Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1901-11-07
The New
WO m an
BY ELIZA
ARcHARD CONNER

A'5s'S.S-S S-S~SSSsssS-t'l
have been on my travels again,
this time to make better acquaint-
ance with my own great country. My
wanderings took in farm region,
Cleveland during the G.. A. r. reunion
and the Buffalo exposition. I have
met meantime all sorts and conditions
of my fellow women. saw women,
young and old, in the Grand Army pa
rade, marching side by side with the
veterans. In that procession clear eyed
women certainly seventy years old
marched with free step alongside the
veterans. oftentimes stronger and more
active than they. Some Of the ladies
belonged to the Woman's Relief corps
and were there to help take care Of
feeble old men, their husbands or fa-
theirs. Two years ago, am told, there
was not a woman In the G.. A. r. pa
rade. I was surprised at the number
Of old and middle aged women met
not only in Cleveland, but everywhere
else On railway trains and steamers,
at Niagara Falls, on the Midway at the
Buffalo exposition, everywhere the old
woman to the young woman was as
two to one. Fifty years ago these
mothers and grandmothers would have
been sitting in the corner in cap and
spectacles knitting, shunted off the
track as useless, those whose existence
is merely tolerated. Today these old
girls are taking In the worlds sights,
and nobody could have more Of "good
time" than they. 1t is the day of the
old woman. These elderly danes have
reared their families and earned their
outings-yea, earned dozen times
over all the outings they will ever get.
Now they are on their travels, as ac-
tive, as bright and eagerly learning as
ff they were sixteen. The world moves.
Brave old girls! Success to themi
May they continue travelling and learn
ing something till they round out a
century.
One of the matters that interested
me at great street parade witnessed
not long since was the performance Of
a pretty girl usher. She was stationed
at the entrance gate of huge block
of wooden seats, hundreds of them al
together, rising tier on tier above the
street. Her task was to conduct peo-
pie to their places In the rows. Men
saw her moving about among the tiers
and bought tickets for her section just
to see how she acted. In that way she
drew custom. Women stared at her
and rather hesitated at first to give
their tickets to an usher of their own
sex, but did so at once when they COM
pretended the situation, and the ex-
pertinent was a success all round,
quite as much as it Is in the Paris
theaters, where the ushers are uni
formed women, sometimes pretty, Of
tener otherwise.
Painted over the Pan-American
buildings are devout inscriptions to
the presidents, pathfinders, statesmen,
sailors, soldiers, inventors, patriots,
preachers, farmers and others. / only
pause because / have not room to
name them all who have made this
country SO mighty and prosperous. /
would like to add just one inscription
which the devisers of the notices, be-
ing men, of course never thought of.
1t would be this, ITO the women who
stayed at home and reared the chill
dren and worked and worried their
lives out in order that their men might
60 off and do great things-the women
themselves in nine cases out Of ten
never even getting appreciation of their
services, much less thanks-to these
unrecognized, unnamed, forgotten
ones, honor and glory to the worlds
end"
One of the things I have found out
lately is that In the civil war the wife
Of an Illinois colonel of volunteers
commanded her husbands regiment a
week during his illness. He was help
less, the regiment had no leader at the
time, and they were isolated and in
peril. The gallant woman put herself
at the head Of the soldiers and led
them In several skirmishes-actual
fighting, observe.
Don't be harsh and sharp.
If you wish for anything, don't
merely whine and pine hopelessly for
it, saying 81 wish had this or that"
Go to work and get it. Pull yourself
together, direct your effort to that end,
no matter how great it is, and you will
reach it at last. Never slump down
and whine and drift along hopelessly.
You are losing power and force Of
character all the while you do that.
II an aspiring American woman
sculptor desires to acquire her art
properly, let her go at once to Paris.
1t is waste Of time and worse than
that, for she gets started wrong to
attempt to accomplish anything in this
country.
A young woman looked long and ear
nestly at the waxen image Of the pill
grim father In the Washington gov
ernment museum. She eyed critically
his iron helmet and equally iron face,
his rusty red yarn stockings and soil
ed leather upper garment, his lanky
hair and dingy white collar, his gener-
ally doleful air of seeing nothing In
life but ashes, rottenness and dis
appointment, and she summed him up
thus, "Well, If he looked like that I
don't wonder they drove him of"