OR,
LOW' WAGES AND HARD WORK:
gI  Egr~ TrturtfS,
DELIVERED IN BOSTON, NOVEMBER, 1859.
B  *~ A
B~CARLINE, "
BY CAROLINE'i I. DALL.
"Thank God! a song for the women as well as the men."
CHARLES AUCHESTER.
BOSTON:
WALKER, WISE, AND COMPANY
245, WASHIXGTON STREET.
1860.
" nloiiiiiis. ~t to Labor; " 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859,
BY  WALKER, WISE, AND  CO.
In the Clerk's Off0ce of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
~ s-v_
BOSTON:
PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON,
22, BSHOOL SB'IB?.
H:D
.  = o-5. 
ANNA JAMESON,
In Crateful Commemoration
OF
HER LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL,
THESE
"Vlain waxy" art otbiat-. 
.. I
~  ~          1* "And could he find
A woman, in her womanhood, as great
As he was in his manhood, then, he sang,
The twain together well might change the world."
"But he never mocks;
For mockery is the fume of little hearts."
"For, in those days,
No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn;
But if a man were halt or hunched, -in him,
By those whom God had made full-fed and tall,
Scorn was allowed, as part of his defect."
GUINEVERE, it Idyls of the gin,.
t 
Exchange
Library
Univ. of Western
Ontario
-  e  C
PREFACE.
MIORE than two years ago, I conceived the thought
of twelve lectures, to be written concerning Woman;
to embrace, in four series of three each, all that I
felt moved to say in relation to her interests. No
one knew better than myself, that they would be
only "twelve baskets of firagments gathered up;"
but I could not distrust the Divine Love which still
feeds the multitudes, who wander in the desert, with
"five loaves and two small fishes."
Nine of these lectures have now been offered to
my audiences. In the first three, I stated Woman's
claim to a civil position, and asked that power should
be given her, under a professedly republican government, to protect herself. In them I thus stated
the argument on which I should proceed:  "The
right to education- that is, the right to the eduction or drawing-out of all the faculties God has
given- involves the right to a choice of vocation;
that is, the right to a choice of the end to which those
',4
\,.
k 
PREFACE.
faculties shall be trained. The choice of vocation
necessarily involves the protection of that vocation, - the right to decide how far legislative action
shall control it; in one word, the right to the elective franchise."
Proceeding upon this logical formula, I delivered,
in 1858, a course of lectures  stating "Woman's
Claim to Education;" and this season I have condensed my thoughts upon the freedom of vocations
into the three following lectures. There are still to
be completed three lectures on "Woman's  Civil
Disabilities." I should prefer to unite the twelve
lectures in a single publication; but reasons of imperative force have induced me to hurry the printing of these "Essays on Labor."  Neither Education
nor Civil Disability can dispute the public interest
with this subject. No one can know better than
myself upon what wide information, what thorough
mental discipline, all considerations in regard to it
should be based. I have tried to keep my work
within the compass of my ability, and, without seeking rigid exactness of detail, to apply common sense
and right reason to problems which beset every
woman's path. At the very threshold of my work, I
confronted a painful task. Before I could press the
necessity of exertion, before I could plead-that labor
might be honored in the public eye, I felt that I must
show some cause for the terrible earnestness with
vi 
PREFACE.
which I was moved; and I could only do it by facing boldly the question of "Death or Dishonor?"
"Why not leave it to be understood?" some persons may object.  "Why  not leave such work to
man?" the public may continue.
In answer to the first question, I would say that
very few women have much knowledge of this
"perishing class," except those actually engaged in
ministering to its despair; and that the information
I have given is drawn from wholly reliable sources,
as the reader may see, but can be obtained only by
hours- nay, days and weeks - of painful and exhausting study. Very gladly have I saved my audience that necessity: greatly have I abbreviated
whatever I have quoted. But I meant to drive the
reality of that wretchedness home: I wanted the
women to whom I spoke to feel for those "in bonds
as bound with them;" and to understand, that, to
save their own children, male and female, they must
be willing to save the children of others. It will be
observed that I have said very little in regard to
this class in the city of Boston; very little, also, that
was definite in regard to our slop-shops. The deficiency is intentional. I would not have one woman
feel that I had betrayed her confidence, nor one
employer that I had singled him out as a victim;
and it is almost impossible to speak on such subjects
without finding the application made to one's hand.
vii 
PREFACE.
I may say, in general, that a very wide local experience sustains the arguments which I have based on
published statistics.
It was also my earnest desire to prepare one article on this subject that might be put into the hands
of both sexes; that might be opened to the young,
and read in the family circle, without thrilling the
reader with any emotion less sacred than religious
pity. This cannot be true of the reports of any
Moral Reform Society; for in them it is needful to
print details so gross and sensual in character as
to be fit reading for none but well-principled persons of mature age. It is not true of such a work
of Dr. Sanger's; for his historical retrospect furnishes every possible excuse to the vices of youth,
and is open to question on every page.
From the highest sources in this communityfrom the lips of distinguished clergymen, scholars,
and men of the world-I have had every private
assurance, that, in this respect, I have not failed.
It would be unjust not to state, that two powerful
causes co-operate in the city of Boston, with low
wages, to cause the ruin of women: I mean the love
of dress, and a morbid disgust at labor.
The love of dress was a motive which obviously
had no natural relation to my subject. A disinclination to work, my readers may think, it was proper I
should have treated; but it is the natural reflection
viii 
PREFACE.
of a state of things, in the upper classes, which would
be a much fitter subject of rebuke.
So long as a lady will allow her guest to stand exposed to snow and rain, rather than turn the handle
of the door which she happens to be passing, - so
long as neither bread nor water can be passed at
table, except at the omnipresent waiter's convenience,
-servants will naturally think that there is something degrading and repulsive in work. This reform
must begin in the hig,her classes.
But, if this subject must be treated at all, why
should it not be left to men?  Can women deal with
it abstractly and fairly? The answer is simple. In
Physics, no scientific observations are reliable, so
long as they proceed from one quarter alone: many
observers must report, and their observations must
be compared, before we can have a trustworthy result. So it is in Social Science. Men have been
dealing with this great evil, unassisted, for thousands
of years.  By their own confession, it is as unapproachable and obstinate as ever. Conquered by
its perpetual re-appearance, they have come to treat
it as an "institution" to be "managed;" not an evil
to be abolished, or a blasphemy to be hushed. But
these lectures are not written for atheists. The
speculative sceptic has retreated before the broad
sunlight of modern civilization: only two classes of
atheists remain, - men of science, who fancy that 
PREFACE.
they have lost sight of the Creator in his works, and
talk of the human soul as the most noble result of
material forces; and people of fashion, who- live
"without  God  in the world."  Why  man  should
ever investigate the material universe without a
tender and reverent, nay, a growing dependence on
"the dear heart of God," we will not pause to inquire.   The  child does not let go  his  Father's
hand, when he first comprehends the abundance
of his resources. Neither the fountains of God's
beauty, nor the perplexities of his nicely-ordered
law, loosen man's loving grasp. He clings all the
closer in his joy, because he knows Him better.
But why should not the denizens of the fashionable world be atheists? When I go among them,
and listen to their heartless fooleries,- when I see
them absorbed by the vain nothings of their coterie,
rapt in endless consultations about times and seasons, devoid of any real enjoyment, hopeless of noble
occupation, with the days all empty and the nights
all dark, -then I, too, shiver with doubt, and am
ready to say in my heart, "There is no God."   We
can never believe in any spiritual reality of which
our own souls do not receive some faint reflex.
These people must do the will of the Father, before
they can believe in his love. I do not write for
them, but for thoughtful men and women, who rejoice in God's presence, deny the permanence of
X 
PREFACE.
evil institutions, and are anxious to share with
others the inheritance that belongs to the "child of
the kingdom," -for those who have faith to remove
mountains, and courage to confess the faith.  For
them I shall not have spoken too plainly.
Shortly after these essays were written, - in
June, 1859, -I received from London Mrs. Jameson's      "Letter to Lord John Russell;" and I cannot
refrain from expressing here the deep emotion with
which I read what she had written to him upon the
same subject. Well may she wear the silver hairs
of her sixty years like a crown, if only through
their sanction she may speak such noble words.
But
" Earnest purposes do age us fast; "
and many a true-hearted woman, far younger in
years, would gladly bear witness with her.
I would not write, if I could, an "exhaustive"
treatise. All I ask for my work is that it should be
"suggestive." With that purpose, I have worked
out my schemes, in the last lecture, far enough to
provoke objection, to stimulate the spirit of adventure, to show how easily the "work" may wait upon
the "will."  May the "Opening of the Gates" be
near at hand!
It remains only to acknowledge my indebtedness
to some English and American friends: and first to
xi 
PREFACE.
the "Englishwoman's Journal;" * not merely for its
own excellent articles, but for references and suggestions, most valuable when followed out. The
story of the young straw-braider was drawn from
its pages; and, disappointed in the arrival of original material from Paris, long expected, I have
been compelled to depend upon it largely for my
sketch of Felicie de Fauveau. To one of its editors,
Miss B. R. Parkes, and to Madame Bodichon in
London, as well as to the Rev. Mr. Higginson in
Worcester, I am under pleasant private obligations.
I must rest content to seem largely indebted to the
"Edinburgh Review," of May last, for condensing
the results of the census. My materials were collected and arranged, when the article on "Female
Industry" reached me; and the differences in treatment were so few, that I at once drew my pen
through whatever was not sanctioned by its authority. The ladies who first directed my attention to
the Waltham watch-factory, and to the inventors of
artificial marble in France, will see from these few
words that I am not forgetful.
CAROLINE H. DALL.
BOSTON, November, 1859.
* Received by A. Williams & Co., 100, Washington Street.  It is the
duty of American women largely to increase its subscription-list.
xii 
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
I.
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
The Attar of Cashmere. Moral Force must change the Results
of History.   Statement of Subject.   Death or Dishonor
the Practical Question. An Honorable Independence the
Way of Safety. The Forcing Pump and Siphon. Wo  men must Work for Pay. Success the Best Argument.
Competition in Rural Districts. Duchatelet. Miss Craig.
"Edinburgh Review."  Dressmakers and Sir James Clarke.
Lace-makers.  Manchester MIantle-maker.  7,850 Ruined Wo  men in New  York.   Society Responsible  for this Evil.
Governesses.  Mr. Mayhew  to the "Morning  Chronicle."
The Mlinister's Daughter. The Power of a Divine Love.
Noble Natures among the Fallen.  The Glasgow Case.  1,680
Reformed French Women. The Straw-braider. Have Wo  men Strength to Labor?  The Young Laborer to be protected
by Social Influences. Women, Hard Workers from the Be  ginning. China. Hindostan, Bombay Ghauts. Australia.
Africa. Greece. Bertha of the Transjurane. Tyrolese Es  cort of Women. Germany. Montenegro. Holland. France.
Factory Labor in France. Sale of Wives at Derby and
Dudley. Women in the Coal-mines. Pinmakers. Anna 
CONTENTS.
Gurney.   Honduras.   American  Indians.   Santa  Cruz.
