The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1897-05-06
SCARCITY OF WOMEN.
The Problem Is How. to Even Up the
Sexes in European Colonies.

y
OF Europe have seized vast parts of the
earths surface, chiefly in Africa and
Asia, but including also many islands
kof the Pacific. The total area that has
Rthus come under European flags is
nearly as large as North and South
America together. Some of these re-
gions have been found to be well adapt
ed for white settlement and emigrants
have been encouraged to go to them.
The European nations call these far
OH lands their colonies, and they are
very anxious to make them self-sup-
porting and develop them into markets
for home manufactures.
There is a question which is attract
ing more and more attention, and that
is the scarcity of white women in these
colonies. In the French colonies, for
instance, even where the conditions are
most favorable for colonization, as in
Algeria, there are from four to six
French men for every French woman.
For the most part there is no family
life, and dissipation is more general
than would be the case if there were
more homes and more of the social life
that is possible only when the sexes
are nearly equal in numbers. Mr.. Chail-
! 1ey-Bert, who recently wrote in the
Paris Debats about the paucity of white
women in the French colonies, said that
the young men there were like the roar
ing lion, who ''goeth about seeking
whom he may devour."
1t is not easy to solve the problem
in the French colonies, for the young
women of France are not at all eager
to eXpatriate themselves, even to find
good husbands and comfortable homes.
There are hundreds of colonists who
would like to get married. 4 colonist
in Algeria has recently been telling his
experience. He says that for three
years he sought in his own social circle
in France for young woman who
would share his fortunes in the colony.
At the end of that time his perseyer-
ance was rewarded and he is now mar
ried. The fact is, however, that he did
not find wife among the young women
with whom he had been accustomed to
| associate. They liked the colonist. but
the colony terrified them. His wife is
worthy woman, the daughter of a
farm laborer, and she is making him a
good helpmeet in his colonial home.
British and Dutch colonsts do not
| find it so difficult to induce the fair
sex of their old homes to share their
| lot in newer parts of the world; and
when they have found it really difficult
| to get wives from the mother country
many of the Dutch in the East Indies
| have not disdained to be joined in slw-
| full wedlock with the daughters of the
natives.
Many white men are now living in
| tropical regions, like equatorial Africa,
where they have really no right to ask
a white woman to share their dangers
and hardships. Few women from the
| north temperate zone are able to sur
vive one or two collaborating expert
ences in tropical Africa. Some white
men who live there have expressed the
| opinion that it is little short of a crime
to bring women of their own race to
those regions. The late DR.. Wolf, the
| German explorer, said that any white
man there who wanted a wife should
marry one of the natives of the cOun-
try. Some of the Europeans in Africa
| have followed his advice, and among
them DR.. Grenfell, the explorer and
missionary, who married a negro girl
who had been educated at a mission sta
ton on the west coast
| Two months ago the Canadian news
papers contained an advertisement
from a mining camp in British CO.
! lumbia in which it was announced that
| the camp was wholly destitute Of
women, that neither gambling nor the
sale of Intoxicating liquors was per-
mitted in the settlement, that the min
crs were industrious, had saved money,
and now they wanted wives and homes;
and young womeS of the dominion
were invited TO enter into correspond
cnce with a committee as preliminary
t. possible immigration to the camp
and marriage with the bachelors there
of.
! The scheme is not to be commended.
Each miner had better use some of the
money he has saved to visit district
where women are plentiful. If he is
the right sort, he will probably con-
vince some damsel that she can be
happy even in miners cabin in the
far northwest.
Even to-day. in large parts of Canada,
Australia and Cape Colony, there are
not women enough to supply the de
mand for wives. But when the societies
that promote the emigration OF women
to the colonies serd out party, the
last thing in their minds, apparently,
is the better chance these women will
have to get husbands. They simply
send women who lack work to colonies
that lack women. Their character and
fitness for emigration must be APP
proved, and then they are sent on the
long journey in the charge of matrons,
who see to their comfort and are re-
sponsible for their safety until situa
tions that will yield them a living are
| found for them. The United British
Women's Emigration association, the
largest of all these societies, would re-
fuse to, assist any woman to emigrate if
she should openly avow that she was
seeking a husband rather than oppor-