The people's journal. (Pickens, S.C.) 1891-1903, 1897-03-25
BILL ARP is AT WORK,
His Rhcumntism-A Lecture on
Woman's Rights and Wrongs

"oman'S Rights and Wrongs.
| like to work when I feel like it.,
but my wife likes for me to work when
she feels like it, and SO between tho
two | have to work nearly all the time.
Yesterday l was grunting around with
rheumatism, but she took IL notion
that it was good day to take the We
randall trellis down and clean away all
the old dead vines, and thought it
would help me to get warmed up by
eXercise-nnd it did. She knows-she
has heard me try to play of on grippe
and rheumatics bef0rc-you can't fool
tho woman you have been living with
forty eight years-so got the ladder
and climbed uD to the top and cut
away the tangled web and trimmed
the running rosovines and the wisteria
and Virginia crecpcr and then tore
away the old canes and cleaned up all
the trash and burned it. l. was a big
job for the verandah is fifty feet long
anG | had to move the old rickcty lad
der a. dozen times-several times
got sorter dizzy and liked to have
fallen, but my folks don't believe | am
AS old as am, and they never will be-
lieve it until | break my arm, or my
leg, or my neck. Then reckon they
will be sorry.
~ man never grows old to his own
family no man is a hero to his own
servant. The servant knows him too
we'll, and just SO my wife won't admit
that | am too old to be useful, and she
| keeps me trot'ing around. She gives me
| prcccpts and examples, for she is never
| idle-makcs up the bed, cleans up her
| room, puts out the washing and dis
tributes it when it comes in, mcnds my
clothes, darns my stockings, sews on
the missing buttons, hides my best
pants. to keep me from working in
them and scoldS me ever and anon
about my carelessncss. She keeps on
making little garments for the grand
children and still finds time to boss mo
in the Hover garden and 40 to the
missionary meeting, and writes letters
TO the boys. She never reads until
almost bedtime, but next morning can
tell us all the news worth knowing,
and has her opinions about Cleveland
and Mckinley and Lyman Abbott and
DE-. Broughton and female suffrage. /
read to her the regent vote in parlia-
mcnt about that and asked her what
she thought of it. "Wcll," said she,
don't care to vote, Of course don't,
but If female suffrage will lessen
female 'sulfcrage.' hope it will pass.
1t max es my heart bleed to read about
these hcartlcss men deceiving and be-
traylng foolish young girls who trusted
| tncm--what II piti(ul scene it was
| that ruined girl following that man
and his bride into the parlor cars in
Atlanta, and in her presence upbraid-
ing him with his infamy. And Just
look around all over this country at
the young married women who have
! been abandoned by their unprinciplcd
husbands, and now have to work and
toll and almost beg for a living for
themselves and their little ones. If q
I jury Of women could try these dccciv-
crs and these faithlcss husbands they
would be sent to the chaingang, where
they belong. II a young man cmbcz-
zlcs some rich mans money and runs
away, the judge and the grand jury
and the newspapers make an awful fuss
| about 1t and send kilograms all over
the country to catch him, but if he
ruins woman and breaks her heart
and makes a wreck OF her life it is
hushed up and nothing is done. I am
not Il wOman's s-rights woman. Sho has
rights enough, but there ought to be
some way of avcnging her wrongs.'
That Is u fact, and my opinion is
that her wrongs never will be avenged
until she is not only empowered to
vote, but also to hold Office in school
rooms and in the government of the
towns and villages. The age OF gal
lantry and Chivalry toward women has
passed. This is the unfeeling ago, and
woman has to shift f6r herself. Thirty
years ago she worked at seventeen
occupations, and now at 1870, and gets
about half price for her labor-half
tho price that the men get who do it
no better. | am ashamed Of my seq,
and | never buy shirt for so cents
but what remember that q poor wO-
man made it-madc it In some garnet -
worked all day and part of the night.
with fingers weary and worn
With cyGllds heavy and rcd.'
And yet these lords Of creation pre-
tend that if woman is allowed to vote
she viii get down in the slums and lose
her purity. She is down in the slums
now and would get out II she could.
know women who arc at work for less
than q dollar Il day and have TO support
themselves and their little children
out Of it, while their rich employers
sit high mp in the churches and say
amen and amen to the preachers pray
crs. know women, good women, ac-
complishcd women, whom men have
ruined by neglect o. abandonment, and
oil they can do is suffer and be silent.
l know women who's unprincipicd
husbands have been breaking their
|
them, and still they pass ana rcpass in
i che community as gentlemen. Bat
THIS Is the same old story-who cares.
Now 1t Is said that although the wo,
mans suffrage bill has passed the
mouse OF commons by large majority,
IT. VIII be ANONYMOUSLY killed ia the
house OF iords-why should like to
know -? The lords are not q senate
whose age and dignity might correct
hasty or unwisc legislation, but thew
are pampcred purse proud nobilitv.
The most OF them are and many OF them
have as macy wives as Brigham Young
ever did. But the time is near at
hand when women will be enfranchis.
ed In more ways than one. The lawe
OF marriage and divorce arc better in
England now than ours. They are
governed by the church--by the &C.
clesiastical courts. 1t takes no little