Ohio and Pennsylvania.  New York.  Ship Grotta. Thomas
Garrett concerning Sarah Ann Scofield. That all Men support all Women, an Absurd Fiction.... pp. 1-59.
II.
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
Want of Employment lowers the whole Moral Tone. Vigorous
Women do not ask what they shall do. Idleness the Curse
of Heaven. Organized Opposition on Man's Part. Mr. Ben  nett and the Watchmakers. The School at Marlborough
House. Miss Spencer. Painting Crockery. Printing in
America. Pennsylvania Medical Society, 1859. Want of
Respect for Labor. Census of the United Kingdom. Ag  riculture.  Mining.   Fishing.  Servants, &c.  Reporters.
Bright Festival. Metal Workers. Gillott's Pens. Jewelry.
Screw-making. Button-making. Paper and Card Making.
Engravers, Printers, &c., &c. The Lower Classes need the
Brains of the Upper. Labor in the United States. Nan  tucket. Pennsylvania. Dr. Franklin's Sister-in-law. Mrs.
Hillman. Mrs. Johnson. Martha B. Curtis. Ann Bent. Scien  tific Pursuits not open. Clerks under Government. Census.
Waltham Watch Factory. Dentists. School Committees.
Postmistresses. Olive Rose. Semi-Professions and Artists.
Shoemaking in Lynn. Condition of the Poor dependent on
the Action of the Rich. Happy Homes the Growth of Active
Lives.  The Pine and Enemone.  Emily Plater.  "Verify
your Credentials." Encouragement from Men; Faithfulness
from Women.   The  Sorbonne.  Madame  Sirault.  That
xiv 
CONTENTS.
Career fated which Woman may not share. Influence of
the Sexes on each other. Baron Toermer and F1licie de
Fauveau..............             pp. 60-123.
III.
THE OPENING OF THE GATES.
The Drowning of Daughters. Teachers of Elocution and the
Languages.   Inspectors.   Physicians.   Dr.  Heidenreich.
Wood Carving. Properzia dei Rossi. Swiss Work. Eliza  betta Sirani.  Engravers.   Barbers.   Candied  Fruit for
Christmas. Pickles. Fruit Sauces. Dishmops. Gymnas  tics. Female Assistants in Jails, Prisons, Workhouses, not
to be had till Public Opinion honors Labor. Florence
Nightingale an Example. Parish Ministers. Deaconnesses.
Marion of the Seven Dials. Reading Aloud to the Perishing
Classes. A Training School. A Public Laundry and Bleach  ing Ground. Ready-made Clothing. An Assistance to our
Practical Charity. Knitting Factory. Ornamental Work to
be avoided. Occupation for the Young Ladies at the West
End. Mrs. Ellen Wood and her Industrial Schools. She
takes Eighty Paupers out of the Poorhouse. Mr. Buckle's
Position to be questioned.   Mistaken Moral Effort a Harm
to Society.  Want of Connection between the Employer
and the Employed.   People who want "a Chance Lift."
Defects in our present Intelligence-Offices. A Labor Ex  change. The Argument restated. Will you tread out the
Nettles? The Drosera. Purposes the Blossoms of the Hu   man Heart............pp. 124-184.
Xv  
I.
DEATHI  OR DISHONOR.
" How high, beneficent, sternly inexorable, if forgotten, is the duty laid,
not on women only, but on every creature, in regard to these par  ticulars! "-T. CARLYLE.
HE delicate ladies on Beacon Street, who
order their ices and creams flavored
with vanilla or pear-juice, may not know
that bituminous coal, rope-ends, and creosote,
furnish a larger proportion of the piquant
seasoning than the blossoming bean or the
orchard-tree; but every man of science
does.
Already the chemist furnishes the attar of
Cashmere from heaps of offal that lie rotting
by the way. It is as if God forced man face
to face with every repellent fact of nature,
and said, "Slake thy thirst at this turbid
1 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
fountain, child of the dust; or the purer
streams of the hillside shall trickle for thee
in vain."
Somewhat so, I am compelled to turn your
eyes to the most repulsive side of human life.
I do not do it willingly, but of a necessity;
not because I like it, but because it is essential to the argument. May the contact prove,
that the perfumed joy of later years has disguised itself, for both of us, in the rotting
accumulations of our social life!
It rests with yourselves to decide. These
lectures may be useless; they may fill your
minds with painful details, open hideous vistas, and blind you to the tempting, heavenward
ways which we love to see the young and
beautiful pursue.
But, in such case, the responsibility is not
mine. I would have you look on vice, that
you may learn to loathe it; I would have you
realize, that what a noble friend of ours has
called the "perishing classes" are made of
men and women like yourselves.
2 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
Bidding you trust, to a certain extent, to
the truth of those terrible statistics that
crush Thomas Henry Buckle in their grasp,
I would still have you remember, that, beside
the active laws of moral and material life,
there is ever the living God immanent in
the world; and that it is always for you to
change the results of history, at any given
era, according to the great first law, -none
the less real because so often forgotten,that this living God helps or hinders you
as you will, and becomes, at any moment that
you choose, an important element in each
calculation.
The subject at present befor3 us is "Woman's Claims to Labor."
These claims rest upon three points:  First, The absolute necessity of bread.
Second, A natural ability, physical and
psychical; and an attraction inherent in the
ability.
Third, An absolute want of the moral na
ture.
3 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
Having treated these in turn, I propose to
show you what practical opposition man offers
to her advance; what fault lies in herself;
how much more numerous are the occupations open than is generally supposed; and
what social obstructions have prevented her
taking advantage of them.
In this connection, I shall speak of those
women who have opened a way for their sex;
and shall offer to you certain plans of action,
by which, it seems to me, the convenience
and the happiness of the employer and the
employed may be materially advanced, especially as regards our own city.  Like a
wise child, who from his fretful pillow takes
the pill first, and the conserve afterwards, I
shall open the most painful branch of my
subject in this lecture, and turn from it as
soon as the needed impression has been
made.
I ask for woman, then, free, untrammelled
access to all fields of labor; and I ask it, first,
on the ground that she needs to be fed, and
4 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
that the question which is at this moment
before the great body of working women is
"death or dishonor:" for lust is a better paymaster than the mill-owner or the tailor, and
economy never yet shook hands with crime.
Do you object, that America is free from
this alternative? I will prove you the contrary within a rod of your own doorstep.
Do you assert, that, if all avenues were
thrown open, it would not increase the quantity of work; and that there would be more
laborers in consequence, and lower wages for
all?
Lower wages for some, I reply; but certainly
higher wages for women; and they, too, would
be raised to the rank of partners, and personal
ill treatment would not follow those who had
position and prope'rty before the law.
You offer them a high education in vain
till you add to it the stimulus of a free career.
In this lecture, I undertake to prove to you,
that a large majority of women stand in such
relations to their employers, that they are
5 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
compelled to death or a life of shame. Why
not choose death, then?
So I asked once of a woman thus pressed
to the wall. "Ah, madam!" she answered,
"I chose it long ago for myself; but what
shall I do for my mother and child?"
The superior has a right to every advan tage which he can honestly gain, as well as
the inferior; but he has no right to increase
any natural difference in his favor, if he believe it to exist, by laws or customs which
cripple the inferior. If, as political economists tell us, it is chiefly by man, collectively
taken, that the property of society is created;
and if, on that very ground, man's interest
has the first claim to consideration, - does
it not follow, that every friend of woman will
try to induce her to become a capitalist, and
open to her, as her first path to safety, the
way to honorable independence? And, in
this connection, I must repeat what some of
you have often heard me say, that a want of
respect for labor, and a want of respect for
6 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
woman, lies at the bottom of all our difficulties, low wages included.
I will not admit that the argument of the
political economist has, as yet, any rightful
connection with the price of woman's work.
"The price of labor will always rise or fall,"
he says, "as the number of laborers is small
or large; and it is because there are too many
women for a few avenues of labor that the
wages are so low." If man believes this, let
him help us to open new avenues, and so
reduce the number in any one. But I claim
that he has increased the natural difference
in his own favor, supposing that there be
any such, by laws and customs which cripple
woman; and that his own lust of gain stands
in the way of her daily bread. Just so in hydraulics, men tell us, that water rises everywhere to the level of its source; but you
may raise it a thousand feet higher by the
aid of your forcing-pump, or drop it from a
siphon a thousand feet below. And a forcingpump and a siphon has man imposed upon
7 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
the natural currents of labor. If, in my cor respondence with employers last winter, one
man told me with pride that he gave from
eight to fifty cents for the making of pantaloons, including the heaviest doeskins, he forgot to tell me what he charged his customers
for the same work. Ah! on those bills, so
long unpaid, the eight cents sometimes rises
to thirty, and the fifty cents always to a dollar
or a dollar and twenty-five cents.
The most efficient help this class of workwomen could receive would be the thorough
adoption of the cash system, and the establishment of a large workshop in the hands of
women consenting to moderate profits, and
superintended by those whose position in society would win respect for labor. When I
said, six months ago, that ten Beacon-street
women, engaged in honorable work, would
do more for this cause than all the female
artists, all the speech-making and conventions,
in the world, I was entirely in earnest.
It is pretty and lady-like, men think, to
8 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
paint and chisel: philanthropic young ladies
must work for nothing, like the angels. Let
them, when they rise to angelic spheres; but,
here and now, every woman who works for
nothing helps to keep her sister's wages down,
- helps to keep the question of death or dishonor perpetually before the women of the
slop-shop.
Why? Because she helps to depress the
estimate of woman's ability.  What is persistently given for nothing is everywhere
thought to be worth nothing.  I throw open
a door here for some stifled sufferer at the
West End: let her open a clothing establishment, and  employ her  own sex;  let her
make  money by it, and watch for the end.
When an Employment Society or a Needlewomnan's Friend becomes bankrupt in purse, it
is bankrupt in morals and argument as well.
The wheels of the world move on the grooves
of good management, of success. Set these
once firmly underneath, and the outcry against
our moral Fultons will be hushed.
9 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
In country villages and farming districts,
there is a great deal of harmful competition
with the girls of the slop-shops, which can
never be ended until it is considered respectable for women openly to earn money.  The
stitching of wallets, hat-linings, and shoebindings, the more delicate labor on linen
collars and shirt-bosoms, is carried on now
not merely by so-called benevolent societies
who want to build churches, lecture-rooms,
and so on, but by rich farmers' wives, who
keep or do not keep servants, in the long,
summer afternoons and winter evenings, because it is work that can be done privately,
and is sought to supply them with jewelry
and dress. If they will not educate their
minds by profitable reading, it is earnestly
to be desired they should work, but openly,
for money, and at such trades as naturally
fall to their lot.  IHerb and  fruit drying,
distilling, preserving, pickling, market-gardening, may yet lay the foundations of ample
fortune for many a woman. I have passed
10 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
a summer amid lovely landscapes, where the
women found neither fruit nor vegetables
for their table, but let the brown earth
plead to them in vain; while they stitched,
stitched, stitched the long hours away, every
broken needle bearing witness against the
broken lives of women who needed in distant cities, where they stood homeless and
starving, the work their sisters pilfered,
sitting at their ease beside the hearth-stone.
Their ignorance was their excuse. Let it
not be ours.
And, first, for a few general statements.
