The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-07-07

of responsibility lies between that
which is useful and that which is use
less. If women do that which is of no
value, their work is honorable. If they
do practical work, it is dishonorable.
That our young women may escape the
ccusure Of doing dishonorablo work
shall particularize. You may knit tidy
for the back of an armchair, but by no
means make the money wherewith to
buy the chair. You may, with delicate
brush, beautify a mantel ornament, but
die rather than earn enough to buy q
marble mantel. You may learn artistic
music until you can squall Italian, but
never sing "Ortonville" or "Old Hun
dred. Do nothing practical if you
would in the tyCs of refined society pre-
serve your respcctability | scout these
finical notions. / tell you no woman,
any more than man, has right to &C.
cupy u place in this world unless she
pays a rent for it.
In the course of lifetime you con-
sumo whole harvests and droves of cat
tie, and every day you live breathe 40
hoes!io Is of good pure air. You must
by some kind of usefulness pay for all
this. Our race was the last thing Great
ed-the birds and fishes on the fourth
day, tho cattle and lizards on the fifth
day and man ON the sixth day. If geol-
ogists are right, the earth was q million
of years in the possession of the insects,
beasts and birds before our race came
upon it. In one sense we were inno-
vators. The cattle, the lizards and the
hawks had presumption right. The
question is not what we are to do with
the lizards and summer insects, but
what the lizards and summer insects
are to do with u.s.
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 it's break
fast before it eats it. The Bible gives
an intimation that the first duty of an
idler is to starve when it says if he
twill not work neither shall he cat. "
Idleness ruins the health, and very soon
nature says: This man has refused to
pay his rent Out with himr'
The Toll of the Needle.
Society is to be reconstructed on the
subject Of wonan's toll. A vast majority
of those who would have woman indus
trious shut her up to n few kinds Of
work. My judgment in this matter is
that a woman has right to do anything
she can do well. There should be no de-
partment of merchandise, mechanism,
art or science barred against her If
Miss Hosmer has genius for sculpture
give her a chisel. If Rosa Bonheur has
a 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.
1t is said if woman is given such
opportunities she will occupy places
that might be taken by men. I'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.
cate that she is untitled for exhausting
toll. | ask in the name of all past his
tory 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
AK, have made no such havoc as the
needle. would that these living sepul.
chers i'll 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 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 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
worbmen 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 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, l say, if there be any prefer
ence in occupation, let woman 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. Oh, the meanness, the de-
| lpicability of men who begrudge wom-
an the right to work anywhere in my
honorable calling!
go still further and say that women
should have equal compensation with
men. By what principle of justice is il
that women in many of our cities get
only two-thirds as much pay as men,
and in many cases only half? Here 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 81, 800.
To thousands of young women in our
cities today there is only this alternative
starvation or dishonor Many of the
largest mercantile establishments Of oul
cities are accessory to these abomina.
tons, and from their large establish
ments there are scores of souls being
pitched off into death, and their EN-,
ployers know it!
The Wall of Womanhood.
Is there God? Will there be judg.
ment? l tell you, if God rises up to no,