Year: 1869

costs S. or So, and they are compelled to DC
decenty clad. Factory girls, it Is reported,
develop disease from standing eleven hours
day, and, IL they marry, cannot rear healthy
| children.


Miss Aurora Phelps (herself a sewng-ma-
chine operator we believe), the apparent cen
ter and motor of this associate effort for relief,
seems to be a woman of large capacity and OF
executive power Having herself worked for
2j cents a day, she knows the misery and peril
of starvation prices. But she does not come III
purposeless woe before the Convention. She
proposes a scheme of colonization, which Is
explained IN the following clause of petition
soon to be presented to the Legislature


We pray your honorable body to cause TO be purchased


land and to lay ont the same suitable lots some OF half
an acre. Of acre and so on to lots OF threS anu
on each lot s desire that these lots should DO et
lease to poor working Oh UsTo o io cr1s and
instruction in gardening until such tllne as tlo i moo
selfsupporng the payment Of rent to commence WIN


the third year only, and the rent to he heh 80
and so applied as naY n m the form Of rent


the entire 10 the State OF the lot on Whch she c


with all other necessary incidental expenses ana become


he sole proprictress OF the lot in feo simplc or II IL De


thought preferable, each lot may be hed III trust ny @ no
state for the and benefit OF the woman VINO nag
paid FOR it under the form OF ront TO pass to her enae
heirs in the Of her death. And II our tuIheT
desire that these hOmesteads be exempted lrO an


taxation and from oil process for debt and that tne o
to them may be non-transferaDle TO any male PciSon
! whatever :,
1t is intended that industrial schools shall
be included in this homestead plan, and that
n co6perative system shall bo adopted, by
means of which women may both learn and
perform varied labor, instead OF wearing out
soul and body in one exhausting, unchanglng
avocation. Miss Phelps very clearly and briefly
| stated the advantages which she hoped OF her
schemes First, the security of home, with which
no woman can afford to dispense, with which
no woman ever willingly dispenses. Second,
healthful, clean, and decent habitatiOns, and,
| in their order, tho chance of remunerative out
| of-door occupation, tho medicine of the air,
the restfulness of the country. Then, dozen
| girls working in the same shop could so ar
range their work as to give each, in turn
| little breathing-time at this suburban home
| Here it would be possible that unskilled labor
should become skilled labor which should
| command better market prices. Here 1t would
even be possible that girls should thoroughly
learn household service, becoming good cooks,
chambermaids, walters with sound bodies,
which American domestics almost never have
| The repugnance which this class Of young
women feels toward household service comes
of the absolute isolation which exists between
mistress and servant. Perhaps the best indi-
rect result Of tho Equal Rights movement has
been the persistent exaltation of the dignity Of
labor as labor. Every year people are coming
more and more to feel that q worker, and es-
pecially q worker, is an honorable per-
son, and that it is only the lazy people, the
non-producers, who are disgraced. AS this new
belief gains ground, intelligent labor Will as
| readily cook an elaborate dinner rs fashion an
elaborate garment or keep set of complicated
books. The upper servant who calls herself
mistress, finding her intelligent New-England
cook an ingenious practical chemist will respect
and assist her. And the lower servant who
calls herself cook, finding her caroworn mis-
tress O consideTate friend, a cooperative asso-
citation will at once be formed between the two,
pleasant and profitable to both.


For the first years Miss Phelps believes that
n great homestead like this could not be made
sclf-suppOrting; but as the occupants could
save their scanty wages they would gradually
become independent. Therefore she asks aid
of the State, sure that as an economical meas
ure alone such aid is n wise investment since
the State would soon save in charities what it
| lends in help.


The grinding away Of youth, and hope, and
purpose, when life becomes q daily purchase Of
20 cents or 30 cents by fourteen hours of labor,
is tragical enough If that were all. The bare
ness, and cold, and scanty food are tragcal
enough if that were ALL The swift decay of
tho physical powers, and tho slow coming Of
death, are tragical enough if that were all.
| rffl e 1atl,fp hon al
who pays comparatively good wages
says that the girls who run the sewing
machines break down in couple of years with
hopeless diseases, and arc fit for no other
work. All these underpaid, and underfed, and
| ill-housed women are diseased. If they marry
they bequeath disease, and the next genera
ton comes even more heavily weighted to the
unequal struggle. But behind all these horrors is
the darker one of the alternative which awaits
these women Ito be well-fed, well-hOused
| well-clothed for a season, and then to die the
| death, and TO bequeath the death to SONS and
| brothers Of the women who have too long de-
layed TO hear their story. If Boston has learned
of this misery In her midst, it is time that
| New York eagerly inquired what wrong can be
| laid at her own door. For if these things be
true of our wOrkingwOmen, let Old School
and New School consider this homo mis-
sionary field straightwayj let Ritualist and
Evangelist unite for the moment in some plan
of mercy and justice to these miserable sinners,
and let the National Woman's Suffrage AssOci-
alton postpone its demand for the ballot while
il batters the doors of Albany with storms of
prayers for land, houses, gardens, whatever
shall promise the help of home and bread.


In an appeal issued several months ago to