An indispensable requisite for what the
Germans call a "bread study " is, that, for average talent, it should command moderate success.  "Of all causes of prostitution in Paris,"
says Duchatelet, "and probably in all great
towns, none is so active as the want of work,
or inadequate remuneration. What are the
earnings of our laundresses, seamstresses, and
milliners? Compare the price of labor with
the price of dishonor, and you will cease to
it 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
be surprised that women fall. Out of 5,183
prostitutes in Paris, I found that 2,696 had
been driven to the streets by starvation; and
89, to feed starving parents or children. That
is 300 over one-half of the whole number."
"It is well known," writes Miss Craig, in
Edinburgh, "how brief is the career that our
female criminals run. How they are recruited,
it is not hard to guess in a country where
there are fifty thousand women working for
less than sixpence a day, and a hundred thousand for less than one shilling."
When, a few years ago, the "Edinburgh
Review" collected the statistics of female
labor, it found the wages about half what
were paid to men. But no reason was assigned for this difference; only, one master
gardener ventured to assert, that women ate
less than men!
An advertisement in London for fifty dressmakers brought seven hundred applicants to
the door of the warehouse; and, after long
waiting, a police-officer brought the employer
12 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
to explain why they could not all be hired.
Sir James Clarke tells us, that the results of
the inquiry into the condition of this class of
women exceeded in horror those of the factory
commission. Eighteen hours a day was the
allotted time for work; and nothing but strong
coffee enabled them to ply their needles. Fifteen hundred employers keep fifteen thousand
girls. In driving times, they work all night.
One girl testified that she had worked through
the whole Sunday fifteen times in two years.
The lacemakers also work from twelve to
twenty hours; and, in families where a peculiar "knack" is thought to be transmitted,
children are put to this work from the age of
two years. There is no regular time for food
or sleep in certain stages of the manufacture;
and many of these overworked women become vagrants.
A terrible letter from a Manchester mantlemaker was lately published, in which she
pleads to be permitted to earn twopence an
hour, when compelled to work overtime (that
13 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
is, over twelve hours a day); and says, pitifully, that, if the present regulations go on,
nothing but death can save her from dishonor.
A Persian traveller, who visited the bazaar
in Soho, was greatly shocked when he found
that all those young women were earning
their own living; and plumed himself on the
superior happiness of the women of his own
country. What would he have said, could he
have followed the clergyman's daughter, as
we must do, from a happy home and fine
sewing, down, through all the degradations
of the slop-shop, to the very gutter?
But this is England.
Out of two thousand women who work for
their daily bread in New York, five hundred
and thirty-four receive a dollar a week. ".How
many men," asks Dr. Chapin, "would keep
off death and conquer the Devil on such
wages? One woman had to do it by makimg caps at two cents each! Think of this,
women who like to buy things cheap: for, if
14 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
the veil could be lifted from your eyes, you
would see - the angels do see - on your
gay, white dresses many a crimson stain;
and among the dewy flowers with which you
wreathe your hair, the grass that grows on
graves!"
Seven thousand eight hundred and fifty
ruined women walk the streets of New York,
- five hundred ordinary omnibus-loads. They
are chiefly young women under twenty, and
the average length of the lives they lead is
just four years. Every four years, then, seven
thousand eight hundred and fifty women are
drawn from their homes, many of them from
simple, rural hearths, to meet this fate. What
drives them to it? The want of bread.
Last October, two vagrant women  came
before a Liverpool court, who testified that
they had been driven to evil courses by
blows, and forced to support in idleness, by
their vice, the father of one, and the husband
of the other.
This statement shocks you: but poor pay
15 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
strikes as heavy a blow as a husband's right
arm; and these seven thousand eight lhundred
and fifty women in New York supported hundreds of men in ease, before they dropped
from the seamstress's chair to the curbstone
and the gutter.*
Tait says that the permanent prostitution
of any city bears a recognized numerical relation to its means of occupation. You ask
for proof.
Out of two thousand cases in the city of
New York, five hundred and twenty-five
pleaded destitution as the cause.
One of the police-officers testified of one
girl. "She struggled hard before she fell;
* What I mean here will be understood by a reference to
Emile Souvestre's "Philosophlie sous les Toits." In a pretty
story of two women employed in a clasp-flictory, he speaks of
their low wvages, and says, that, having worked for thirty years,
they had seen ten masters grow wealthy and retire firom business,
without having changed, in any degree, their own position.
These claspmakers certainly supported these ten masters and
their fimnilies in ease; and, wonderful to relate, these two did
not fall.
An angel, clothed in white, sat on the sepulchre wherein their
hopes were buried, all through that thirty years.
16 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
living on bread and water, and sleeping in
station-houses. In three years, I have known
more than fifty such cases."
A young girl of seventeen was left with the
care of a sick, crippled sister. They were
left to touch the very brink of despair. A
kindly, fair-faced woman brought work which
saved them from death. More was promised,
on conditions that you can guess; and the
toils so skilfully woven, that the young and
healthy longed for her sister's sickly face and
broken limb to ward off her fate.
"When a whole day's work brings only a
few pennies," said another to Dr. Sanger, "a
smile will buy me a dinner."
Out of these two thousand women, one
thousand eight hundred and eighty had been
brought up "to do nothing:" but, of all the
trades, dressmaking furnished the largest proportion; and yet you think you pay your dressmakers well!
Out of the two thousand, all but fifty-one
had been religiously educated.
2
17 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
"It has been shown elsewhere," says Dr.
Sanger, "that the public are responsible for
this evil, because they persist in excluding
women from many kinds of employment for
which they are fitted, while for work that
is open they receive inadequate compensation. The community are equally responsible
for non-interference with openly acknowledged
evils."
Thus far I have spoken of New York. I
might speak to you of Philadelphia and Boston, and tell you of ruin wrought under my
own eyes; of the daughter of a State-street
merchant found in the gutters of Toronto
years ago; of a daughter whom that wealthy
father dared not deny, when I wrote to him,
though he refused to furnish the bread that
would have kept her from sin. I know how
hard it is for a true and good man to open
his eyes to the wickedness and misery near
at hand. I have no desire to draw down
upon myself the local wrath of small clothiers
and petty officials. You know what wages
18 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
are in England: let us go thither for our concluding facts.
There are five hundred thousand single
women in England, and one out of every
thirteen is a thing of shame; that is, there
are thirty-eight thousand four hundred and
sixty-one women of the town.
Almost none of these women are drawn
from domestic service. Many were found in
New York who had lived out for twenty-five
cents a week, and from that dropped to moral
death.
You know what to expect from the lot of
English dressmakers, mantlemakers, and laceweavers; but does it not chill you with horror
to think that the class of governesses and
private teachers furnishes also a certain num
ber?
There is in London a Governesses' Benevolent Institution. There were lately before its
committee a hundred and twenty candidates
for annuities of a hundred dollars a year.
Ninety-nine were unmarried, eighty-three were
19 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
literally penniless, all of them were over fifty
years of age, and forty-nine of them were over
sixty.
One woman had labored for twenty-six years,
supporting a mother and five brothers and
sisters, all of whom she had educated at her
own expense; but she had not saved a penny.
Three were ruined by attempting to sustain
their fathers in business. Six had invalid
sisters dependent upon them. These are the
histories of pure, untarnished names: fancy
for yourselves the tales told by dishonored
lips.  Tile labors of Mr. Mayhew among this
forsaken class of women are probably familiar
by name to you all. To deepen the impression
which I wish to make, I shall quote some of the
evidence offered by him in his letters to the
"Morning Chronicle," and close this branch
of my subject. Eleven thousand women under
twenty are employed in the slop-shops. If
their own words do not touch you, mine, of
course, will fail.
20 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
1st Case. -" I work from six, A.M., to ten,
P.M. In the best weeks, I clear a dollar and
fifty cents; but I only average seventy-five
cents the year round. My mother is sixtyseven, and seldom gets a day's work. She
scours pots for the publicans at thirty-seven
cents a day, but is otherwise dependent upon
me. I was a good girl when I first went to
work, and struggled hard to keep pure; but
I had not enough to eat. Then I took up
with a young man turned of twenty, who
said he would make me his lawful wife; but
I hardly cared, so I could feed myself and
mother.*  Many young girls tempted me,
they were so happy with enough to eat and
drink. Could I have honestly earned enough
for food and clothes, I would never have gone
wrong; no, never.  I fought against it to the
last. If I had been born a lady, it would not
have been hard to act like one."
* This may strike some readers like the hardihood of willing
vice; but it is only callousness, born of exposure to hopeless
cold and hunger.
21 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
2d  Case. -" I earn seventy-five cents a
week clear. My husband has been dead seven
year, and I have buried three children. I
was happy so long as he lived (here she hid
her face in a rusty shawl, and burst into
tears). I was always true to him, so help me
God! I was an honest woman up to the time
my security * died. I swear it. I am glad
my children are dead; for I could not feed
them."
3d Case. —" I was an honest woman till
my husband died. I can put my hand on my
heart, and swear it. But I was penniless, and
a baby to keep. The world has drove me
about so.  When I want clothes, I must go to
the streets."
4th Case.-" I am the daughter of a mini
* When a woman wishes to get slop-work, she must find
some friend, who will either deposit, or become responsible for,
a sum equal to the value of the work she is permitted to carry
home. This person is called her "security." The longer she
works, the lower she falls; and, on the death of the "security,"
it is often impossible to replace him. The custom does not seem
to be yene}ral in this country.
22 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
ster of the gospel; and I pledge my word
solemnly and sacredly, that it was the low
price paid for my labor that drove me to sin.
I could only make thirty-four cents a week at
shirts, and should have starved but for the
street. At last, I swore to myself that I
would keep from it for my boy's sake. I had
pawned my clothes, and slept in a shawl and
petticoat under a butcher's shed. I was trying to get to the workhouse. I had had no
food for two days. My baby's legs froze to
my side, and I sank upon a doorstep. A lady
found us, and would have fed us; but I could
not eat. She rubbed the baby's legs with
brandy. That night I got to the workhouse:
but they would not take me in without an
order; so I went back to sin for one month.
It was the last. In my heart I hated it; my
whole nature rebelled at it; and nobody but
God knows how I struggled to give it up. I
pawned my only gown more than once."
Look at the frightful calmness of this story:
"They would not admit me to the workhouse
23 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
without an order; so I went back to sin for one
month."  When  this girl told her story to
Mr. Mayhew, she had been eight years at
service, honored by her employers. Her personal beauty was so great, and the whole
story so romantic, that Mr. Mayhew could
hardly believe that she had come to him of
her own accord to save other women from
the same fate; and he took a day's journey
into the country to confirm the facts. Her
employers spoke in high terms of her honesty,
sobriety, industry, and modesty.   For her
child's sake, she begged him to conceal her
name; and she told her story with her face
hidden in her hands,' sobbing so as scarcely
to be understood, and the tears dropping
through.
If you do not realize the commonness of
these tragedies, may God help you! Some
of you will assert that all this is necessary;
that, in this age, a certain proportion of women
must meet this fate; and wall me up with
statistics.
24 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
I tell you to bring the battering-ram of a
Divine Love to bear on that wall. You will
find, then, that, just as much as it was decreed
that such women should be, it was decreed
that an infinite saving power should exist,
and that you should help to make it available.
