The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-05-04
HUMBOLDT CIGARS
AS GOOD AS CURRENCY.
Sold Everywhere!
THE WOMEN OF SPAIN.
Interesting Statistics Concerning
Their Social and Intellectual Com
Afffnu

Their Social and Intellectual Com
dftiOn.
From the Chicago Times Herald.
A great deal has been written about
Spanish men, but think one may find a
truer key to the Spanish character by tax.
ing a glimpse of the misery of the Spanish
women. 1 doubt if the Spanish woman
is any better off than the Turkish woman.
and while American women are not clam
orlng for conflict, the fact remains that
the taking of Spain from the European
geography might prove a great step in
advance for the women of that land
II appears from an official document
which came my way the other day, that
but 2,636,6l5 Spanish women can read or
write. This fraction is almost as big as
the male army that knows its own Ian
guage. Il is a pitiful showing but 1t is
only the beginning of the table of female
Wretchedness. The municipalities list ST.
9l6 professional beggars who wear petit
coats. Then there are S2SS31 women who
earn their living by working in the farm
fields. There are 319. 596 women rated as
day servants, who get but little more than
board and shelter for their work, andein
all the dying dynasty there are but 7i9O00
girls in the school of any kind, public or
private. There are twice as many female
mendicants as male. The census shows
that 6,764, 406 women have neither profess
sions nor trades, and are altogether de-
pendent upon charity, the possibility of
getting married or hard labor at starvation
wages
The same lamentable condition of the
Spanish woman is shown by a glance at
another side of her life. The kingdom
has but seventy-four women classed as
literary writers. There are but seventy
eight women physicians in the mother
country and all the provinces. The women
school teachers number only 14490, as COM
pared with 24612 men, but this does not
include the nuns, who are classed by them
selves, and number 2S5I9.
Spanish women who are fortunate live
in the most magnificent homes and seem
never to bother their heads about the poor
er sisters at their doors. The favorite re-
sort for the grande senoras is San Sebas-
tan. and the lives the careless Spanish
women of fashion lead there during the
summer is said to be a scandal over all
Europe. There is scarcely a pretense at
propriety, or even ordinary conventional
ity. AS in France a majority of the young
girls of the best families are educated in
the converts. Their greatest accomplish
ment is embroidery and they sit and sit
and sit at their knitting until some man
from an ancient and bankrupt house or
a bull-raisng plantation comes along and
marries them. Club life is unknown. Mar
riages are celebrated very early in ife,
and but few people who get weary of these
early alliances ever go to the trouble and
formalty of getting a divorce. The I'm
happy couples simply divide up the house
hold things and live the balance of their
lives the best way they can.
Spanish women, so l have found, nave
very little outdoor amusement. The biey-
Gle is just beginning to be admitted but
under protest. The young women love
their Queen next to pretty frocks and gilt
tering fans and bright ribbons. They flock
TO the cruel shows in the bull rings, and
laugh and cheer at the horrible specta-
Giles. They show no more pity than an
American girl bestows upon the dasning
hardships which the average tennis player
or the golfer undergoes when he performs
in broiling sun to amuse her