth suit
in which she set forth, and with a hand
| bag no larger. These appointments,
says a writer in EIarpcrs Bazar, were in
fact the key note to her success; if her
love of dress had been stronger, her
story had been longer Madame Ida
| Pfeifrer. the eminent woman traveller OF
forty years ago, used to say that any
other woman might travel as widely and
persistently as she did, by simply max
ing up her mind to 90 without band
box. But the Journey Of life is much
more serious thing than trip round the
planet; it takes scvcnty-two years IN
stead of scventy-two days; and it de-
mands, equally with the bricfer jour
ney, that one should travel but little
with baggage, if one would travel in
earnest And now especially, when
women are resolved to come face to face
with practical outside life in great
many ways, they must act accordingly,
Like vessels going into action, they
must shorten sail.
OF course the item of dress affords the
readicst illustration. Every teacher in
a mixed school must see the advantage
enjoyed by his boys over his girls in the
greater convenience Of their costume
for studio or laboratory purposes, EV-
cry father knows that his young son
will run to the post-ofiice and back in
the Just five minutes" demanded by his
sister to put on properstreet dress aud
button her gloves. knew of an instance
the other day where a young lady who
had charmed all eyes in the costume Of
medieval princess in tableau ylvant
confessed to an admirer that her first
duty the next morning would be to pre-
side at the dissection of cat in the lab
orat0ry, where She was stuying anato-
my. Instead of being, like the princess
in the fable, transformed into cat
again. She was to undergo the change,
almost equally difficult, into the anat-
omiZcr of a cat No doubt a young man
wound nave some similar change OF ward
, robe to make in passing from evening
, dress to surgery dress and back again;
I but for him it would usually involve
I only the iiinging of a garment or two on
one chair and picking up other garments
from another; whereas with her the in
terchangC would involve a prolonged
session, with mbOunded aid from SIS
ters, drcssing-maids, mirrors, and pin
, cushion. 1t needs no argument to show
, how women are embarrassed as com
y pared with mon by the incXorable de-
mands of costume: but the remedy Is not
, easy. at least for one Of the other sex tt
! prescribe.
But, in shortening sail for action,
, other things beside dress need to be re.
trenched. Multitudes of women arc
!. gradually sliding into nervous proStra'
, ton, not so much through the work they
o do as through the effort to combine il
9 with that network of social obligations
J. from which men in similar case WouIC
u detach themselves. AS a rule. i'll ouI
colleges, and even in business the hard
4 working men are not the "society men,
:, they make their choice, and do not cX
f. pcct to study hard for half the night ant
# then dance equally hard for the rest;
J. is the effort Of their sisters to do TIM
~ which wears them out. 1t was said OF
Il brilliant Bostonian lately dead that h'
d was suddenly transformed from leade
n of tho german to Woodworking law
, yer by the scntcntiOus remark of a.
# elder sistcr-"It is better to be man o
books than a man of tocS;' but 1T IS
hard doctrine to impose upon sex S
born for airy motion that, as Jca
" Paul says, it would be easy for them
make forced march Of fifty miles if
ot could be done by dancing. And 50 {
Il the whole routine Of society; while tn
lc author or artist or philanthrOpist II
ot man. knows that he must simply foreg
10 ninc-tcnths of it, and that he will b
IT, hardened for so doing, a woman in tn
d. same position finds it infinitely harde
Us to make the sacrifice, and is not, lib
lo him, excused for doing SO. One of II
le most eminent women physicians
X America, when | asked her how 81
'll could possibly combine. her profcssic
oy with her duties to her young chlldre
1g proved to me that her professional cal
e. and Office hours did not, all told, take
H. much of her time from these little ont
or as was given by other ladies similar
OF placed to what they consider their soci
u dutss. But" she said, lin order tn
Ill | may do this those social duties mu
as be absolutely ignored I do igno
H - them; but give great deal of often
20 by so doing. Were | man, shou
nu not be ssked to combine them.
9o In the same way remarkable womi
n' carried on large factory in new En-
- land town with the greatest succe
NC told me that the strain on her was mn
y, greater than if she had been a man, |
Az cause, although she had no childre
~ she was expected to keep house, to te'
~ sick neighbors, even to watch with the
he at night, as if she had no other duty.
W aWo see no relief for women who feel the
40 selves bound to some work incompatlt
VI with their usual feminine occupatio
VI except to ''mal1e their choice 'twiXt Il
w and that" as Emerson says, and fore
~ the one or the other. Nor is this
w end of their needed abnegations.
i ,,Y4