The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-11-28
BUSINESS WOMEN.
How Different Types from Different
Chimes Regard Money.

A wider interest would have been
| given to that interesting article in the
current Century on the effect OF the
war upon Southern womanhood if the
man who wrote it had added to his
study of the Southern woman in the
South a short study of the Southern
women in the North. The Southern
woman in the North is an example to
Northern women in her conduct OF
business matters. There are in New
York probably as cosmopolitan a set
of working women today as can be
found in any quarter OF h globe
drawing breath and salaries. There
are women from the far West and the
middle West. and from the East and
from the South. And the way in
which these different and interesting
women conduct themselves toward
the business side of their work is im-
proving information.
You will find a Western women often
working for less than she's worth.
Sometimes it is because she really
doesn't know what she's worth, and
sometimes because she doesn't care
what she's worth. When she draws
her weeks salary she shoves it jovial-
ly and c~arelessly into her chatelaine-
bag. She rarely ever counts it.
whats the cashier for?" she asks, ii
YOU demonstrate with her. And then
She goes off jingling her bag at her
side and breaks the largest bill into
fragments before she gets home. It's
easy to deal with her in money mat
ters because she isn't afraid of them.
She'll talk always as comfortably and
evenly about the salary she should
have, as if she were quite another per-
son from the one under discussion.
Not so with the Eastern girl. To
settle a business matter with her is
quite another thing. She seems to
regard the money part of it as an in
cident, an a~fterthought. She insists
in treating it with fine contempt. and
speaks of it as compensation" until
a man feels that he has been guilty OF
indelicacy in mention ing it. And it
isn't affectation SO much as a kind OF
inbred nonsense that business life
hasn't taken out of her yet.
But the Southern woman, bless you!
thereisn't a bit of %nonsensea about her.
She's the Misunderstanding, the shrewd-
est, the best matched to man in bust
ness matters of any woman you can
find. With the offer of her services,
comes the statement of the sum OF
money she expects for it. While the
employer haws and hedges-as he is
sure to do-she huns Dixie" and
looks out of the window. She knows
he'll take her terms and she to
give him full return for what she gets.
Then when all this is arranged, she
insists on having a good stout con-
tract made. Then she goes to work
with a calm heart. 1t is by no means
to be inferred from this that the
Southern woman is a grasping crea-
ture. Not in the least, she's generous
to a fault in the use OF her money.
But she has a well-defined business
instinct up in that sentimental head
of hers that won't allow her to throw
her work away, however lavishly she
may dispense her dollars.
The strangest it part OF all is, that
this unusual business instinct should
be found imbedded in such sentiment
as YOU find in the Southern woman.
The Western woma isn't sentimental
at all: the Eastern woman is only
commemorative and reflective; the
Southern woman with all her expert
ence and shrewdness in money mat
tiers hasn't lost a bit of the ~deliciously
romantic charm that characterized her
before the war. She works royalty,
but she never for an instant relin-
uuishes her belief that no woman
ought to work. She still looks up to
man as a god-like and superior crea-
ture, and she never accepts the fact
that a woman should ride In anything
but her own carriage, go out after
dark without an escort, or open the
door herself.
And it's a good belief. 1t isn't COM
Portable for her always, because she
finds things so at variance with it,
but it's good for men to feel that
somebody still insists upon and ex-
poets from them all things that are
gentle and unselfish. And it is just
as we'll for other women-too busy,
h%urrying, unsentimental women, who
a little heed to these things-that
there are still women who have the
instinct gently to exact Difference and
kindly courtesy from all men.
Some one should supplement the
Centuyy's study to the effect of the
war upon Southern women with
wider consideration as to what the
war ala IOF WOMEN I'LL over Tue COuu-
try. 1t was no doubt the most ire
mendous factor in bringing about
their royal activity and Independence
today. 1t aroused the energies of all
the women of the country, North and
South, as no other question could
have done. They spoke and wrote
and worked and suffered, and when
the war did come they went into hos
| pitfalls and camps al nurses, North or
| South, or they stayed at home and
sewed and cooked for the soldiers. A
part of them organized the sanitary
fair-a tremendous business enterprise
and carried it on successfully. That
gave them a chance to see what bust
ness life was and to feel their own
capacity for it. 1t aroused every
latent capacity and energy; it made
| them executive and self-reliant. They
found out that women could do al
most everything, and from that day
to this they haven't let go their grasp
on anything for an instant; they
have only been reaching out for
more.
Last of all, and, perhaps, most
potent of all, is the influence of the
thousands of young women both in
the North and the South whom the
Civil War robbed of the opportunity
of marrying. 1t is safe to estimate
that there are many thousands oil
these, since INC than half of the