The Savannah morning news., 1903-06-28
BY BASSETT STAINES.
Copyright, 1908, by Bassett Staines.

I'm tired of this humdrum life we
women have to lead" declared the
girl who yearned for what she vaguely
called emancipation" Its a shame!
If we stay at home, life is miserably
dull. If we go out to work men COM
plain that we are taking the bread
out of their mouths and starving their
families. And there are only few
fields of work open to us. Why
shouldn't we have a fair chance to do
all the work that men do?"
"Why not, indeed" laughed her
brother who has Travelled. Pretty
nearly half the world is of your way
of thinking. Go down to any part
of the tropics and you will be allowed
to do as much mans work as you
like. You can take your choice of any
occupation, from road-making to
coaI-heaving, and the men won't OBJ
ject. They will be quite content to
recline in the shade of the sheltering
palm, smoking brown cigarettes and
watching you do the work"
Womnn's Greatest Field.
He was right. Practically speaking,
women run the tropics. Much is heard
of new occupations being opened up
to women in America, and advocates
of womens suffrage point with pride
to its great army of women work.
ers. But if the new woman" wants
to do all that a man does, she ought
to go to the tropics. There is the
greatest field for womans work
Women plant and harvest the crops
and carry them to the markets on
their heads. Women labor in the
fields for a few cents day. Women
break stones on the highways 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 "distressfu1 countries"
as Hayti, Venezuela, and Colombia,
they carry rifles and fight in the ranks
of the national and revolutionist arm
les, proving themselves quite as good
soldiers as the men and not a whit
less ferocious.
On market days in the West Indies
thousands of peasant women and girls
can be seen walking along the roads
to the town from their palm matched
huts in the mountains and the woods.
loads of bananas, oranges, yams.
plantains, brown sugar. or tobacco.
stepping along at the rate of four
miles an hour with the gait of a
princess. Constant carrying of heavy
loads gives them a splendid carriage
and figure approaching perfection.
They will walk forty miles to mar
ket to sell thirty cents worth of pro-
duce. Often they could sell the same
stuff for 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 jaunt. Most peole
would think such tramp hard work,
but they regard it as a picnic.
Tramping along over rough noun
tain tracks fording swift rivers tug
ging fractions mules in the way that
they should go, these women never
let their head loads fall. They could
dance jig without dropping them.
meanwhile, their men-folk-who
have not even taken the trouble to
sow or harvest the crops, much less
carry them to market-are sleepine
IN the m-thatched hut or living
down in the yam-patch outside and
smoking the strong native tobacco
known as ''jackass rope
A Planters Testimony,
ION my estate" said a coffee n,an+
er to an American friend. IT enniov
about six hundred people in the busv
season, besides two or three HIM
dred children. The women outnumher
the men by more than two TO one
and do far better work, though thev
are only paid eighteen cents a day
as compared with the mems twenty.
four. me dlfference in wagers is most
untalr, but 1t is regulated by iron
bound custom, which cannot be broken
so. ~ w
The men don't work unles the eve
or the overseer is on them. Thev
prefere TO lie down in the shade ana
gossip or steal off to the nearest viii
lage rum-shop. But the women are
as busy as bees all the time. cuttins
sugar-cane, picking coffee, or eatberee
ing pimento. They can do everytbing
that the men do much better thar ths
men themselves, and they are far aaS
Ter TO manage. They will even carr,
the men,"
Then why don't you break tba,
iron-bound custom and employ orI,,
women al mems wagers?" asked ~
American. 'He
Because" answered the planter .r
should not have a single laborer mall
OF female, oH the estate inside "A week
You don't understand the conaer,,a
usm of the tropics Immemorial cus-
tom DEGREES that women should III
pnlq eighteen cents ana man twen-
ly-iopr' n paid lhe women mems
Na4es, thsg WOULD grow suspicious
anq fefuft 20 work for me And eye9
~ t1ey we're willing fo work 49,
meprfolh would not lef them NJ
~ mf women lab9fera aupport 800
lazy huiking brute N 4 man out ~