The Globe-republican., 1894-06-15

Do nothing practical. II You would. IN
the eyes of refined society, preserve
your respectability.
In the course of a lifetime you con-
sumo whole harvests. and droves of
cattle, and every day you live breathe
forty hogsheads of good. pure air. You
must, by some kind of usefulness, pay
for all this. Our race was the last
/ thing created-the birds and fishes on
the fourth day, the cattle and lizards
on the fifth day. and man on the sixth
day.
If we want place in this world we
must earn it. The partridge makes its
own nest before it occupies it. The
lark. by its morning song. earns its
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" Idleness ruins the health. and
very soon nature says: This man has
refused to pay his rent: out 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. Ny Judgment in this matter
is this. that woman has right to do
anything she can do well There should
! be no department of merchandise.
mechanism, art or science barred
against her.
1t is said. if woman is given such op-
portunities. she will occupy places that
might be taken by men. l 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. 1 ask in the name of all
past history. what toll on earth is more
severe. exhausting 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. would that these liv-
ing sepulchers in which women have
for ages been buried might be opened.
and that some resurrection trumpet
Ia Up living Sci PSSS "
the fresh air and sunlight.
Go with me and 1 will show you a
| wonoln 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.
Such woman as that has body and
soul enough to fit her for any position.
She could stand beside the majority of
your statesmen and dispose of more
goods. She could GO into your wheel
wright shops and beat one-half of your
workmen at making carriages. We
talk about woman as though we had
resigned to her all the light work. and
ourselves had shouldered the heavier.
But the day of judgment which will
reveal the sufferings of the stake and
inquisition. will marshal before the
throne of God and the hierarchs of
Heaven the martyrs of wash-tub and
needle.
Now. say. if there be any prefer
ence in occupation. let women have it.
God knows her trials are the severest.
BY her acuter sensitiveness to misfor-
tune, by her hour of anguish demand
that no one hedge up her pathway to a
livelihood.
1 go still further. and say that
women should have equal compensa-
ton with men. By what principle of
justice is it that woman in many of our
cities get only two-thirds as much pay
as men, and in many cases only half?
Here is the gigantic injustiee-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 Washington got 5000 for
doing that for which men received ST.
500.
To thousands of young women in our
cities to-day there is only this alterna-
tive. starvation or dishonor. Many of
the largest mercantile establishments
of our cities are accessory to these
denominations: and from their large es-
Establishments there are scores of souls
being pitched off into death; and their
employers know it.
There are about 10000 sewing girls
in New York and Brooklyn. Across
the darkness of this night l hear their
death groan. 1t is not such a cry as
comes from those who are suddenly
hurried out of life. but slow, grind
ing. horrible wasting away. Gather
them before you and look into their
faces, pinched, CHASTITY, hunger struck!
Look at their fingers. needle-pricked
and blood-tipped. Hear that dry, hack
ing. merciless cough.
Stand at the corner of a street in
New York in the very early morning as
the women go to their work. Many of
tSem had no breakfast except the
crumbs that We're left over from the
night before. or crust they chew on
their way through the street. Here
they come the working girls of the