Birmingham state herald., 1896-01-05
woMAN's WORLD IN PARAGRAPHS.
Is the World Out of Joint With Women
 of Today?

Is the World Out of Joint With Women
 of Today?
 Last week ran away for two hours and went to parlor lecture. It was on the Philosophy of the New Life. v The new life and it's philosophy did not inn press me anything like so powerfully as the audience did. It was composed of 40 women and two men. One of the men was there as matter of business, so he did not count. It was, therefore, 40 women and one man. The ladies were han dsomely dressed, as all New York women of the we'll to do classes are They wore rich silks and furs and mod ish bonnets There were diamonds not few. The ladies were mostly middle aged and elderly-at least they looked so. saw only one young girl there. It was the look on their faces that held me. It was tired, nervous, distressed, un- happy look. A look, too, as if these well to do women were seeking for something they could not find, just as they were doing. They were an epitome of the world of women today. They were well to do, they had their hus- bands, children and friends. They had everything the world considers neces- sary for feminine happiness. They had sounded the depths of woman s sphere, so to speak. and found it wanting. The lines in their faces, the gray hair. the nervous, eager, questioning look. the worn, unhappy expression, told without words the result of long ages of training women to the pitiably narrow and con- ventional domestic life, without other hope or outlook. And yet people wonder that women age more rapidly than men. It is wholly because of the wretched narrowness of their lives, their lamenta- ble ignorance and lack of large inter- ests. They all have to be cut and trim med to the same pattern, the pattern the Mrs. Grundy of the time has set down. If in the generations past a wom- an manifested the slightest tendency to originality of thought or action, it was repressed as crime It might injure her matrimonial prospect. To please men was held rp as her main object in life, because she was dependent on men for support. The result is not much more pleasing to men than to women. The result was witnessed in the faces at the lecture, faces that told of nervous disease, of hopeless, broken lives and of discontent unfathomable. The rem- edyp The remedy is to give women lar ger, fuller, sweeter lives. Give them participation in the worlds affairs, give them intellectual, moral and spiritual development of the widest and deepest.
 The New Jersey Woman Suffrage as- sociation +is still actively endeavoring to wipe but the antiquated laws that hamper women in that state, saying nothing of some of the anticipated judges that interpret the laws. The annual meeting 1.-the society was held at Eliza beth, and Mrs. Florence Howe Hall of Plainfield was elected president. Mrs. Hall is one of the gifted daughters of Julia Ward Howe Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell was made vice presi- dent The secretary of this live associa- :, tion is Mrs. Irving Angell; correspond ing secretary, Dr. Mary D. Hussey treasurer, Mrs. s. R. Krom; auditor. Miss Susan w.. Lippincott.
 Women own e140. 900, ,000 worth of bank stock shares in this country, chiefly national bank stock. A thousand women the country over are employed In banks as clerks. cashiers and officers. The number ought to be doubled and tripled. oHe fer7
 Three hundred thousand women in this country earn an independent liv- ing, not counting the millions of wives and mothers who work and do not get paid for it.
 ELIZA ARCHARD CONNER.