The citizen., 1902-01-31
The New
Woman
BY ELIZA
ARcHARD CONNER

l have been on my travels again
this time to make a better acuuain+'
Rnce with my own great country. NV
wanderings took in farm region
Cleveland during the G. A. r. reunion
and the Buffalo exposition. | 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 IA.
theirs. Two years ago, am told, there
was not woman in the G. A. r. pa.
rade. 1 was surprised at the number
of old and middle aged women l 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.
ana 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
if they were sixteen. The world moves.
Brave old gifls Success to theml
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 plCIly Slll uSHCl. GCuc WAS stationed
at the entrance gate of a 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 u 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 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.
In one court IN one day recently in
New York city there were l!9 appica-
tions for divorce. Worst of all large
majority of the cases were undefendcd.
showing that one partner In The firm
was as anxious to be free as the other.
Best of all means to bring to time the
man who deserts his family is that law
proposed by the Illinois board of asso
ciated charities. 1t recommends tha'
such a husband and father be sen
fenced to hard labor at some trade in
the state prison. Wages shall be nj
lowed for his work meantime, the
wages to be turned over in every u
stance for the support of his wife ard
children. Excellently well done, Hi
nois board of charities. A woman has
perfect right to earn her own living
but she cannot do it with little children
to take care of.
y SH
Harvard university has a womaD
professor in all but the name. She IN
Miss Ethel Puffer. teacher and lecturer
in psychology. So far as anybody
knows anything about psychology, MISS
Puffer is I'D v'ith the best