The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-08-29

of the American housewifes perspicuity, ostracizes a girl completely and brands her with a stigma. There's a girl that know who came from England and who has a natural bent for everything per
 taining to home keeping Two of her sis ters are in offices and one is in a licorice factory. But she set her face sturdily to- ward a domestic position, insisting that if a girl proved herself a lady her work
 could not lower her in peoples estima-
 tion. She took place as working house. keeper, where she does everything From
 getting the meals and washing the dishes
 to serving elaborate dinners and embroid-
 ering the table linen. In fact, she has
 made herself so useful that she also fills
 the offices of maid and companion to her
 employer But, although she Is ladylike
 and refined in manner. she feels the odium of the general prejudice against
 her task. Even the grocer's clerk, she says, looks down upon me because I am | servant. If I go out for an evening
 with young folks who do not know about my work. and a young man goes home
 with me. he is sure to learn the truth be- fore he makes a second call, and I never see him again The girl says that she
 would take a S office position for the
 sake of It's social advantages although
 she Is earning $23 a month now with all
 her living expenses included, and is doing
 the work she loves. Her employer, too, adds to the difficulty of the situation by treating her as she would menial A@ak- ing advantage of her willingness of spirit.
 English Is sadly neglected in the
 schools, if the kind of language used and
 written by girls looking for work Is
 criterion. To find a girl who can write
 an intelligent, we'll constructed letter,
 with spelling, punctuati)a and arrange iz fir fro IF
 such girl, If she has that rarest of
 qualities common sense. there Is work. Once in a while one of the easy-going, happy, go-lucky sort, whose shirtwaist and skirt are incompatible and whose fin ger nails and hair are indicative of the
 slovenly work of which she is capable, develops a conscience and becomes a val
 uable assistant. Home training and he- reality are often responsible for lack of appreciation of honest work Conscience
 can be developed. But it isn't pleasant
 to contemplate the end of the great host
 of incompetents who drop by the way side.
 t@The field of" stenography Is as wide open to women as men. In fact, think the women have the advantage. and many lawyers and other professional men prefer to have their work done by a wo- man. One reason for this is that a man of much ambition takes StenOgraphlc
 position to tide him over the period be-
 tween leaving school and entering some profession or business. On the other
 hand, an intelligent. capable. wide-awake
 woman Is satisfied with salary ranging from SIS to $25 a week. and only in ex- ceptional cases has higher aspiration. |. Twenty five dollar salaries. however,
 are becoming less frequent than of old.
 The conditions have changed materially
 in the last few years, before typewriting and stenographic schools turned girls into
 the field by the thousands every year. Then there was profit in opening an office
 and taking in work. Now almost every
 office is provided with its own stenogra- pher and typewriter. and the days of the free lance are over Unless a woman
 had an assured beginning. I should be
 loath to advise her opening an ofice." The speaker began her work in this city
 in 1874. At that time only one other wo-
 man was known as public stenographer.
 Her notes. taken verbatim in court. and
 from speakers of all sorts. were dictated to another stenographer, who in turn transcribed them with a pen. Typewrit- CTS had not then come into common use and were regarded with suspicion. The first one used by her worked with foot | treadle, like a sewing machine.
 A man can't be said to be thoroughly domestic in his tastes unless he can get an article out of the refrigerator without spilling something.