Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1898-08-26

while they are denied the suffrage or
any other privilege OF citizenship, they
are unable to protect themselves, and
the first duty of any and every govern
ment is to offer protection to the fee
bic ard helpless.
So lar a. we are aware no complete
digest of the Census of '9l has yet
been made, except that for London by
Mr.. Charles Booth From this we
find that two hundred and sixty thou
sand persons are employed in the me-
tropolis in connection with Dress"
OF these ninety thousand are males,
and one hundred and seventy thousand
females, every many OF them young
girls" Eighty-two thousand of the
whole were heads of families, and
thirty thousand of these were women.
In the preparation or sale OF food
and drink" the males were Ill ,4lj,
and the females only 27,0l9. Heads
of families numbered seventy-six thou
sand, of whom $500 were females.
Among the Dealers and Clerks" the
disparity between the sexes is, of
course, still greater: Males 33,l75,
females 9,654. Nevertheless, "morc
than half of those returned rs general
shop-keepers are females, as are also
nearly one-third of the street sellers"
1t would be tedious in paper such
as this to go much farther through
mere statistics. Enough has been
written to show that women engage in
multifarious occupations, and, in many
of them, in predominating numbers.
Mulhall remarks on the Census of
1891, that "the surplus female popula-
/ tion keeps rising every decade" In
the last, the females numbered 514 to
every 4S6 males. In 1881 the excess
of females over males throughout Eng
land and Wales was 7lS,000; in 1891
it had risen to 9Ol 900, being an in
crease in ten years of $4,000 Do
these facts afford no food Jor reflection
to our political economists and sociol-
ogists? Nay, may not politicians and
moralists read, mark, learn and care
fully digest them? Is the burden of the
support of this great and ever-increas-
ing body of English women to be
thrown upon the shoulders of the CONF
paratively decreasing men, or shall
women be permitted to support them
selves in any occupation for which
they are competent? These are the
questions which must be decided-and
quickly, toO-in favor of sexual equal
ity or the abolition of sex privileges
unless we are blindly determined to
increase the decentralization of our wO-
men and the consequent deterioration
OF our race. Even India, in some re-
spects, is more liberal than England,
for we have just read that lady had
been admitted to practice in one of its
law courts us barrister, and to the
general surprise, she pleaded as we'll
and exhibited as much legal acumen
and forensic eloquence as any of her
be-wigged brethren.
Mulhall remarks, "If we compare
the total number of persons OF all oc-
cupations in 1881 with that in 1851,
we find an increase OF % per cent. in
the men, and 81 per cent. in the wo.
men," and we have every reason to be-
lieve that the difference for '9l will be
found to be still greater. We have
shown in a previous article that the
women workers nearly equal the men
workers. The natural consequence is
that the occupations open to women
are overdone with candidates for work.
Scores of thousands Of those who can
obtain employment are miserably
sweated," while the more fortunate
are usually underpaid. Is there no
remedy for all this? 1t would seem
that in polygamous countries only are
women really cared for, and if monog-
amy and subsection of the sex are to
continue together, it may be that to
give woman cher proper sphere" we
shall have to revert to the polygamous
habits of our British ancestors. Is
this the aim of our pretentious moral
lists? Is this whittier Professionalism,
the free Bible, free trade, free labor
and free debauchery, are to land us?
Perhaps so. Who can tell? If wo-
men must continue to be degraded,
better that it should be in the harem
of one man to whom she can be virtu-
ons and true, and by whom she will be
comfortably provided with reasonable
requirements, than that she should
starve in a lonely garret or pace the
streets with fallen sisterhood. And
possibly before the coming of the next
'06, the windows of Mayfair and Bel
gravia and other wealthy quarters,
will be less transparent than now, and
voluptuous women of rare beauty will
be seen furtively glancing upon the
outer world, until the example thus
set by rank and fashion become uni.
versal.
Doughty House. Richmond,
Surrey. England.
FIFTY years ago the population OF
Europe was about 250,OO0, 600; it is
to-day considerably over 360,O0O,00O.
CUBA has 1,G31 900 inhabitants