You may make these statistics what you will,
not in an hour or a day, but in time.
Some of you will assert that women capable
of falling thus can hardly be worth saving.
I know there is some wilful vice; I do not
desire to blink the truth: but, among those
whom ill-paid labor forces into sin, there are
women nobler and more disinterested than
many who remain pure. Look at the stories
I have told you, -women working for their
kindred; a young girl of seventeen ruined
to find bread for a crippled sister. In New
York, the thirty-seven women supporting infirm parents; twenty-nine providing for nephews and nieces; twenty-three, widows with
the care of young children.
Those of you who have had personal ex
25 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
perience of these women will not need me
to tell you that they never pay low wages.
The washerwomen and starchers whom they
employ are always well paid and well treated.
They give much in charity to save others, as
they often say, from their fate, and doubtless in the secret hope that God will permit
them thus to atone for their sin. A few years
ago, three young girls lived together in Glasgow. One of them, the youngest and frailest,
a girl whose story was like that of Mrs. Gaskell's "Ruth," had left a rural home for a
dressmaker's workroom. She fell into a decline, and, in her frequent delirium, raved
about the bleat of her father's sheep, the
evening cow-bell, and the crowing of the
cock. In her lucid moments, the thought
that she must die in shame convulsed her
with agony. The two remaining girls took
counsel. "There is no hope for us," they
said; "but perhaps God will forgive us if we
save her. Let us send her into the country,
and work for her till she dies." And so they
26 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
did, adding to the reckless wear of their
horrid life the toil of the needlewoman; but,
believe me, they never forgot the dying smile
of her they had saved. Did you or I ever
make a sacrifice which would compare with
that? It is painful for me to stand here, and
present this subject; it is, perhaps, painful
for you to listen: but, with such women among
the ruined, only cowards, it seems to me,
would refuse to risk all things to save
them.
In France, where all women of this class
are registered, Duchatelet found 1,680 who
had erased their names from the list, on the
plea that they had found honest occupation.
He traced them: 108 had become  housekeepers; 864, seamstresses; 247, shopkeepers; and 461, domestics.
The Society for the Rescue of Young
Women, in London, admitted two hundred
members last year. It asks no questions of
those who enter; and the wisdom of this is
shown in the fact, that its subscription-list
27 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
contains the names of sixty former inmates,
whose subscriptions range from twenty-five
cents to twenty dollars per annum.
A terrible account has lately been published of the straw-bonnet warehouses in
London, by one who has worked in them.
One single story will show you, how that
touch of truth, which, far more than the
touch of genius, makes the "whole world
kin," revealed a noble human nature in the
midst of what seemed utter depravity.
One day, the worn-out women tried to compel a young, fresh worker to do less than she
was able, or to secrete a portion of her braid,
instead of making it up. They could not
prevail. "Are you a Metherdis, miss?" asked
one woman. "I'm not a thief," she replied
gently.  A  big, bad woman stole her extra
plait; but no one dared insult her. Once she
fainted, and some one offered her gin; but
the big, bad woman started forward: "Would
you make her a devil like the rest of us?"
she cried: "I'd sooner see her stabbed!" and
28 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
she got her a cup of tea from her own
"screw."*  When they were kept late, this
woman walked home with her, cautioning her
against gin, against young men, especially the
gentry, and bidding her not forget her prayers: "for," said she, "you know how; I was
never teached." As she parted from her one
night, she said, "I don't expect it's any use;
but it would do no harm if you prayed once
for me." Who will say that this woman was
irreclaimable? And, in estimating the chances
of saving a depraved woman, you should
always remember, that, in nine cases out of
twelve, she sold herself, not to vice, but to
what seemed, at least, to her longing heart,
like love. Put yourself in her place. Do not
start: it will do you no harm. Think what it
would be to slave soul and body, day after
day, for a crust and a cup of cold water.
* This expression, used in all such places to denote the food,
tea, coffee, or gin, used by the overstrained girls, is terribly signiificant.
29 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
Not so much would your failing body crave
one nourishing meal, as the aching, human
heart within you one tender look, one loving
word. If, in your misery, you had kept some
beauty; if you had known no gentler touch
than a drunken father's blow or a mother's
curse, -how strong would be the temptation
when one above you pleaded for affection!
See how like an angel of light this demon
would descend!  0  my sisters! you have
never read this story right. Such a woman
is no monster, only a gentle-hearted creature,
unsupported by God's law, unrestrained by
self-control. Your scorn, the world's rejection, may make her what you think. Meanwhile, are you above temptation? Does not
conscience enforce my plea?
"Some positions," says Legouv6, "attract
by their ease; but it is work that purifies
and fills existence. God permits hard trials;
but he has appointed labor, and we forget
them all. A serious comforter, it gives always more than it promises, and dries the
30 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
bitterest tears. A pleasure unequalled in it
self, it is the salt of all other pleasures." *
You have seen that a necessity to live de
mands of you new fields for woman to work
in; and the question arises, Is she fit for
these new duties?t
* I do not know that any person has ever practically carried
out Legouvd's estimate of labor as a moral help, but Marie de
Lamourous, the foundress of the House of Mercy at Bourdeaux.
This was a refuge for ruined women, whom she trained to selfsupport. Some one offered her a sum sufficient to insure her
family a comfortable living; but she wisely refused it. " No false
pretences," she said: "if we are not compelled to labor, we shall
not labor. An idle mind makes its own temptations. I can do
nothing without work."
t When woman's power to work is called in question, men
almost always remark, that she has shown no inventive genius
whatever. Should a proper history of the arts ever be written,
this will be foubnd to be an entire mistake. Patentees are not
always inventors;  and  many  of these, after hopeless labor
carried on for years, have owed a final success to some woman's
power of adaptation.  We need not, however, take refuge in
general statement, nor in the traditional fact that she invented
spindle, distaff, needle, and scissors. Any new-born barbarian,
pressed by necessity, might accomplish so much. The most
delicate and beautiful obstetrical instruments were invented by
Madame Boivin.  Madame  Ducoudray invented the manikin;
Madame Breton, the system of artificial nourishment for babes;
Morandi and Biheron adapted wvax to the purposes of medical
illustration; and it was to the observations of Mademoiselle
Biheron, recorded in wax, that Dr. Hunter owed the illustrations
of his best work.  He was her generous friend; but she preceded
31 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
I consider the question of intellectual abi
lity settled. The volumes of science, mathe
matics, general literature, &c., which women
have given to the world, without sharing to
the full the educational advantages of man,
seem to promise that they shall outstrip him
here, the moment they have a fair start. But
I go farther, and state boldly, that women
have, from the beginning, done the hardest
and most unwholesome work of the world in
him seven years in this direction, and may possibly have given
him the right to use her observations as his own. Madame
Rondet has, in the present century, invented a tube to be used
in eases of restoration fiom asphyxia.  It is easy to quote these
cases from the history of medicine, because an honest French
physician has taken pains to preserve them; but the following
instances of inventive and mechanical power may be less
known:   In 1823, thefirst patent of invention was taken out in Paris
by Madame Dutillet, for the formation of artificial marble. This
was so successful a patent, that she sold it in 1824; and the purchaser renewed it, with still firther improvements.
In 1836, Burrows, an Englishman, took out a patent for
cement.  Madame Bex, of Paris, found this cement a failure in
damp places, and published a method of less limited application,
in which bitumen was employed.
In 1840, Mrs. Marshall, once of Manchester, England, and
now of Edinburgh, was struck with the idea, that the electric
forces evolved by decaying animnal and vegetable matter, act
32 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
all countries, whether civilized or uncivilized;
and I am prepared to prove it. I do not
mean that rocking the cradle and making
bread is as hard work as any, but that women
have always been doing man's work, and that
all the outcry society makes against work for
women is not to protect women, but a certain
class called ladies. Now, I believe that work
is good for ladies; so let us look at the truth.
"Let it once be understood," says one of our
ing upon calcareous substances, must have much to do with
the natural formation of marble. In five years, by upwards of
ten thousand experiments, she perfected an artificial marble,
whose constituents and manufacture were entirely within control, and which could be made in hours or months,  at the
maker's volition. To this cement she gave the simple Italian
name of intonuca.  It is singulalr that she should so intuitively
have seized this secret; for, under Madame Dutillet's patent, we
are expressly informed that all vegetable matter must be removed from the composition, if we would have the cement
indestructible. The example is an interesting one; for the ten
thousand disagreeable experiments show that one woman at
least possessed the power of persistent application, of long-protracted labor, so often denied.
I had hoped to add to these names that of a peasant woman,
who successfully drained a Ilhge estate in France after her own
original fashion, and was sent firom Paris to do the same in
French Guiana for the government; but, although no phantom,
she eludes my researches.
3
33 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
English friends, "that the young businesswoman is shielded by the social intercourse
of those who are called ladies, and it would
obviate many of those grave objections which
deter parents from consenting that their children shall brave the world inll shops and warehouses."
Most certainly it would; and to this point
we must frequently return. Meanwhile, says
Sydney Smith, " so long as girls and boys run
about in the dirt, and trundle hoop together,
they are both precisely alike;" and I shall
proceed to show that large numbers have
not only played but worked in the dirt together, and trundled hoop, not merely through
our own lives, but ever since work and play
began.
I shall speak first of Asiatic women; and
I can afford to begin by quoting a CochinChina proverb, to the effect that "a woman has
nine lives, and bears a great deal of killing."
I do not know any thing else about the CochinChina women; but this looks as if their lot
34 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
were no exception to the general rule. The
Chinese peasant-woman goes to the field with
her male infant on her back, and ploughs,
sows, and reaps, exposed to all the changes
of the weather. When her husband is proved
criminal, she must die as his accomplice
having, at least, strength enough to suffer.
In Calcutta, women are the masons who keep
the roof tight; and you may see them daily
carrying their hods of cement, spreading it
on the tops of houses, and flattening it wvith
a wooden mallet like that with which our
Irishmen pave the streets.
You have heard of the Bombay ghauts.
Ghaut is a native word, which means "passage through;" and it is applied by the resident not only to the railway cut between the
hills, but to the hills themselves. These are
of volcanic origin, -a sort of trap. Formed
beneath the water, the mass cooled as it was
thrown up, and the sides do not slope much.
"When I gained an elevation of two thousand
feet," says my correspondent, "and looked
35 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
back, I saw hills of all shapes and sizes
thrown up, and ravines thousands of feet
below, all looking like the dried bed of an
ocean. The table-land on which I stood is
two thousand five hundred feet above the
level of the sea; and, as this is the elevation
at Poonah, the railroad from Campoolu winds
as it can along the sides of the mountains.
There are twenty-five tunnels through the
solid rock on this road, each half a mile long
or more. There are piers of solid stone, with
arches spanning forty feet, which rise a hundred above the valley. Part of the grade
was formed by lowering men with ropes, to
drill the holes for blasting, a thousand feet
above the ravine. There are twenty thousand
workmen employed; and one-third, or about
seven thousand, of these are "-what do you
think? In a country where no European man
can labor, where the native rests until compelled by his conqueror to work, in the year
1859 behold seven thousand women laboring
in the ghauts! Climbing, climbing, through
36 
DE.ATH OR DISHONOR.
the cloudless day, women carry baskets of
stone and earth upon their heads, to creep to
the edge of the ravines, and fill with these,
tedious contributions thousands of perpendicular feet; and the men who pay them, doubt
less, talk to their daughters about woman's
lack of physical strength!
