The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-06-15


twist watch chain.
AS far as I can understand, the line
Of respectability 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. II
they do practical work it is dishonor-
able. That our young women may es-
cape the censure of doing dishonorable
work, / shall partlcularize. You may
knit a tidy for the back OF 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 mable mantel. You
may learn artistic music until you can
squat Italian, but never sing ''Orton-
vile or "Old Hundred Do nothing
practical, II you would, Ia the eyes of
refined society, preserve your respec-
liability. / scout these fnical notions.
/ tell you no woman, any more than a
man, has right to occupy place in
this world unless she pays a rent for it.
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 biologists are right, the earth
was a million Of years in the possession
of the insects, beasts and birds, before
our race came upon it. In one sense
we were innovators. 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 sum-
mer. insects are to do with US.
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 twill 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 a few kinds
of work. My Judgment in this matter
is this, that woman has right to do
anything she can doxell. There should
be no department of merchandise,
mechanism. art or science barred against
her. If Miss Hosmer has genius for
sculpture, give her chisel. If Rosa
Bonheur has a fondness for delineating
animals let her make THE Horse Fair .
If Miss Mitchell will study astrono-
my, let her mount the starry ladder.
If Lydia win be a 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 OPP
portunity she will occupy places that
might be taken by men. / say, if she
have more skill and adaptness for any
position than a man has, let her have
it! She has as much light 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. / 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. I would that these liv-
ing sepulchers 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 viii 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 neigbbor 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
worl0men 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 hierachs of
Heaven the martyrs of wash-tub and
needle.
Now, say, if there be any preference
in occupation, let women have it. God
knowns her trials are the severest. BY
her acuter sensitiveness to misfortune,
by her hour of anguish, demand that
no one hege up her pathway TO liveli-
hood. o, the meanness, the despicabili-
ty of men who begrudge aawoman the
right to work anywhere in any honor
able callingl
go still further, and say that wom-
en- 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 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 gov
/ eminent; for long while women clerks
in Washington got nine hundred dol
lars for doing that for which men re-
\ ceiyed eighteen hundred dollars.
To thousands of young women in our
cities to-day there is only this alterna-
I tive sfarUa xion ~ df<h0rov ATauvy 0f