The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1896-03-28
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Jersey City women have cause to be
proud because Miss Mary #. Philbrook.
of this city. the first New Jersey woman
lawyer. will be the first Mistress in Chan
Gerry.
The bill which she had drawn and in
reduced has passed both branches. She
urged the bill through the Senate n
House in one day, and was rewarded by
hearing her courage eulogized by the
young bachelor lawyers.
She was seated in the gallery at the
time. After sounding her praises. the
first Mistress in Chaneery was given the
privilege of the floor by resolution of
Leader Robinson. but instead of taking
the floor she took the first train for Jer-
sey City. satisfied that she had made a
good fight.
She has the Governors promise that he
will afix his autograph to the bill.
Miss Philbrook has successfully led her
sex into a profession which until last
year was closed to them in this State.
She applied to the Supreme Court for ex-
animation as an attorney, but they re-
fused her because Of her sex, and she had
a bill passed last yea giving power to
the Supreme Court examiners to examine
a woman.
There was some opposition to the bill,
many of the young lawyers thinking that
they saw a dangerous professional rival
in the woman lawyer. She fought hard
for several weeks and won. She had al
ready been a notary public. and last year
she was made a commissioner of deeds.
Now she is in a fair way to become a
Mistress in Chancery, which will vest her
with some small judicial powers.
At an important meeting of women not
long since, women who represented
everything that was radical and strong
and new" it was a funny thing to see
the stage strewn with rocking chairs, of
all things the insignia and symbol of frail
femininity. What was more, the new
women, presiding officer and all, sat in
the chairs and rocked placfdfy away dur
ing the reading of reports and minutes,
the passing of resolutions. the seconding
of motions and all the rest of it, just as
though 1t were a matter of course. But
it was homogeneous.
Those swaying; lively chairs suggested
the nursery and sewing room and kim
dred domestic details that were somehow
strangely at variance with the otherwise
business, practical aspect of affairs. One
fell to wondering whether the presiding
officer would not be addressed as Mad
ame Rocking Chairman" But one also
wondered whether the rocking chair was
not an unacceptable thing for wowan-the
American woman, that is to say, whether
she could no more get away from it or
get rid of it than she could her own iden-
tity. 1t is true that good taste, coupled
with a growing appreciation of foreign
standards, has ban.shed tine rocker from
the American drawing room, but it Still
holds it's own in boudoir, nursery and
other none the less important because
more intimate apartments.
It is now SAID that the rocking chair is
gradually making it's way into other
countries, that English women and even
those of the more conservative Continent
are beginning to realize the boon and the
blessing that 1t is to womankind. 1t is a
curious fact thai it is to womankind alone
that it appeals. Men seldom sit in a rock
ing chair, and when they do it is with an
uneasy. n-ot-accustorned air that betrays
their non-appreciation at once. 1t is the
proud boast of Philadelphia that it's draw
LIE 1OOAi5 D0dSl l14OIC IOIAlllS CIdIIS lildul
any other city in the world.
Il physician once said: 9Th rocking
chair is nothing more nor less than am
expression Of the nervousness of the
American woman. She must have some
vent for her surcharged feelings, her
overweight, highly strung sensibilities.
and she resorts to the rocker. 1 don't
know that 1t is an Objectionable habit
rocking. 1t is, in a measure, an outlet, an
escape valve for much that would other
wise be pent up and react upon the wo-
man herself. I do know this, however
you can always tell a nervous woman by
The amount of rocking she does.
Under pressure of any worry, excite
ment or irritation, she flies to her rocker
as the drunkard to his bottle or the opium
fiend to his pipe. And she rocks, rocks,
rocks, first violently and spasmodicaliy,
then, as her excitement cools, more slow
ly and steadily, until the worry and irri-
tation or whatever else 1t may nave been
abates. Then the rocking ceases altogether
and the woman sits tranquil and quiet.
mo. I shouldn't call the rocking chair
the American womans. enemy; her best
friend, rather, for 1t acts like a kind of
lightning rod. carrying off force thai
might otherwise wreck and ruin her"
A man was heard saying the other day:
He says that the average woman has
as erroneous an idea Of business ways and
means as her pet pug. Indeed" he says
further. tit wouldn't be surprising to find
out that puggie was the more practical
and enlightened of the two. His mistress
takes herself and her demands so serious
~. and what's more, she expects the same
sort of treatment from others. Above all
Is her view marrow, limited and irrational.
l tell you, you can't stir abroad at any
hour of the day without running across
some fresh testimony upon the subject.
For instance, there is the big dry goods |
shop of Ellis & Inches.
I'm the mind of the average woman this |
means that Messrs. ELS e Inches are
there all the time in body as well as
spirit, that they lift up their voices in
thanksgiving every time she has pur-
chased a 5-cent spool of thread, and that
they put on sackcIoth and ashes when she
decides to buy something elsewhere.
Like as not she wonders If it was Mr..
ELS or Mr. Inches who waited on her
last time"
1t SO happened that 1t was at the glove
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