In Australia, the woman carries the burdens which man's indolence refuses; and the
deserts of Africa bear the same testimony
in freedom that we glean from the witness
of slavery. In the West-India Islands, the
patient negress toils by the side of her
mate, doing to the full as hard a day's work,
though encumbered by the weight of a child
upon her back; but she does not share, in
the same way, his hours of rest. The customs of Africa still prevail, and she offers
her husband's food and tobacco on her
knees.
Nor does the poetry of ancient Greece
show us the so-long vaunted delicacy of the
sex. Hiomer's princesses beat linen on the
37 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
rocks, and Andromache shares all the functions of the groom:
"For this, high fed in plenteous stalls ye stand,
Served with pure wheat, and by a princess' hand;
For this, my spouse, of great Acteon's line,
So oft hath steeped the strengthening grain in wine!"
We have crossed the boundary-line of
Europe, without any change in the indictations; and we may drop from Homer to the
middle ages, or modern times, as well.
The traveller who gazes admiringly upon
the vine-clad hills of the Jura, rising, terrace
upon terrace, till the eye can scarce distinguish the limit between the work of man and
the rock of ages which still crowns the summit, will learn with surprise that the mind
which conceived of such stupendous labor,
and the hand which held out honor and freedom as its reward, were a woman's.
Under a burning sun, or exposed to a bitter, glacial bise, the first cultivators, partly
women, climbed slowly and painfully, by rocky
ledges or crevices, along those dangerous
38 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
slopes and beetling cliffs, where trees were
to be hewn down and briers plucked up, raising by manual efforts alone the stone necessary for the steps and walls, and the deep
tunnels for the safe passage of the torrents
which vegetation now conceals. And among
them, wherever her donkey's foot could find
a way, went the woman who devised the
work and bestowed the guerdon, with the
distaff on her saddle, which gives her to this
day the name of Bertha the spinner.
Yes, it was Bertha, of the Transjurane, who,
about the middle of the tenth century, undertook this work; opened the old Roman roads;
and, in defending her people against the Saracen hordes, first devised, it may be, the
modern telegraph. A prolonged line from
her Alps to the Jura is still set with the solid
stone towers from which Bertha's sentinels
warned each other.*
On the 13th of April, 1809, the French
* Historical Pictures of the Middle Ages, in Black and White.
39 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
and Bavarian prisoners held by the Tyrolese at Steinach were marched to Schwatz,
and thence to Salzburg, under an escort of
women: and the prisoners, at least, felt sufficient confidence in the physical strength
of the guard; for they made no attempt to
escape.
"Not a year ago," writes Anna Johnson of Germany, "I saw a young girl standing up to her knees in a manure-heap, which
she shovelled into a cart, and then drove
to  the field.   She  was  hired to do this
work at fourteen dollars a year. On the
mountains, the women were carrying soil and
manure to the vines in baskets, as Queen
Bertha taught them nine centuries ago."
A still less pleasant picture may be drawn
from KShl's " Reminiscences of Montenegro."
"Down among the stones, on the banks of
the Fuimera," he says, "some Cattaro women
and girls were washing and scraping the eiitrails of the goats that the men had brought
to market. There was one tall, slender, hand
40 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
some girl, dressed in a crimson petticoat, and
jacket embroidered with gold, and her hair
elegantly fastened with golden pilns. A pair
of richly wrought slippers lay on the stone
beside her; and she laughed and talked merrily as she washed and scraped away. At
last, she packed the whole into a tub, and
lifted it on to her gayly dressed head to carry
home. The next day was Sunday; and I met
her, radiant with beauty and gold embroidery,
on her way to church. I often met these
girls carrying on foot the baggage of the
riding-parties."
In 1850, a clergyman of this city tells me
that he saw women, wearing leathern breast
plates, harnessed to the canal-boats of the Low
Countries, and doing the work of oxen.
In France, we find the same evidences of
out-door work and physical ability. Galignani
tells us, that, in consequence of the success
of a certain Madame Isabelle in breaking
horses for the Russian Army, the French
minister of war lately authorized her to pro
41 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
ceed officially before a commission of officers,
with General Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely
at their head, to break some horses for the
cavalry. After twenty days, the animals were
so completely broken, that the minister immediately entered into an arrangement with
her to introduce her system into all the
schools of cavalry in the empire, beginning
with that of Saumur.
Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers, at Nantes, recently made a distribution of St. Helena
medals to the old soldiers of the empire.
Among the number was a woman named
Jeanne Louise Antonini, who had served ten
years in the navy, and fifteen in the infantry,
where she obtained the rank of noii-commissioned officer in the seventieth regiment of
the line. She received nine wounds while
bravely fighting. "It is not the coat that
makes the man," said our marshal when he
gave the medal.
From instances like these, refreshing because they tell of self-imposed labor and
42 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
eccentric character, we turn with less pleasure to the statistics of the factories. Here
men have left to women not only the worst
paid but the most unwholesome work of the
respective mills.
Women, in France, are employed in the
manufacture of cotton, silk, and wool. The
cotton manufacture compels two processes
which are very injurious, - the beating of
the cotton, which brings on a distressing
phthisis; and the preparation, or dressing,
which needs a degree of heat not to be
endured after mature age. Both these departments  are filled by  women paid  at  halfprices.
The woollen manufacture compels only one
unwholesome process,- that of carding; but
all the carders are women at half-wages.
In the silk factories, again, there are two
unwholesome processes entirely carried on by
women. The first is the drawing of the
cocoons, where the hands must be kept constantly in boiling water, and the odor of the
43 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
putrefying insects constantly fills the lungs;
the second is carding the floss, the fine lint
of which affects the bronchial tubes. Six
out of every eight women so employed die in
a few months. Healthy young girls from the
mountains soon develop tubercular consumption; and, to complete the dreadful tale, they
are kept upon the lowest wages; being paid
only twenty cents where a man would earn
sixty.*
The Anglo-Saxons, says the historian, " had
not been long settled in England before the
more savage of their traits were softened
down. The wife continued to be regularly
purchased by her husband, and the contract
was considered a mere money bargain, long
subsequent to the reign of Ethelbert." And
why? Not because love was mercenary; but
because woman was regarded, in the first
place, as a beast of burden, a laborer. In the
"Romany Rye," we are told that the sale of
* Ernest Legouve.
44 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
a wife with a halter round her neck is still a
legal transaction in England.  "It must be
done in the cattle-market, as if she were a
mare; all women being considered as mares
by the old English law, and, indeed, called
mares in certain counties where genuine old
English is still preserved."
Such a sale as this was recently completed
at Worcester, and the agreement between the
men was published in the "Worcester Chronicle."
"Thomas Middleton delivered up his wife
Mary Middleton to Philip Rostins for one shilling and a quart of ale; and parted wholly
and solely for life, never to trouble one
another.
(Signed)  THOMAs x MIDDLETON, his mark.
MARY MIDDLETON, his wife.
PHrILIP x ROSTIXS, his mark.
S. H. STOXE, Crown Inn, Friar St."
I have preserved the old expression mare
in my quotation, to indicate, not the degradation to which women fell, but that it was as
45
11 Witness.
Witness.
Witness.
Witness. 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
a beast of burden that men regarded her.
Several cases of sale, such as is here referred
to, have occurred within a few years; but this
is the only certificate of transfer that I ever
saw. I desire to direct your attention to the
remarkable fact, that, of the three parties to it,
the wife, who was sold, was the only one who
could write her name. The men signed it by
a mark.*  "A generation back," says Cobbett,
"it was a common thing to see women, half
* While these papers, are preparing for the press, the record
of another such sale, in August, 1859, disgraces the English
nation. Opposite the brewery, at Dudley, in Staffordshire, not
manv miles from Kidderminster and Birmingham, a man named
Pensotte sold his wife, with a halter round her neck, for sixpence.  He had previously dragged her —a three-weeks' bride
- three quarters of a mile in this state. It is intimated in this
case, that she was not faithful; but it is the first time I ever
saw such a charge attached to such an account. Americans are
anxious to understand this outrage. Is it possible that a government which forbids the sale of a negro cannot forbid the sale
of a Saxon wiife?  Wlhat shadow of law sustains the custom?
Is the woman supposed to be sold into wifehood or servitude?  I
have taken it for granted that the word "mare" shows that she
is regarded as a beast of burden. It is impossible for the fitirest and loftiest woman in England - nay, for Victoria herselfnot to suffer, in some degree, from the public opinion which such
transactions, ever so rarely occurring, tend to form.
46 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
naked, working like beasts, chained to carts,
upon the common roads of England."
When Lord Ashley's Commission reported,
in 1842, five thousand females were at work,
more than a thousand feet below the soil,
in the coal-mines of the north of England.
These women were nearly naked, and drew
trucks, in harness, on all-fours, like beasts
of burden. You cannot have forgotten the
remarkable description of such women in
D'Israeli's novel of " The Sibyl."
"They come forth. The plain is covered
with the swarming multitude: bands of stalwart men, broad chested and muscular, wet
with toil, and black as the children of the
tropics; troops of youth, alas! of both sexes,
though neither their raiment nor their language indicates the difference. All are clad
in male attire, and oaths that men might shudder to hear issue from lips born to breathe
words of sweetness. Yet these are to be,
some are, the mothers of England! Can we
wonder at the hideous coarseness of their lan
47 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
guage, when we remember the savage rudeness of their lives? Naked to the waist, an
iron chain fastened to a belt of leather runs
between their legs, clad in canvas; while, on
hands and feet, an English girl, for twelve,
sometimes for sixteen, hours a day, hauls and
hurries tubs of coal along subterranean roads,
dark, precipitous, and plashy."  These women, called free, were the wretched slaves
of capital. In the life of Stephenson, the
railway engineer, you will find a further account of them, and may read the chilling
answer given by a woman whom he asked
if she had ever heard of Jesus, "that no
such hand had ever worked in her shaft!"
Let the proprietors of English mines remember! No such hand did ever work in those
shafts, yet they called themselves Christian
men! True as death were the words. If
the law is now free of reproach, the evil
has by no means ceased to exist: the Master
still stands knocking.
"Children," wrote Lord Ashley, "are taken
~
48 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
to work when only four years old, girls as
well as boys. Dragging the coal carriages
requires the whole strength of either sex.
Young men and women, married women and
married men, work together through the same
number of hours, almost, sometimes quite, naked, constantly demoralizing each other. It
stints their growth and cripples their limbs."
In the east of Scotland, they still toil up steep
ladders from the shafts.
If it were my purpose to show you moral
degradation, you could hardly bear what I
must say; but I desire only, at this moment, to
show you these men and women working, as
Sydney Smith would say, in the dirt together.
In 1842, the Earl of Durham knew of this;
and he and the set with whom he lived dared,
doubtless, to whisper to the ladies in their
halls, that women were not made to labor!
