The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1891-03-21
Where Women Must Work.

| When one gets into Switzerland the
women seems to be misnomer. In
point Of endurance, and often even OF
muscular strength, tho peasant women
of the remoter valley appear quite the
equals of the men. One sees them
moving on those green, beautiful slopes
over which the snow peaks tower, and a
party of girls swinging the antique
| Swiss scythes, with straight snaths, that
bend the figure so cruelty, cut broad
even swaths with the regularity Of vet.
rams They do not keep pace with
each other across the tields-one seldom
sees in the European peasant, mau or
woman, any pronounced signs Of emula-
ton. They do not work with any ap,
pearance of haste or conscious overflow
or energy, but in slow, plodding, IN.
firing fashion they work hour after hour,
beginning by $50 in the morning and
| turning homeward only when daylight
fails.
To see the storing of hay in the Alp
| inc chalets is to get new idea of the
| muscular prowess of women. The
crops Of the upper slope are packed in
| back loads to the little redbrown log
| structures that dot the mountains as
high as the cattle can find pasturage,
and the weight that woman will lift on
the wooden frame that is adjusted to
her shoulders and with which she will
climb, or, which often is harder, will
descend to the nearest chalet, dropping
her burden through hole in the roof,
from which the shingles and the heavy
stones that hold them in place have
been removed, is source of perpetual
wonder. When the harvest has been
gathered there are back baskets of man.
ure to carry to fit tt ground for winter
| crops, and even the little girls not yet IN
their teens climb like cats carrying their
own little back baskets well loaded.
On the Lake of Lucerne the boat
women are characteristic figures. The
long, low, black freight barges are
pulled from port to port by mixed crews
of men and women, from ten to twenty
to boat, vino work the heavy sweeps
standing. have counted three women
keeping stroke with dozen men, and
again the proportions reversed almost
exactly. Iu the heat of the day the
men strip to their waists and the women
unlace their bodIces and work with bare
arms and in the white peasant chemises.
Occasionally one sees women porters,
who pack portmanteaus and luggage of
all sorts up and down the mule paths for
the influx OF Summer visitors.
In Germany one can nowhere escape
the sight of the outdoor labor of women.
Along the fiat valley of the Middle Rhine
the vineyards, the yards. the grain
patches and the tobacco fields are full OF
them In an afternoons ride the proper
ton of women getting in the harvest
often seems as three to two men. In
these fertile lands there is a social, COM
panionable side to the work which one
might go far to find paralleled. In the
fields which stretch between the huddled
villages one sees whole families busy. At
one end of the corn strip, under tree or
dump of bushes, stands baby wagon.
Its occupant has learned to take life
philosophicslly, and croons at the blue
sky or gren leaves. At the noon hour the
midday meal Is eaten pic mic fashion,
with the baby wagon for centre, and
the young subject OF the Kaiser is passed
| with the black bread from hand to hand,
The loading of the great German hay
wagons is always interesting. You will
ses brown woman. her head tied up IN
scarlet kerchief, on top of the load,
distributing the forkfuls as they are
passed up to her. II one woman loads
| for one man her work is. the easier.
though requiring more skill. But when,
as one often sees, one woman loads for
three or four men, she bias by far the
hardest position. There are few evil
dences, indeed, of any division of work
between man and woman as to the
stronger and weaker animal. The ply
steal capacity of the woman is counted
on, and to all appearance, with good
on.-Pits6urg Ledger.