The St. Johns herald., 1894-12-13
THE SURPLUS GIRL.
Better for Her to Work Than to B.
 Thrown Into the River.

Better for Her to work Than to Be Thrown Into the River.
 The tendency of an increasing popu.
 laiion is nearly always to an overpro-
 du.tion-or at least to what is gen.
 orally considered an overproduction- of girls, and the result is problem
 which has been the cause of much vex- atio1s and unsatisfactory thinking in ! all ages, says the St. Louis Republic. The Chinese have a solution which they;oolz on as final, but in many other countries there is such objection to the idea of throwing surplus girl babies into u river that it can hardly op- ! crate v .th the same success which at tends if in China.
 As n, yarc not thrown into the river they Grt " up and then they must get q living iK some way. This has occurred to Lacy Emily Dill1o, and has moved her to T .i7e al investigation of their condition
 Tie Ei tarc clic draws il the Fort nightly o-;ew i5 2 gloomy one. She co1clrcss tt!ic.o t:lc secret Of Highlands
 naE-, sea lri;lC, supremacy is the cheap l5cT 'vo;n n acl g3ri5 and she is
 10 ( I ? opinion t;iac the results of
 'e+t;D";5 y71.,i-,n a.l.j girls to work to
 Ike Ct : ca1..isl:3., of tho head of the family e sin; ly suicidal"
 It is lio Loubt true th2t the success ef English manufactures depends largely on the cheap labor of women and girls, and we venture to say that it is to some extent true of every successful manufacturing country. It is certainly true of the New England states, which are notorious for their overproduction of girls.
 It is not necessary to dwell on the evils incident tc, any industrial system which relies mainly on such labor. They are apparent. But the assump- tion that they outweigh the benefits is rash indeed.
 The increa siIg employment of women and girls ln production means that through the advance of civiliza- tion, resulting in the invention of highly improved machinery, work can now be done by women that was for merly far beyond their strength. When one girl can operate machine that will do the work of five fully de- veloped men it is useless to expect that Ghe five men will be employed in place of the one girl and the machine.
 It is also illogical an1 short-sighted to look . the improvements in machin- cry which increases the demand for fe- male labor as an evil in itself.
 The English or the German peasant girl wh Q works on the far,n does much harder and moro brutaHziag labor than the gi-3 ot the factory. Many evils at tend the employment of girls in opcr- ating machines. No father who can support his daughters should allow them to go into a factory. The girl is most fortunate who can afford to grow up with 10 other business than that of housewife" But as all are not su- premely fortunate it is well to recog. nize that what may seem aa unmixed evil may be re; lily minor benefit.
 It is better fer girls to worlI in fac tories and stores than to be thrown into the river, as happens to them in China, CT to be obliged to use the mat toci and spade in the fields as they are in Europe.
 We are not doing nearly as we Il as we might il this matter or in any other, but still we are doing a great deal better chan professional pessimists are capable of understanding.