Year: 1878




They DO IL and What They Are Paid.


From the Philadelphia Weekly Times.I


In spite of the beautiful theory that
women are born to be taken care of,
and men created in order to perform
that Office, the number of women who
are of necessity self-supporting, who
must earn their own bread or go hun
cry, is large and increasing. Broader
views and wider civilization have OPEN
ed to them many doors hitherto shut,
and to-day it may be safely said that
any woman may earn her living by any
employment for which she has skill and
strength. Her physical endurance, as
a rule, falls far below that of the man,
and this fact, together with that, that
in most trades and professions there ex-
lists among employers prejudice in ia
vor of male labor, has a disastrous effect
upon her wages as compared with those
of the man. Only when bodily strength
counts for nothing, in art and in litera-
ture, when, as some one has said, there
is no sex, does this distinction cease to
exist. Whether coming ages are to al
ter this; whether the shrieking sister,
hood" are to bring about all the changes
for which they clamor, those ages must
themselves unfold. Our business lies
with the present state of affair, with
things as they are, not as they shall be,
when this and perhaps few more gen.
erations are dead and buried. Ordi-
narily, the wages paid to workingwom-
en- are rarely more than enough to suf-
flee for a modest support. In large
cities, where so many girls are sales
women, their wages range from SO to
SO, or perhaps S15, per week. A few,
exceptionally valuable, earn from 800
to S25, while skilled forewoman may
be paid $50 or more; but such wages
are rare, and the general average may
be set down atfrom S5 to SS-an amount
which it will readily be seen does not
allow much margin beyond necessary
living expenses. The army of teachers
is proverbially ill-paid. Family gov
ernesses often receive but little, if any
thing, over 800 and board for the
scholastic year, and sometimes the
stipend is less. When the salary is
larger, the family is usually wealthier,
the pupils older, and the governess is
expected to dress and appear in con-
formity to the circle in which they move,
and at church, at least, her attire must
be handsome. Public school teachers
are, as a rule, much better paid; but
these, in country parlance, must " find
themselves" and thus the difference in
compensation is not so wide as one is
apt at first thought to imagine. If the
teacher lives at home and can command
her salary as pocket money she has
really a pretty little income; if, however,
the amount must cover all expenses for
board and lodging, fuel and clothing,
she must be economical and prudent in
order to attempt a bank account.


JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN.


Of late years journalism has offered a
new field for educated women, and to-
day in America there are a few who
make money and whose names are
known to every one. But, alas, we see
and hear of those who win; the many
who fail do so with no one to tell OF
their struggles. People are apt to fancy
writing for the press easy work, which
any one with tolerable fluency-and
most women are fluent-can do. In
point of fact, no profession needs more
careful training. A man who sets up as
a cabinet-maker, knowing only how to
handle plane; a woman who essayed
shoemaking, expecting success because
she could sew a straight seam, would be
as wise as she who hopes to make her
self name and fame among writers on
the strength of her ability to write a
readable private letter. And journal
ism steady, faithful work-which is
ready with its article to order on any
subject, at any hour, is the only literary
work which may always be depended
on for daily bread and butter, let alone
the cakes and sweetmeats so dear to the
feminine tooth. "There is always
plenty of room at the top" but genius
is the blossoming of an aloe-the fruit
of century. Talent allied to pluck
and perseverance is sure to win in the
long run, bus it must be in most cases
by hand-to-hand fight with defeat-a
close contest with the struggling crowd
at the bottom. In general literature,
even where there has been real talent to
back the aspirant, and where success
has come at last, it has often come after
many failures, and when success comes
the pecuniary reward is often pitifully
small. A distinguished writer is re-
ported to have once said, jocularly, that
his books averaged him dollar and q
quarter year apiece, and even the
great novelists of the century have not
made fortunes. The woman who can
gain a decent living by her pen may
count herself successful.


She who marries for living has, per-
haps, the hardest life of all. Where
the union secures a large fortune, this
remark, of course, does not apply; but
where the husband is master of only q
moderate income and the wife becomes
such expecting to be taken care of, she
makes woeful mistake. For the wife
and mother who really does her duty,
who "looketh well to the ways of heI
household and trains her children
aright," has her hands full to overflow.
ing, and from sun to sun there is always
something which presses on her time
Indeed, to use the words of such a one,
she comes to feel as though it were 8
sin to sit five minutes with folded
hands. Brain, body and soul are al
taxed in keeping so many threads well
in order and weaving them carefully
into perfect web. It has passed into
an axiom that idleness does not bring
happiness, and she whose " children
rise up and call her blessed" and whose
Husband praiseth her," reaps her re-
ward. But such reward rarely, if ever,
comes to the woman who marries that
she may have her bills paid, and who
when married, shirks her duties as fal
as possible. For the domestic machin
cry can never move smoothly if the oil
of love be lacking, and the house
mother who has no heart for her work
finds that work the hardest of all which
q woman can do.


| LADY HELPS.


House servants in well-to-do familie:
are probably, as class, the most indie
pendent of workingwomen. They live
well, and their wages are so much clear
outside of clothing, which need not cos
much, and with generous employers OF
the one hand and valued servants or
the other, presents and perquisite: