Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-03-12

WHICH ner mOUncr walked, anu lndC
torn and faded calico had ancestry of
magnificent brocade that swept Penn
Sylyania avenue and Broadway clean
without any expense to the street COM
missiOners. Though you live in an
elegant residence and fare sumptuous-
ly every day, let your daughters feel
1t is q disgrace for them not to know
how to work. | denOunce the idea
prevalent in society that, though our
young women may embroider slippers
and crochet and make mats for lamps
to stand on without disgrace, the idea
Of doing anything for a livelihood is
dishonorable. 1t is a shame for a
young woman belonging to a large
family to be inefficient when her ia
Their tolls his life away for her sup
port. 1t is shame for a daughter to
be idle while her mother tolls at the
washtub. 1t is as honorable to sweep
house. make beds or trim hats as it is
to twist a watch chain.
So far as I can understand the line
of responsibility lies between that
which is useful and that which is use
less. If women do that which is of no
value, their work is honorable. If
they do practical work, it is dishonora
bic. That our young women may es-
cape the csnsure of doing dishonorable
work 1 shall particularize. You may
knit a tidy for the back of an arm
chair, but by no means make the mon
ey whereWith to buy the chair. You
may with a delicate brush beautify a
mantel ornament, but die rather than
earn enough to buy a marble mantel.
You may learn artistic music until you
can squat Italian, but never sing Cor
tonville'' or "Old Hundredth." Do moth
ing practical if you would in the eyes
Of refined society preserve your re-
spectability. 1 scout these f1nical no.
tons. [ tell you a woman, no more
than a man, has a right to occupy a
place in this world unless she pays a
rent for it.
Work Necessary.
In the course of a lifetime you con-
sumo whole harvests and droves Of
cattle and every day you live breathe
40 hogsheads of good, pure air. You
must by some kind of usefulness pay
for all this. Our race was the last
thing created-the birds and fishes on
the fourth day, the cattle and lizards
on the fifth day and man on the sixth
day. If biologists are right, the earth
was a million of years in the posses
sion of the insects, beasts and birds
before our race came upon it. In one
sense we were invaders. The cattle,
the lizards and 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 summer 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 it occupies it. The
lark by its morning song earns it's
breakfast before it eats it, and the
Bible gives an intimatiOn that the first
duty of an idler is to starve when it
says, eff he will not work, neither
shall he eat" Idleness ruins the health,
and very soon nature says: "This man
has refused to pay his rent. Out with
him. Society is to be reconstructed
on the subject of womans toll A vast
majority of those who would have wo-
man Industrious shut her up to few
kinds of work. My judgment in this
matter is that q woman has a right to
do anything she can do well. There
should be no department of merchan-
disc, mechanism, art or science barred
against her. If Miss Hosmer has
genius for sculpture, give her a chisel.
If Rosa BOnheur has a fondneSS for
deiineating animals, let her make 1.-THE
Horse Fair" If Miss Mitchell will
study astronomy, let her mount 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.
1t is said If woman is given such op-
portunities she will occupy places that
might be taken by men. I say, if she
have more skill and adaptedness for
any position than man has, let her
have 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. [ ask in the
name of all past history what toll ON
earth is more severe, eXhauSting and
tremendous than that toll of the nee
die to which for ages she has been sub
jected? The battering ram, the sword,
the carbine, the battleax, have made
no such havoc as the needle. I 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 in the fresh air and sun
light.
A Woman's Right.
Go with me, and l 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 has wholesome