In the calico-mills, girls grind and mix the
colors. They are called teerers. They begin
at five years of age, and labor twelve hours
a day, sometimes sixteen; and are kept late
4
49 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
into the night to prepare for the following
day.
In Sedgely and Warrington, the fate of the
female pinmakers is no better. They begin
at five years of age, and work from twelve to
sixteen hours a day. If refractory, they are
struck at Wiltenhall with strap, stick, hammer, or file, in spite of the delicacy of the
sex. In Sedgely, more women are employed
than men; but they do not fare any better:
their bodies are seamed by blows given with
bars of burning iron.
0 my sisters! why has God sheltered us in
quiet homes? What have we done to deserve
a happier fate? Why were we not left to
writhe beneath the blows of the smith, or the
outrage of a market-sale?
Because God has laid down a responsibility
by the side of every privilege, and requires
us to labor not merely to set such women
free, but to establish a freedom and security
by law,- the law of custom as well as the
law of courts, which we only possess through
usurpation or indulgence.
50 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
I will not leave these English shores without alluding to the physical strength shown by
that lovely paralytic, Anna Gurney. Deprived
of the use of her limbs in very early life, she
acquired the Latin, Greek, and: Hebrew, and
finally the Teutonic tongues, with a facility
and thoroughness that her Anglo-Saxon translations show. Men might be excused if they
sheltered from contact with the world this
infirm creature, dependent upon artificial aid
for every movement; but what did she choose
for herself?
In 1825, after her mother's death, she went
to live at Northrepps. At her own expense,
she procured one of Manby's apparatus for
saving the lives of seamen cast upon that
dangerous coast; and, in cases of great urgency and peril, she caused herself to be
carried down to the beach, and, from the
sick chair which she wheeled over the sand,
directed every movement for the rescue and
recovery of the half.-drowned men.
Look at the pictures! See that grimy,
5,i 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
tangled woman in harness, straining, in full
health, along the coal-shafts! See, nearer,
this lovely cripple, the Quaker cap folded
over her soft, brown hair, her soul erect and
noble, doing the duty of a Grace Darling!
The first labors like the brute beast, the victim
of human misgovernment and heathenish ignorance: the last chooses for herself a conflict
with the storm, and earns, with as full right
as any brother, the meed of the world.
Let us pass over to America. The Caribs
of Honduras are a hardy race, and do not
share the prejudices of Massachusetts on the
subject of labor. Each man has several wives.
For each he clears a plantation and builds a
house. In a year, she has every kind of breadstuff under cultivation; and hires creers,
which she freights for Truxillo and Belize,
her husband often commanding for her. If
her agricultural labors prove too heavy, as a
thrifty woman will sometimes make them, she
hires her husband to work for her at two
dollars a week.
52 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
So, the Northern Indian glides nimbly
through the woods; while the squaw carries
on her unlucky back their common food and
covering, or perhaps hauls the canoe across a
portage. A Jesuit priest rebuked an Orinoco
woman for infanticide.  "I wish my mother
had been brave enough to part with me!" was
her reply.  "Our husbands go to hunt; and
we drag after them, one baby at the breast,
another on our back. When we return, we
cannot sleep, but must grind maize all night
for their chica. Drunken, they beat us, or
stamp us under foot; and, after twenty years
of such labor, a young wife is brought home
to abuse us and such children as we have
not killed.  What ought I to do?"
At Santa Cruz, Theodore Parker writes to
Francis Jackson that men and women work
together to repair the public highway; hoeing the earth into trays, and throwing it into
a cart which they drag and push together.
In Ohio, last year, about thirty girls went
from farm to farm, hoeing, ploughing, and the
53 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
like, for sixty-two and a half cents a day.
At Media, in Pennsylvania, two girls named
Miller carry on a farm of three hundred acres;
raising hay and grain, hiring labor, but working mostly themselves. These women are
not ignorant: they at one time made meteorological observations for an association auxiliary to the Smithsonian Institute. But labor
attracts them, as it would many women if
they were not oppressed by public opinion.
"In New York," writes a late correspondent of the "Lily," "I saw women performing
the most menial offices,- carrying parcels
for grocers, and trunks for steamboats. They
often sweep the crossings in muddy weather;
and I once saw one carrying brick and mortar
for a mason."
Several women last winter, and one or two
very young girls, gave evidence of bodily
strength by skating from Lowell to Lawrence, with a head wind; and one or two
made the ten miles in forty minutes.
You know what bodily strength and ner
54 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
vous energy carried Mary Patton round Cape
Horn.  Well, on the 25th of June, 1858, the
British ship "Grotto" left Cuba; and, on the
second day, the yellow-fever broke out in its
worst form. Seven days after, so many had
died, that there remained only the captain, his
wife, and two of the crew. Then the captain
was taken ill; and, beside nursing him, the
poor wife, who had already nursed officers
and men, took her station at the wheel, and
steered by his instructions for Sandy Hook.
There the steam-tug "I Huntress" found them,
the heroic woman at the wheel, the husband
that moment struggling with death; and,
when they reached New York, three out of
eleven, one of them the suffering wife, survived to tell the tale, and show how a woman
can work. So common are such instances
becoming, that you have hardly heard the
name of this Mrs. Nichols, for whom tender
charity soon cared.
But all such labor is the result of compulsion,- compulsion of barbarism, of slavery, of
55 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
unfair competition, or dire disease. Let us
close this branch of our subject with a picture homely but attractive. "According to
thy request," writes a Quaker friend from
Wilmington, Del., "I send thee some facts
concerning Sarah Ann Scofield. Some fifteen
years since, her father became very much involved in debt. He owed some ten or twelve
hundred dollars; having lost largely by working for cotton and woollen mills. His business
was making spindles and fliers. His daughter,
then just sixteen, proposed to go into her
father's shop and assist him; she being the
oldest of seven children. Hle accepted her
offer, and told me himself, that, in twelve
months, she could finish more work, and do
it better, than any man he had ever trained
for eighteen. She earned fifteen dollars a
week at the rate he then paid other hands.
Her father died.  Her two oldest brothers
learned the trade of her, and went away.
She has now two younger sisters in apprenticeship, and a brother fourteen years of age,
56 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
all working under her; turning, polishing,
filing, and fitting all kinds of machinery. I
went out to see her last week. She was
then making water-rams to force streams into
barns and houses. She is also beginning to
make many kinds of carriage-axles. She is
her own draughtsman, and occasionally does
her own forging. To use her own words,
'What any man can do, I can but try at.'
She has a steam-engine, every part of which
she understands; and I know that her work
gives entire satisfaction. When they have
steady employment, they clear sixty dollars a
week; and she says she would rather work
at it for her bread, than at sewing for ten
times the money. The truth is, it is a business she is fond of."
I have shown you that a very large number
of women are compelled to self-support; that
the old idea, that all men support all women,
is an absurd fiction; and, if you require other
evidence than mine, you may find it in the
English courts, under the working of the new
57 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
Divorce Bill. Nearly all the women who have
applied for divorces have proved that the
subsistence of the family depended  upon
them. Out of six million of British women
over twenty-one years of age, one-half are in dustrial in their mode of life, and more than
two millions are self-supporting in their industry like men. Put this fact fully before your
eyes.
Driven to self-support, you have seen, also,
that low wages and comparatively few and
overcrowded avenues of labor compel women
to vicious courses for their daily bread. The
streets of Paris, London, Edinburgh, New
York, and Boston, tell us the same painful
story; and in glaring, crimson letters, rises
everywhere the question, -"Death or dishonor?"  I have shown you that there is
encouragement for moral effort, because these
women escape from vice as fast as they find
work to do. "Have they strength for the
conflict?" you ask, "or desire to enter such
fields?" Find your answer in what they have
58 
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
done from the earliest ages, with the foot of
Confucius and Vishnu, of capital and interest,
upon their necks.   In the lovely lives of
Bertha and Ann Gurney, and the powerful
attraction of Sarah Scofield, you have found
pleasanter pictures whereon to rest your eyes.
Let no maln taunt woman with inability to
labor, till the coal-mines and the metal-works,
the rotting cocoons and fuzzing-cards, give up
their dead; till he shares with her, equally
at least, the perils of manufactures and the
press of the market. As partners, they must
test and prove their comparative power.
We must next consider what need woman's
moral nature has of work, and what sort of
opposition man practically offers her.
59 
II.
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
"This hurts most, this... that, after all, we are paid
The worth of our work, perhaps."
E. B. BROWNINO.
F low wages, by actually starving women
and those dependent upon them, force
many into vicious courses, so does the want
of employment lower the whole moral tone,
and destroy even the domestic efficiency of
those whose minds seek variety and freedom. More than once have I been to insane
asylums with young girls whom active and
acceptable employment would have saved from
mania; and scores of times have young women of fortune asked me, "What can you
give me to do?"
And to this question there is, in the present
state of the public mind, no possible answer. 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
No woman of rank can find work, if she do
not happen to be philanthropic, literary, or
artistic in her taste, without braving the influence of home, or, what is next dearest, the
social circle, and earning for herself a position so conspicuous as to be painful to the
most energetic. The woman who is prepared
for all this will not ask anybody what she is
to do: she will take her work into her own
hands, and do it.
That was a pleasant time in the history of
the world, when every woman found, in spinning, weaving, and sewing, in the active labor of a small or the skilful management of
a large household, full employment for time
and thought, under the cheering shelter of a
husband's or father's smile. That was a pleasant time also, when, in the middle English
classes, women worked freely by a husband's
side, with more regard to his interest than
heed of the world's talk. But with the wide
intellectual culture that America has been the
first country in the world to offer to women,
61 
62       YERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
individual tastes and wishes must develop
in single women; and all men who value the
moral health of society must aid this de
velopment.
There is no greater enemy to body and
soul than idleness, unless it be the absurd
public sentiment which compels to idleness.
Thousands and tens of thousands have fallen
victims to it. The woman who will not labor,
rich or honored though she be, bends her
head to the inevitable curse of Heaven.
This curse works in failing health, fading
beauty, broken temper, and weary days. Let
her never fancy, that, being neither wife nor
mother, she is exempt from the law: she can'!ot balance that decree of God by the foolish
customs of society or the weak objections of
her kindred.  Never let her say she does not
need to labor.   Disease, depression, moral
idiocy, or inertia, follow on an idle life.  He
who never rests has made woman in His
image; and health, beauty, force, and influence follow on the steps of labor alone. 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
I shall not pursue this subject; for it is far
easier for you to think it out, than to gather
the facts I wish to bring before you. Read
"Shirley," and let the saddest hours of Caroline Helstone's life bear witness for thousands
who never find a vocation.  Read the "Professor," and let its sweet stimulus kindle in
you some appreciation of the joy which mutual labor can bring to a happy husband and
wife.
Sad indeed, then, is it when man himself represses a woman's longing for work, whether
from false tenderness, from a dread of public
opinion, a shrinking from her ultimate independence, or a small personal jealousy. That
he does, in the aggregate and as an individual,
so repress it, is unfortunately matter of history: it is no invention of an outraged inferior.
I could offer you many private examples of
this; but those that carry proofs of their reality with them will, I fear, seem very familiar.
