Year: 1879

A false sentiment has rendered 1t de-
rogatory for woman to be q business
woman, for a girl to earn or appreciate
dollars and cents, if she can possibly find
father. brother, or uncle to support her,
the noble army of working women, who
of all women best demonstrate their rdison
C'etre is in general despised army; and
while society applauds the woman who
is an artist, an editor, an author, it does so
by calling her genius, and setting her
out of that grand corps where she legit


imately belongs. Families with three,
four or five daughters, whether there are
sons or not, if the father can possibly
support them, are brought up to do
nothing but help mother little! This
helping is not generally really leaning
housekeeping and seamstress work in all


its varieties, hut skimming the surface of


things, making cake, busting room,
trimming a gown, and leaving those


weightier matters of the law, as shirt
making, ironing, bread-making and beef
cooking to some one else. Girls speak OF
it as hardship, if they are obliged by


stress of circumstances 20 earn support.
anna thinks it is SO hard; all her friends


have their time to themselves, and she is


forced to teach, poor childi" The whole


training of the girl is aside from knowing
anything about business; she reads stories


and fashion magazines, not newspapers,


and works on science and architecture,


and practical everyday life. She does
not learn telegraphy or carving, or fur
niture decorating, OF gardening, or book
keeping, nor docs she 20 into her fathers
business and learn 1t as her brother would


If she had one; bless you, it would make
her a working woman! Thus, out of
this army of working women are kept,
so far as possible, all women of
LII. .ntlw. NnnH
cultured taste. These or. anized
into a society make no end of blunders in
business, and regard them as cre6itable
rather than otherwise, as a Chinese lady
cherishes the deformity of a cramped foot.
| If they read common law and medicine SO
as to be as we'll informed on these points
\ as ordinary men, bless you. they are very
odd,' at the least. These good ladies with
the very best Intentions undertake to
handle the working woman question they
are thrown into lntact with the poor, and
knowing absolutely nothing of what it is
to earn a living, or what it costs to earn a
dollar, or what dollar can be made to
bring, they have only the most general and
no particular sympathies; on one hand,
they will be deceived and kill by over
kindness, on the other, they will misunder-
stand and kill by hardness. 1t needs
working women to understand and help
working women then they know that be-
ing bread winners does not forfeit for them
their position as wives and mothers; that
while they earn daily wages they have the
affections of the hearth; that the poor
mother, left a widow, wants to keep her
children in u home, not to sow them
broadcast in orphan asylums; that the
poor couple who have passed their mar
ried fifty years, unhonored it is true by a
golden wedding, do not want to be thrust
one into an Old Mems Home, the other In.
to an Old Women's Home, or put in the
sepm ate wards of an almshouse, or one go
to one Blind Asylum and the other to an.
other. There Is a fine kind OF charity in
England, where endowments have been
left so that decent destitute old couples, OF
single people, can have a nice three-room.
ed cottage, with fuel, water and lights


and a certain number of shillfngs weekly
on which to subsist; and they can take in
an orphan grandchild, or feeble child


living as in their own home. subject only
to certain regulations of sobriety, cleanli


ness, and good order.-[Sunday Afternoon