Connecticut western news., 1894-06-07

for the back of en armchair, but by 10 means mako the money wherowith to buy tho chair. You may, with delicate brush. beautify mantel ornament, but dio rather than earn enough to buy n marble laantel. You may learn artistic music until you can squall Italian, but n,ver sing "Crtonville" or 'Old Hun- dlcd." Do nothing practical if you would in tho eyes of refined society pre- s, rye your responsibility. scout these i. .ical notions. 1 tell you no woman. any laure than man, has a right to oc- cepy pltla in this world unless she F ys a r2..t for it.
 h t'lo eoursa of lifetime you con sumo whole hGrvests and droves of cat tia, and every day you live breathe 10 hogsheads of good pure air. You must Ey solno kind of usefulness pay for ell this. Our race was tho last thing creat- e,l-the birds and fishes on the fourth day, the cattle and lizards on the fifth dny and man Cn tho sixth day. If geol- o;ists aro right, tho earth was a million of years in tho possession of the insects, beasts and birds baforc our race came upon it. In ono sense We were inno- vatogs. Tho cattle, tho lizards ;itd the hawks had pre-erption right. The question Is not what we are to do with tic lizards aud summer insects, but " hat the lizards and summer insects arc to do with Us. a.
 If we want place in this world, we r.ust earn it. The partridge makes its own nest before it occupies 1t. The lark by it's morning song earns its break fist before 1t eats it. The Bible gives an intimation that tho first duty of an i;,ler is to starvo when it says if he will not work neither shall he cat. :" Jdleness ruins the health. and very soon nature says: This man has refused to pay his rent. Gut with him!"
 The Foil of the Needle.
 Society is to be reconstructed on the subject of woman s toil A vast majority of those who would have woman indus trious shut her up to few kinds of work My judgment in this matter is that woman las a right to do anything she can do well. There should be no de- partment of merchandise, merchanism, art or science barred against her. If 1hiSo lAOoultI httS ESlhluS loh SSuiptuAS, give her chisel. If Rosa Bonheur has fondness for delineating animals, let her make ''The Horse Fair :" If Miss Mitchell will study astronomy, let her mount the starry ladder. If Lydia will be merchant, let her sell purple. If Lucretia Mott will preach the gospel, let her thrill with her womanly eloquence the Quaker meeting house
 It is said if Il woman is given such opportunities she will occupy places that might be taken by men. say if she have more skill, and adaptedness for any position than a man has let her have it. She has IS much right to her bread, to her apparel and to her home as men have.
 But it is said that her nature is so deli cato that she is unfitted for exhausting toil. l ask in the name of all past his tory what toll on earth is more severe, axhausting and tremendous than that toll of the needle to which for ages she has been subjected? The battering ram, the sword, the carbine, the battle ax, have made no such havoc as the needle. I woald that these living sepul- chers 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 with me, and I will show you a woman who by hardest toll supports her children, her drunken husband, her old father and mother, pays her house rent, always has wholesome food on the table, and when she can get some neighbor on the Sabbath to come in and take care of her family appears in church with hat and cloak that are far from indicating the toll to which she is subjected.
 Trials of Women.
 Such a woman as that has body and soul enough to it her for any position. She could stand beside the majority of your salesmen and dispose of moro goods. She could go into your wheel wright shops and beat one-half of your workmen ut making carriages We talk about woman as though we lad resigned to Ter all the light work, and ourselves had shouldered the heavier. But the day of judgment, which will reveal the suf- ferings of the stake and inquisition, will marshal before the throne of God and the hierarchs of heaven the martyrs of washtub and needle
 Now, 1 say, if there be any prefer ence in occupation, let woman have 1t. God knows her trials are the sevcrest. By her. acuter sensitiycneSs to nlisfor- tune, by her hour of anguish, 1 demand that no ore hedge up her pathway to a Hn hp 6n- spicability of men who begrudge wom- an the right to work anywhere in any honorable callingl E
 go still further and say that women should have equal compensation 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 ill many cases only half? Hero is the gigantic injustice-that for work equally well if not better done woman receives far less compensation than man. Start with the national government. For long while women clerks in Wash ington got 5000 for doing that for which men received s1, 800.
 To thousands of young women in our cities today there is only this alternative starvation CT dishonor. Many of the largest mercantile establishments of our cities are accessory to these abomina- tions, and from their large establish ments there are scores of souls being pitched of into death, and their em- ployers know iti
 #. The Vail of womanhood.
 
 Is there God? Will there be judg- ment? I tell you, if God rises up to re- dress woman's wrongs, many of our large establishments will be swallowed up quicker than South American earthquake ever took down a city. God will catch these oppressors between the two millstones of his wrath and grind them to powderI
 1 hear from all this land tho wall of womanhood. Man has nothing to an- swer to that vail but flatteries. He says she is an angel. She is not She knows