The midland journal., 1891-08-14

or three prices Tor having the WORK
done in skilful manner, if could
have hired any one to do it.
think l do not exaggerate when
say that of the countless number oi
washer.women scattered all over this
country, scarcely one in thousand
knows how to wash garment Of any
kind, as it should be washed. And 9
large portion of our national soiled
linen is sent home by whasher women
more soiled than when it went into
their hands; while that which passes
through laundries is seldom in better
condition. Ny experience with washer
women and laundries IS very similar to
my experience with dressmakers. My
clothing after being manipulated by
them for a few weeks becomes SO
shrunken that / have to discard it, or
SO dingy that I have either personally
OF by personal supervision, to attend to
its cleansing aud bleaching.
To keep the soiled clothing Of a
nation clean, healthful and in good
wearing condition. requires intelligence
and skill, combined with q vast amount
of well directed labor, and, for women,
who have sufficient gumption and
energy to do laundry work in a
Christian manner, there is wealth
waiting 10 every hamlet and in every
cross road. IF cleanliness comes next
to Goodness, and if Goodness induces
cleanliness. the spiritual condition of
the men and women who can, year after
year, contentedly wear clothing that is
once week mussed over by the average
launderer. does not indicate sufficient
ly high standard of Godliness to induce
one to look very hopefully for the
speedy coming of the millennium.
farmers wives and daughters used
to be capable of managing churns that
were operated by dogs, sheep or horse
power. and Of working and packing by
hand the butter yielded by twenty,
thirty, fifty or more cows. In the in
fancy of some of us, all the butter made
In the United States was made by
women, and although they generally
labored under many disadvantages,
much of it was equal to the finest gilt
edged butter turned out by the best
equipped creamery of to day. But as
creameries sprang up and machinery
was invented and introduced for saving
labor in churning, working and packing
butter, women slipped out of darying
and let men monopolize the businss
until now there is scarcely anywhere a
woman engaged in creamery. or in
legitimate dairying. 1t is universally
conceded that women handle milk,
cream, butter and other darying pro-
ducts more dexterously, and are in
every respect neater at dairy work than
men. They are adapted to such work.
1t is pleasant, healthful and profitable.
And if they desire to do it, they can, in
a few years have control of the milk
and butter business of the entire
country, and thousands of them find
therein remuneratiye employment.
The demand for honey is rapidly on
the increase, and has always been
greatly in advance of the supply.
Raising bees and honey is healthful
work in which great many women
might engage with pleasure and profit.
And from the immense number Of eggs
shipped into this country-between
thirty and fifty millions annualIy-one
would conclude that good many idle
women, if they desired work, might find
profitable employment producing poul-
try and eggs. Is looking after bees
such arduous work that it deters women
from attempting it? Or is the respou-
sibility OF raising poultry SO burden
some, that women eschew it?
Fruit raising is a rapidly growing
industry, and at meeting of the
Indiana horticultural Association last
winter it was announced, as the opinion
of the association, that for those who
wished to earn their own living there
is profitable field open in horticulture.
On nearly every corner of every
city in the Union, there is drug store,
but in none of them, as far as I know,
is there woman either as clerk or
proprietor. Why is this? Are women
so careless they can't be trusted to fill
prescriptions? Or is putting up pills
and powders such arduous labor, that
only able bodied men can perform it?
Eighteen years ago in New York
City, | became acquainted with young
wnnnan mho had nanoo;rol a. - ~ Al i.