Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-06-27

men run the tropics Much is heard of
new occupations being opened up to women
In America, and advocates of women's
suffrage point with pride to its great army
of women workers. But if the new wo-
man" wants to do all that a man does she
ought to go to the tropics There is the
greatest field for womans work.
Lead Strenuous Lives.
Women plant and harvest the crops and
carry them to the markets on their heads.
Women labor in the fields for few cents
day. Women break stones on the high
ways and mend the roads. Women run
stores, tend the bars of the rum shops,
mind cattle, break horses and ship as sail
Ors on coasting craft. Women even act as
conductors on the street cars: and in such
"distressful countries as Haiti, Venezuela
and Colombia they carry rifles and fight in
the ranks of the national and revolutionist
armies proving themselves quite as good
soldiers as the men and not whit less
ferocious
On market days in the West Indies thou
sands of peasant women and girls can be
seen walking along the roads to the town
from their palm-thatched huts in the noun
tains and the woods. They carry on their
heads immense loads of bananas. oranges
yams. plantains brown sugar or tobacco
stepping along at the rate OF four miles an
hour with the gait of princess. Constant
carrying of heavy loads gives them a splen-
did carriage and a figure approachin per-
lection. They will walk forty miles to mar
ket to sell 30 cents worth Of produce
Often they could sell the same stun for a
better price at their homes but they enjoy
the merry company on the road and the
fun and gossip Of the market place too
much TO give up their weekly 1aunt. Most
people would think such a tramp hard
work. but they regard II as a picnic
Iramplng along over rough mountain
tracks. fording swift rivers. Juggling frac-
dous mules in the way that they should
go, these women never let their head loads
fall. They could dance a Jig without dron-
ping them.
Meanwhile their men folk-who have nor
even taken the trouble to SOW or harvest
the crops much less carry then, IN rnarkat
are sleeping in the palm-thatc hut nv
lying down In the yam patch outside and
smoking the strong native tobacco known
as Jackass rope
A Planters Testimony.
On my estate" said a coffee planter to
an American friend, 81 employ about GOO
people In the busy seasons besides two or
three hundred children. The women ONT
number the men by more than two to one
ana 90 rar better work, though thew are
only PAID is cents day. as compared with
the mems "a. The difference in wages ,s
most unfair, but 1t is regulated by iron
p Souhu custom which cannot be broken
The men don't work unless the eve NJ
me oVerseer Is on them. They prefer to lie
GOWN IN the shade and gossip or steal of,
10 the nearest village rum shop Rut tho
women are as busy bees all the time
cu,uhe sugar cane. picking coffee or gath
ering pimento. They can do everytbina
that the men do much better than the men
themselves. and they are far easier to man.
age. Ihey VIII even carry heavier loads
vi their headS than the men,
men why don't you break that iron
pound custom and employ only women AT
men ..n wages? asked the American.
sbopIS use. answered the planter, 81
shouiu not nave a single laborer male n,
ienlaie, on the estate inside a week yo,
uoh understand the conservatism Of ths
tropics. immemorial custom DEGREES tho
a woman shall be paid Is cents and a MAJ
-, l palo the women mems wages they
would grow suspicious and refuse 10 worr
Tor me- And even II they were willing n
WORK, their men folk would not LET them
MOST OF my women laborers support somf
iazy hulkfng brute of man out OF the,,
scahty earnings, and very often fam.,y
as we'll"
A South American Merchant Prince /,
Some of the women workers of the tropic.
are enterprfsing. and branch out into new
lines of business undreamed of by men.
A well-known American traveller in Soutr
America tells OF "good-natured old wo
man or capacious embonpoint' whom hs
met as a fellow passenger on a STEAMSHIP
plying between Valparaiso and Panama
This woman carries on business as
deck trader" and spends practically tht
whole of her life afloat between those two
ports. Her stock In trade includes dres.
goods. ribbons. hats, canned goods, fresf
fruit, vegetables and a thousand othel