Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1894-06-07

| escape the censure of doing dishonor-
able work. shall particularize You
may knit a tidy for the back of an arm
chair, but by no means make the
money wherewith TO buy the chair
You may, with delicate brush, beauti-
fy a mantel ornament, but die rather
than earn enough to buy marble
| manteL You may learn artistic music
until you can squall Italian, but never
sing ''Ortonville' or "Old Hundred I"
Do nothing practical, if you would, in
the eyes of refined society preserve
your responsibility. / scout these
finical notions tell you no woman,
any nor than man, has bright to
| occupy place in this world unless
she pays rent for it.
If we want place in this world we
must earn it. The partridge makes it's
! own nest before he occupies it. The
lark, by its morning song, earns it's
breakfast before it eats it, the Bible
| gives an intimation that the first duty
of an idler is to starve, when it says if
he will not work, neither shall he
! eat" 1dleness ruins the health; and
very soon Nature says, This man has
| refused to pay his rent; ont with him.
Society is to be reconstructed on the
| subject of woman's toll A vast ma
jority of those who would have woman
| industrious shut her up to few kinds
of work. My judgment in this matter
| is, that a woman has right to do any
thing she can do we'll. There should
be no department of merchandise,
mechanism, art or science barred
| against her If Miss Hosmer has genius
for sculpture, give her a chisel. If
Rosa Bonheur has fondness for de-
lineating animals, let her make ''The
Horse Fair If Miss Mitchell will
study astronomy, let her mount the
starry ladder. If Lydia will be mer-
chant, let her sell purple If Lucretia
Mott will preach the gospel, let her
thrill with her womanly eloquence the
Quaker meeting house
1t is said if woman is given such OPP
portunities she will occupy places that
might be taken by men. / say if she
have more skill and adaptedness for
any position than man has let her
have it! She has as much right to her
bread, to her apparel, and to her
home as men have.
But it is said that her nature is so
delicate that she is untitled for ex-
hausting toll. l ask in the name of
all past history what toll on earth is
more severe, eXhausting and tremen-
dous than toll of the needle to which
for ages she has been subjected? The
% m ha
the battle-axe have made no such
havoc as the needle. l would that
these living sepulchres in which
women have for ages been buried
might be opened, and that
some resurrection trumpet might
bring up these living corpses
to the fresh air and sunlight.
! go still further, and say that
women should have equal compensa-
ton with men. BY what principle of
justice is it that women in many of
our cities get only two-thirds as much
pay as men, and in many cases only
half? Here is gigantic injustice
that for work equally well, if not bet
ter done, woman re ceiyes far less COM
pensation than man. Start with the
national government: for long while
women clerks in Washington got 5000
for doing that for which men received
81, 500
TO thousands of young women in
our cities to-day there is only this
alternative: starvation or dishonor.
Many of the largest mercantile estab-
ishments of our cities are accessory to
these denominations; and from their
large establishments there are scores
of souls being pitched off into death;
and their employers know it.
Is there a God? VIII there be a
judgment? l tell you, if God rises up
to redress woman's wrongs, many of
our large establishments will be swal-
lowed up quicker than South Ameri-
can earthquake ever took down a city.
God will catch these oppressors be-
tween the two mill stones of his
wrath and grind them to powder!
hear from all this land the wall of
womanhood Man has nothing to an
swer to that wall but batteries. He
says she is an angel, She is not She
knows she is not. She is human be-
ing, WIZ SctS hungry WITCH Suc ndS
food, and cold when she has no
fire. Give her no more batteries; give
her justice!
There are about $4,000 sewing girls
in New York and Brooklyn. Across
the darkness of this night / hear their
death groan 1t is not such a cry as
comes from those who are suddenly
hurled out of life, but slow, grind
ing, horrible wasting away. Gather
them before you and look into their
faces pinched, CHASTITY and hunger
struck! Look at their fingers. needle
pricked and blood-tipped! See that
premature stoop in the shoulders! Hear
that dry, hacking, merciless cough!
At a large meeting of these women,
held in hall in Philadelphia, grand
speeches were delivered, but needle
woman took the stand, threw aside
her faded shawl,a land with her shriveled
arm, hurled very thunderbolt of
eloquence speaking out the horrors of
her own experience.
Stand at the corner of street in
New York in the very early morning,
as the women go to their work. Many
of then, had M hraol-faSt avcapt the