The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-03-27

The rich lady is going to her drawing
lesson, her moldmg in clay, her dancing
class, her Delsarte lecture. her sewing
| class, her slum school, anyway, she is go
| ing TO her work. She is improving herself
! athletically, aesthetically, or sympathetic
| ally lat the slums). There is no more dilly-
| daily about the fashionable woman of the
| period. She does more than her cook. She
| takes more pains than her lauuaTess or her
honsemaid. And the poor girl goes on en-
! vyng her, just the same. She too, wants
| freedom for her task divine" And yet the
| life of a woman in these days, shackled to
! society, even If escaped from a few of
the old conventions, is not much freer than
! the old life used to be. Smoking is slavery.
! No one can for a moment consider herself
| emancipated who has succeeded (by her
| own efforts, usually I'm getting the fangs
| of that habit fastened upon her. Drinking
| is certainly not deliverance. Many a mod
ern woman has pondered that proposition
! in q sick room or in an asylum Club life is
anything but soaring liberty. Women are
| tied down tremendously, with paper" to
/ read this day, a meeting to preside over
! that peace to patch up, gaps to bridge
| gratutous work that belongs to nobody
| else to put I'm. No, the lady of to-day is
| hampered and fettered she of no other
| period Women doctors are everybody's
| servants no matter how rich they grow
| wealth or social position, are, if conscien-
! tious, tied down. Women who entertain
are never their own mistresses. Aching,
sore, i'll, and longing for an evening at
home or a whole night in bed, they must
| buckle on the armor at a given second and
| go forth to battle with boredom stupidity
and fatigue no. only must dinners and
| luncheons be given, but the dinners and
| luncheons of others must be eaten. HaV-
| ing put on the harness, it never comes off
Until serious illness or peremptorily order
| ed rest breaks it up. The working girl
who thinks herself aggrieved because she
! has to do certain things at certain hours
and is mot her own mistress" would prob
ably be thunderstruck TO find how little
time the lady who buys laces of her or or
ders her to pull about bonnets and hats is
allowed TO herself. There is a class at II,
although size has been up till A. before that
an appointment with the dressmaker Tom
my's school to visit, Dora s governess to
dismiss or a new maid to instruct. lunch
con with eighteen women she sees every
day in the week follows-exciting, heating.
| gorging. There is a club meeting after
luncheon a tea, duty visits to pay, after
which there is jGst time to scramble into
q bath and get INFO dinner gown. The
tired person who has stood behind a com
or all day or cliche:y-clicked typewriter
can at least lie down little while or go TO
bed early. The life is simple, if it is mo-
notonous One thing a a time, and that
thing 'inno when it is done And mob >Gy e,
poets Ger TO 81 cailcI c'n for anything eXl-
gent after nu,.s" T;ut the fashionable l4oY
is forever being called upon, after, before
and during hours Her work is never done
She has to choose the decora tons for the
new library; she must drive out an invalid
friend; she must be at the swimming bath
or take Molly there. These things sound
like jokes to the working girl They are not
|
me sit up and dance till and get up at 8,
) and go to a class of grand ladies at II.
and eat an elegant lunch at 1880 and a
make-believe club at 8, and chit-chat over
tea a sand going to all these places in
my own carriage-you wouldn't catch me
: finding fault" But you would catch her
the first thing. Any routine pals, and al .
though 1t Is depressing and worrying and
, frightening to be poor, it is depressing ana
worrying, and at all times appalling to be
rich too. You find yourself some day won
: dering-at a standstill-where all your
dashings to and fro, your bustlings, your
hard work, have brought you, and wheth-
er, after all. you would not rather do one
thing well and be paid for il. The working
! girl if she is healthy, tolerably well paid,
and Independent, is a satrap compared to
: the clamped and manaclad lady of fashion,
t who has any ambition and any intelligence.
There has been a great wave of independ-
l ence setting in and breaking over the we'll
] to-do AS everyone knows, it is only not
considered disgraceful for lady TO earn
l her living, but the lady who does it puts
2 on airs and is imper!ous with her lazier
sisters nowadays, is looked UP to- and ask
, ed advice of and generally regarded with
. awe. And industry need not necessarily be
of the kind formerly designated as be
e coming a lady" either, Milliners-that is
4 TO say, dressmakers, for they are called
r milliners there-are numbered among the
I aristocracy in England; signs above the
door with noble names on them are not
, unknown. This marks nothing short of a
y social revolution; and yet the change has
G come so gradually it Is hardly noticed
! Women with tea agencies, corset agencies,
4 shirt waist agencies, abound in New
! York. Some of them go abroad every year,
, and look when they come back anything
. but 'shop worn" or jaded from their trips
So different from men, who when they
> go away on business, resent the imputa-
ton that they have enjoyed themselves for
e a moment. 81 went on business, they re-
e proachfully answer. il you venture an in
r quiry about theaters and such frivolities
I And yet--but that is another story. Does
? Il make men lazier, less responsible, less
manly for women TO earn their own liv-
. ings, do you think? There is certainly nc
{ weight of crushing care on the manly
, brow now to relieve the sex generally from
{ individual family cases. Some women had
to do it, OF degenerate-or stay degenerat T.
ed-into abject beings perfunctorily housed
fed and clad by brothers, uncles and other
willing helpers. They were The pioneers
and the many who might subsist without
. augmenting their incomes by their own eff
{ forts followed in their wake. Perhaps they
q take away from the more needy. and per-
u haps they only inspire them; who knows.
c There Is room for myriads OF women work.
. ers YET, and their career has been made
honorable by brave spirits blazing the way
a Col l. N Walker says the Indianapolis
r Journal. is the authority for story which
o as he says, is very proper one for the
/; parlor and one which contains several
Y suggestions of value 10 young ladies who
h may occasionally find themselves in DO
e sition requiring the use of diplomacy and
- tact This story AYERS that in a certain
4 place not very far away and at time
e not very long ago, there was a young
/ man who came from a distant city on a