The first consists in the opposition shown to
the attempt of Mr. Bennett to establish young
63 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
women as watchmakers. Honorary Secretary
to the Hiorological Department of the great
Exhibition, he could not help observing the
superiority of the Genevese watches, in cheapness and convenience of carriage. In England, watches are so dear that only the privileged classes can carry them. It would be
for the interests of the manufacturers, of
course, to be able to compete with the Swiss;
but they were too short-sighted to see it.
Finding that twenty thousand women and
girls were employed in Switzerland in the
manufacture of watches and watchmakers'
tools, Mr. Bennett undertook to deliver a public lecture on the subject. It was interrupted
by hisses, and broken up like a New-York
convention.   Three  well - educated  women
then applied to him to be taught; but no
Englishman could be found to take them.
A Swiss, settled in London, did. They made
more progress in six months than ordinary
boys in six years; but they, as well as their
teacher, were so cruelly persecuted, that it
64 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
was found necessary to relinquish the attempt.
My impression is, though I cannot find the
account in print, that a further effort was
made on a more extended scale, something
like a school; and this was resisted by such
combined effort on the part of the trade,
that MIr. Bennett and his friends began to
make a stir through the press.  The "Edinburgh Review" mentions a watchmaker's wife
who wished to work with her husband in his
special department. Finding that it could not
be done with the consent of the trade, she
undertook, instead, the engraving of the brass
work; but, though working in her own house,
she was at last successful only under the
plea that she had been regularly apprenticed
by her father, also in the business. She persevered, and taught her two daughters; and
so will many others.
Women  in England must certainly make
watches; and the time is not far distant
when the men of Coventry will yield to this
demand, as they have already yielded to
5
65 
66       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
others. A few years ago, winding silk, weavimg ribbon, and pasting patterns of floss upon
cards, excited the same opposition; but now
thousands of women pursue these employments, and the men look on as quietly as
the grazing cattle in the fields.
Fancy a strong man winding silk for a
whole day, or sorting colors in floss! How
has he ever degraded himself to such girls'
work?
I need only remind you of the formal petition sent in at the time of the opening of the
School of Design at Marlborough House, to
entreat the Government not to instruct and
aid women, lest the poor, helpless men should
starve! A similar prejudice, much more active than any in America, prevents English
women from qualifying themselves as physicians. Dr. Spencer, of Bristol, really educated his daughter as an accoucheuse; but
the prejudice was so strong that she was not
allowed to practise, and became a governess
instead. The same prejudice kept the Eng
I 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
lish Army suffering for months, while it delayed the departure of female nurses to the
Crimea.
In Staffordshire, women are employed to
paint crockery and china, which they can do
with more taste and grace than men. It
seems hardly credible, that the desire of the
men to keep down their wages should deprive
females of the customary hand-rest; which
would, of course, diminish the fatigue, and
make the pencil-stroke more certain. I am
happy to believe that not an employer in the
United States would submit to this absurd
demand; and the result of any such attempt
on the part of workmen would probably be
a general permission to leave. We are, ill
this country, much more free from the control of guilds and unions of various sorts
than the people of England; yet the conduct
of our printers furnishes a fair parallel to
these foreign facts.   Within a few  years,
there have been more than twenty strikes
in printing-offices, consequent upon the em
67 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
ployment of a few women; and the result has
generally been an entire change of hands,
masters in America not enduring dictation.
In August of 1854, the journeymen employed  in the office of the "Philadelphia
Daily Register " left the office, in high dudgeon, because the publisher had employed
two women as type - setters in a separate
office. They acted in conformity to a resolve of the Printers' Union, and were permitted to depart.   But this was not all.
Threats of personal violence followed all who
sought the waiting work, and an attempt was
made to cut the rope by which the forms are
raised. The result would have been to break
up the type, prevent the issue of the paper,
and run the risk of endangering life. Complaints were lodged against the printers; and,
after a hearing, they were each held to bail
in six hundred dollars, to answer to the charge
of conspiracy, at the Court of Quarter Sessions.
About the same time, a printer in the same
68 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
establishment with the "Lily," but working
on the " Home Visitor," refused to give some
necessary instruction to a girl employed on
the first paper. It was found that all the
hands had signed an agreement never to
work with or instruct a woman! The men,
after proper remonstrance, were dismissed,
and their places supplied by four'women
and three men, who worked harmoniously
together. That was only five years ago, and
now there are hundreds of female printers
in Ohio; and one orphan girl has risen from
type-setting to an editor's chair and a handsome competence.
Jealousy in America sometimes takes a
more  comical form.   Coming home lately
from a Female School of Design in another
city, I expressed some disappointment at
the character of the work and management.
A young man in the room spoke of the impossibility of a woman's ever learning to
design, in terms so contemptuous that I did
not think it worth while to answer him.
69 
70       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
Making some inquiries, however, in private,
I found that his master had often reproached
him with falling behind the women at the
school; so that private pique had more to
do with the whole thing than any real expe
rience.*
* When I first began to lecture, many persons, sincerely
interested in my success, objected to what they called the
"antagonistic" tone occasionally adopted. They thought I
ought to take for granted the cheerful co-operation of the world,
and that the woman's cause was the loser whenever the audience was reminded of actual difficulties in the way. But it
would be hardly worth while for a woman to enter the desk,
only to hedge it in with compromise and evasion. The simple
truth is the "utmost skill" she needs to seek; and no reform
built upon an inaccurate survey can be lasting. Only by telling
our brothers openly what we think of their jealousy can we
ever hope to shame them out of it. That the day of opposition
is not passed; that the way of duty cannot, even in America,
be trod in satin slippers, -the following extract, cut from a weekly paper while I am writing this note, will plainly show:   "The Pennsylvania Medical Society has exhibited a narrowmindedness altogether disgraceful to its members, by adopting a
resolution recommending' the members of the regular profession
to withhold from the faculties and graduates of Female Medical
Colleges all countenance and support; and that they cLannot,
consistently with sound medical ethics, consult or hold professional intercourse with their professors or alumni.' The Female
Medical Colleges of Pennsylvania, it should be remembered, are
strict allopathic: so we are forced to conclude, that the objection
to them is found solely upon the fact that they afford the means
of education to women. We echo the sentiment of the'Phila 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
But, having made these remarks, I must
recur to my previous statement, - that, in the
main, no jealousy of cliques, no legal restrictions, prevent women from taking their proper
place. A want of respect for woman, and a
want of respect for labor, latent and unacknowledged in the public mind, must be overcome before she can do it. The overworked
and ill-paid woman has seized every chance
to slight her work; and an idea has gone
abroad, that no slopwork will be fit for sale
unless a man inspects it. So New York and
Paris have man-tailors and man-milliners; and
the poor, tempted, stricken girls are brought
into contact, in the pursuit of bread, with the
very men most likely to take advantage of
delphia Sunday Dispatch:' Shame upon the men who, while
prating about their respectability, would combine to rob women
of the means of supporting themselves and their families!  Such
infinitesimal littleness cannot benefit them.   The  public are
ever willing to aid the weak, and support them against  the
strong.  The war against women  cannot be sustained by the
public voice: it will recoil upon and injure those who are so
arbitrary and selfish as to endeavor to interfere with them.'
Antislavrery Standard, July, 1859.
71 
72       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
every failure. Very sad stories could be told
of work rejected day after day, on account of
pretended faults, till the starving victim drops
at the feet of the treacherous overseer, only to
be trampled, in the end, under those of the
whole town. Educated, respectable women
should have the giving-out and the inspection
of woman's work; but educated and respectable women will never stand in such a position till public opinion teaches them that all
labor is honorable, and that no lady will ever
sit with folded hands. How we rate an idle
boy! how we bear with a dawdling girl!
That father grows impatient whose son does
not rise early, or show some desire for
employment; but the same man keeps his
daughters in Berlin wool and yellow novels,
and looks to marriage as their salvation, even
when he blushes to be told of it.
To prove this, let me show you that many
employments have been open to a degree not
generally acknowledged; and a safe foundation for this assertion will be found in the 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
census of the United Kingdom and that of
the United States.
It is a singular fact, that there are a great
many more women in England in business
for themselves than employed as tenders or
clerks; while, in America, the fact, at the present day, is directly the reverse.
It was not so in the time of the Revolution.
Then, as in France, the men went to the war.
Women of shrewdness and ability managed
their husbands' affairs, -the shops and trades
of the nation, - and grew so independent
thereby, that even Mrs. John Adams had to
rebuke her husband for the absurd inequalities of privilege which his new government
sustained. In England, the deficient education of the lower classes makes it almost
impossible for the women to make change
quickly, or keep accounts; and we smile as
we  find the "Edinburgh  Review" gravely
contending that women may master the rule
of three; that, at least, they ought to have
a chance to try: and we can afford to smile;
73 
74       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
for our public schools have taught us how
much quicker most women can count than
most men. While, therefore, the want of
education has prevented a certain class of
English women from becoming clerks or
book-keepers, the national habits of thrift,
and a certain respectable pride in a family
shop or trade, have induced thousands of a
superior class to assume, upon a father's or
husband's death, the charge of his establishment, and so secure a competence for the heirs.
This is what we could wish our women to do.
We all know how frequently the whole social
position of a family here changes with the
death of its head. Let our women prevent
this for the future, by cherishing a natural
ambition to do for their children what the
fathers of those children would have done.
The last census of the United Kingdom
shows, that, while the female population has
increased in such proportion that there are
now eight women where there were seven, there
are eight working women where there were 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
only six; that is, there are more new workers
than new women. There are 1,250,000 women
earning their own bread as independently as
any men. Of these, there are
385,000 employed in Textile manufactures,
40,000 in Metal-works, and
128,418 in Agriculture.
I hope these statements will not seem
useless and superficial to you.
This hour cannot be better employed than
in opening to you sqme of the mysteries of
woman's work in England.
Among the 128,418 women employed in
Agriculture, there are 64,000 dairy-women;
not women who tend a single cow for a single family, but women of muscle, who wield
large tubs and heavy presses, who turn
cheeses and slap butter by the hundredweight.   Then there are market-gardeners,
who not only raise their stock, but drive
it to the town for sale; bee-mistresses and
florists, of whom there are many among the
75 
76       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
Quakers; flax-producers, who not only raise
the pretty blue-eyed flowers, but beat the
silicious fibres apart; and they are followed
by haymakers, reapers, and hop-pickers, gracefully garlanding the group.
Naturally connected with this first interest
of the soil is the second, or Mining. It is no
longer considered fit for women to work in
shafts, though the need of bread forces many
to evade the law. The census, however, cannot touch them: the seven thousand women
it reports as engaged in Mining are employed
in dressing and sorting ore, and as washers
and strainers of clay for the potteries,heavy and disagreeable if not unfit work.
The next largest interest is that of the
Fisheries.   The Pilchard fishery employs many
thousands of women. Jersey oysters alone employ over one thousand. Then come the -
Herring,
Cod,
Whale, and
Lobster fisheries. 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
The work in connection with the whale fishery consists chiefly in what is done after the
cargo is landed. Apart from the Christie
Johnstones, - the aristocrats of the trade,the sea nurtures an heroic class, like Grace
Darling, who stand aghast, as she did, when
society rewards a deed of humanity, and cry
out in expostulation, "Why, every girl on the
coast would have done as I did!"
