The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-03-23

of ~respectability lies , between hat
which is useful and that which is use
less. If women do that which is Of no
value, their work Is honorable. II they
do practical work, 1t Is dishonorabie.
That our young women may escape
the censure OF doing dishonorable work
/ h pa~rticularize. You may knit
a tidy for the back OF an armchair,
but by no means make he money
wherewith to buy thu chair. You may
with a delicate bru 4autffy a man
tel ornament, but di. -ather than earn
enough to buy a marble mantel. You
may learn artistic music until you can
squall Italian, but sing Orion
vile" or O Hundredth." No moth
ing practical il you would, in the eyes
of refined society, preserve your re-
spectability. 1 scout these finical no.
than a man, has a right to occupy a
place in this world unless she pays a
rent for ii.
In the course of a lifetime o con-
sumo whole harvests and droves of
cattle and every day o live and
breathe 40 hogsheads of good, pure air.
You must by some kind of usefulness
pay for all this. Our race was the asst
thing created-the birds and fishes on
the fourth day, the cattle n lizards
on the fifth day and man on the sixth
day. If biologists are right, the earth
was loo, 600 of years in the possession
of the insects, beasts and birds before
our race came upon it. In one sense
we were invaders. The cattle, the liz
ards Int the hawks had pre-emption
right. The question is not what we
are to do with the lizards and summer
insects, but what the lizards and sum-
mer insects are to do with us. If We
want a place in this world, we must
earn it. The partridge makes it's own
nest before 1t occupies IL. h lark
by it's morning son earns its break
fast before it eats it, and the Bible
gives an intimation that the first duty
of an idler is to starve when it says,
IF he will not work., neither shall he
eat" Idleness ruins the health, and
very 500 nature says: This man has
refused to pay his rent. Out with
him!" Society is to be reconstructed
on the subject of woman's toll. A vast
majority of those who would have wo-
man Industrious shut her up to a few
kinds of work. My judgment in this
matter is that a has a right to
do anything she can do we'll There
should be no department of merchan-
against her. If Miss Hosmer has barred
against her. / Miss Hosmer has gen.
us for sculpture. give her a chisel. If
Rosa Bonheur has a fondness for de-
~lineating animals, let her make The
Horse Fair" If Miss Mitchell will
study astronomy, let her lot the
starry ladder If Lydia will be a mer-
chant, let her sell purple. If Lucretia
Mott will preach the gospel, let her
thrill with her wOmanly ~eloquence the
Quaker meeting house.
THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.
1t is said if woman is given such op-
portunities she will occupy places that
might be taken by men. / say if she
have more skill and adaptedness for
any position h a man has let her
hav it, She has as much right to her
bread, to her apparel and to her home
as men have But it is said that her
nature is so delicate that she is I'M
fitted for ~exhausting toll. I ask in
1.-The name of all past history what toll
on earth is more severe, ~exhauting and
tremendous than that toll of the needle
to which for ages she has been sub
jected? The battering ram, the sword,
the carbine, the battleax, have made
no such havoc Is the needle 1 would
that these living sepulchers in which
women have for ages been buried
might be opened and that some resur-
rection trumpet might bring UP these
living corpses to the fresh air n sum
light.
Go with me and / will show you a
woman who by hardest toll supports
her children, her drunken husband, her
old father and mother, pays her house
rent, always lax wholesome food on
her table, and when she can get some
neighbor on the Sabbath to come in
n take care of her family appears
in church with hat and cloak that are
far from indicating the toll to which
she is subjected. Such a woman as
that has body and soul enough to fit
her for any position. She could stand
beside the majority of your statesmen
go in to you wheelwright shops and
beat one-half of your workmen at
making carriages We talk about wo-
men as though We had resigned to her
all the light work and ourselves had
shouldered the heavier. But the day
of judgment, which will reveal the
Suferings of the stake and inquiSition,
will marshal before the throne of God
and the hierarchs of heaven the mar
tyrS of washtub n needle. Now, I
say if there be any preference in oe-
cupation, let woman have it. God
knows her trials are the ~severest. BY
her acuter Sensativeness to misfortune
by her hour Of anguish, I demand that
no one hedge up her pathway to a live
lihood. Oh, the m~eanness, the despica-
bility of men who b~egrudge a woman
the right to work anywhere in any
honorable calling!
EQUAL WAGES WITH MEN.
I go still further and say that wo-
man should have equal compensation
"ASA 10y hd pAlAIStpIC VI JUS
tice is it that women in many of our
cities get only two-thirds as much pay
as men and in many cases only half?
Here is a gigantic injustice-that for
work equally well If not better done
woman receives far less compensation
than a Start with the national
government. Women clerks in Wash
ington get 5000 for doing that for which
men receive 1900. The wheel of op-
preston is rolling over he necks of
thousands of women who are at this
moment in despair about what they
are to do. Many of the largest mer-
camille establishments of our cities are
accessory to these abomonations, and
from their large establishments there
are scores of souls being pitched off
into death, and their employers know
1t. Is there a God? Will there be a
Judgment? 1 tell you if God rises up
to redress woman's wrongs many of
u large establishments will be swal-
lowed up quicker than a South Amer
lean earthquake ever took down a
city. God will catch these oppressors
between the two millstones of his