In natural connection with these come the
Kelp-burners, the
Netters, and the
Bathers,
or women who manage the bathing machines
used on the coast. Then come two hundred
thousand female servants; of which, largest
in number, shortest in life, and, of course, the
worst paid, are the general housemaids, or unhappy servants-of-all-work. Then come -
Brewers,
Custom-house and Police searchers,
Matrons of jails,
Lighthouse-keepers, and
Pew-openers.
77 
78       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
I cannot mention the Matrons of jails, without a sigh, when I remember, that at our
common jail and at Charlestown there is no
proper matron; and sickness, death, and
childbirth meet only with such care as women detained as witnesses, or inebriates,
can offer.   Surely a Christian  community
should furnish Christian, womanly ministrations to its prisoners; and I would that some
noble soul in an able body might be found to
take up this work! Pew-opening has never
been a trade in this community; but, as there
are signs that it may become so, I advise our
women to keep an eye upon it!
There are in the United Kingdom
500,000 business-women,
94,000 shoemakers' wives,
27,000 victuallers' wives,
26,000 butcheresses,
14,000 milk-women,
10,000 beershop-keepers,
9,000 innkeepers, and
8,000 hack proprietors. 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
The difference between the employers and
the employed is shown in the following numhers. There are
29,000 shopkeepers, and only
1,742 shopwomen;
since the lower class of English women are
seldom taught writing or accounts.
Telegraphic Reporters, Phonographers, and
Railway-clerks, are on the increase.  In reporting the Bright Festival at Manchester last
year, the speed and accuracy of the young
women were thought very remarkable. Six
whole columns were transmitted at the rate
of twenty-nine words a minute, almost without
mistake, although the subject of the speeches
was political, and so supposed to be beyond
their comprehension!
Several railways employ women as clerks
and ticket-sellers, and the results are more
than satisfactory. Thus far the census; which
has not been without its interest, since, in
English parlance, shoemaker-wife means not
79 
80       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
merely the wife of a shoemaker, but a wife
who shares her husband's labor, or has succeeded to it on his death.  Butcher-wife also
means a woman who can buy and sell stock,
pickle meat, and perhaps drive a cart through
the town.
Now for the results of some private letters.
When I spoke of forty thousand Metal-workers,
your minds did not revert, I trust, to those
dens at Wiltenhall, where women have been
struck with hammers, files, and even bars of
iron glowing at a white heat.
Now, at least, let us visit a pleasanter
scene. A man has forged and rolled out
the sheet which is soon to pass for a hundred
gross of Gillott's pens; but a woman cuts
and bends and stamps, grinds, splits, polishes,
and packs it, so that her sisters may have
pleasure in the using.
It was at Birmingham that your gold chain
was made. A man's strength drew out the
precious wire; but hundreds of young girls
cut it to the required length, shaped it on a 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
metal die to the required pattern, soldered
it invisibly over a jet of gas-light, ground
the facets till they gleamed and polished
the whole length to tempt the gazer's eye.
Quiet, diligent, skilful, tidy, they sit; with
polished slippers bobbing along the floor; not
quite so healthy as those who labor on the
pens, for the gas and solder do an unwholesome work. Others burnish the silver plate,
sort needles, paint iron and papier-mach6
trays; and hundreds more are busy cutting
and polishing screws, - a work mainly in
their hands, because men cannot be trusted
with the delicate manipulation.
There is a covered button, my brother, on
your coat. Women cut the metal, the cloth
cover, the paper stuffing, the silk lining; a
child piles these in proper order; and, by one
stroke of a magic press, a woman throws
them out a finished button.
One young girl in London began life by
designing for such buttons, till she found
6
81 
82       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
that she had a soul above them, and cheerfully entered an artistic career.
Nail-cutting and hook-and-eye making employ others; and, if we take a book into our
hand, women follow us through all the stages
of its manufacture. A woman cut and cleaned
the rags, counted the sheets of paper, and set
off the reams; a woman may have set the types;
perhaps some worn-out seamstress wrote the
verses, or a female physician composed the
thesis: a woman may print, a woman certainly will fold it down and stitch it for the
binder. A woman will engrave on wood its
illustrations, or color in her own home its fine
photographs or drawings: at the very last,
her white hand will touch with gleams of
gold its tinted edges or many-hued envelope.
It is women who pack cards and throw off
damaged paper. I have not obtained any reliable account of English female card-makers;
but there must be many. In an old Nuremberg rate-book are the names of " Elizabeth
and Margaret," Karten-macheerin, reported 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALI,S.
in 1436 and 1438. Cards were invented in
1361. In about seventy years, therefore, the
manufacture had passed into woman's hand.
In my notes from the census, I find no mention
of wood-engravers: but, in 1839, Charlotte
Nesbit, Marianne Williams, Mary Byfield, Mary
and Elizabeth Clint, held honorable positions
among English wood-engravers; while Elizabeth Blackwell executed botanical plates, and
Angelica Kauffman engraved on steel, to the
satisfaction of Sir Joshua Reynolds, at the
close of the last century. In London, recently,
one accomplished female engraver has turned
her steel plates into a pleasant country-house,
which she means to furnish with the proceeds
of her delicate painting on glass.
A whole volume might be written concerning English female printers. Turning over
some old books the other day in the Antiquarian Rooms at Worcester, I came upon Elizabeth Bathurst's "Truth Vindicated," printed
and sold by Mary Hinde, at No. 2 in George's
Yard, Lombard Street, 1774. A little farther
83 
84       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
along, I found Sophia Hume's "Letters  to
South Carolina," printed and sold by Luke
Iinde, at the Bible in George's Yard, Lombard Street, 1752. Good Quaker books, both
of them; and the titlepages told a pleasant
story. Hiere, at the sign of the Bible, Luke
Hinde carried on his work in 1752. When
he died, his widow kept the establishment
open, and taught her girls to stand at the
forms; so, twenty-two years after (in 1774),
the place goes on in her name. No change;
only some dissenting wind has blown down
the old Bible, and a gilded number two shines
in its stead. It is the history of half the
business-women in England, and a very creditable history for Mary HIinde.
On those dishes of Liverpool ware are
pretty pictures in gray ink. Women took
them wet from the copperplate, and, laying
them along the biscuit, carried it to the
furnace; there the paper burns away: while
others paint and gild, or, with hideous clatter
of blood-stones, polish off the finer ware. 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
In the next street, hundreds of women
make paper-bags and pill-boxes, without wasting a square inch of material.
Not long ago, two young girls, whose
father's clerkship was ill paid, took to making artificial teeth, and succeeded so well as
to obtain constant orders and a competence.
More cheering still: a young servant, with
strong elbows, took to French polishing, and
gave desk and work-box and inlaid cabinet a
gloss that no varnish of man could match.
For two or three years she made contracts
with upholsterers, and kept herself in profitable work: then Cupid pinched the strong
elbows, and she slipped out of permanent
reputation as a cabinetmaker's wife.
In brushmaking, women sort the hair, and
set it in the holes. The delicate, cone-like
arrangement of the badger's hair, in the modern shaving-brush, can be made only by a
woman's hand; and she who has skill to do
it well may ask her own wages.
Then there are glove-cleaners; women who
85 
86       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
strain silk, in fluting, across the old-fashioned
work-bag or the parlor-organ front; women
who shell pease and beans at so much a
quart, and who make the thousands of baskets for the fruiterer's stall.  Passing the
white-lead factory at meal - times, you will
see fifty women file away, whose duty it is to
pile the lead for oxidation; and thousands,
very different from these, sit making artificial flowers, many of them cheap enough,
but others, from their exquisite grace and
naturalness, bringing the artist's own price.
I have purposely dwelt on all these avocations. As you have followed me, has it seemed
to you that we wanted more avenues for
manual labor? As many as you please. We
are bound to inherit the whole earth. But it
seems to me that what is most needed is, first,
respect for woman as a laborer, and then
respect for labor itself.
When men respect women as human beings,
consequently as laborers, they will pay them
as good wages as men; and then uncommon 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
skill or power to work will be set free from
the old forcing-pump and siphon, and we
shall see what women can do. When men
respect labor, -respect it so far, that they
hold a woman honored when she seeks it,then women of a higher rank will seek to
invest their capital in mercantile experiments;
will establish factories or workshops; will organize groups of struggling sisters; and the
class that most needs to be helped, the idle
rich, will find happiness and honor, will find
help, in offering opportunities to the lowest.
What the lowest class of women need is
active brains to plan and think for them.
There are plenty of these active brains at
the West End, tingling with neuralgia, hot
with idleness, dizzy with waltzing. Offer a
government testimonial to the first girl of
rank who will carry her brains to a market,
and you will see what a throng of aspirants
we shall have; letting it be understood, mind
you, that the public mind sustains the government testimonial.
87 
88      VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
Let us ask, then, a few questions about the
state of female labor in the United States.
Our census is by no means so complete as
that of Great Britain; and our statements will,
therefore, be less accurate.
At the close of the Revolution, there were
in New England, and perhaps farther south,
many women conducting large business establishments,  and  few females  employed  as
clerks, partly because we were still English,
and had not lost English habits. Men went to
the war or the General Court, and their wives
soon learned to carry on the business upon
which not only the family bread, but the fate
of the nation, depended; while our common
schools had not yet begun to fit women for
book-keepers and clerks.
The Island of Nantucket was, at the close
of the war, a good example of the whole country. Great destitution existed on the establishment of peace. The men began the whale
fishery with redoubled energy: some fitted
out and others manned the ships; while the 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
women laid aside distaff and loom to attend
to trade. A very interesting letter from Mrs.
Eliza Barney to Mr. Higginson gives me many
particulars.  "Fifty years ago," she says, "all
the dry-goods and groceries were kept by
women, who went to Boston semi-annually to
renew their stock. The heroine of'Miriam
Coffin' was one of the most influential of our
commercial women. She not only traded in
dry-goods and provisions, but fitted vessels
for the merchant service.  Since that time, I
can recall near seventy women who have successfully engaged in commerce, brought up
and educated large families, and retired with
a competence. It was the influence of capitalists from the Continent that drove the Nantucket women out of the trade; and they only
resumed it a few years since, when the California emigration made it necessary. Five
dry-goods and a few large groceries are now
carried on by women, as also one druggist's
shop."  Mrs. Gaskell, in her "Life of Charlotte Bronte'," mentions a woman living as a
89 
90       VFRIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
druggist, I think, at Haworth; and I have
always been surprised that this business was
not left to women. Our Nantucket druggist
is doing well. In Pennsylvania, the Quaker
view of the duties and rights of women contributed to throw many into trade at the same
period. One lady in Philadelphia transferred
a large wholesale business to two nephews,
and died wealthy. I saw a letter the other
day, which gave an interesting account of two
girls who got permission there to sell a little
stock in their father's shop. One began with
sixty-two cents, which she invested in a dozen
tapes. The other had three dollars. In a
few years, they bought their father out. The
little tape-seller married, and carried her husband eight thousand dollars; while the single
sister kept on till she accumulated twenty
thousand dollars, and took a poor boy into
partnership.
I have spoken of English female printers.
The first paper ever issued in Rhode Island
was printed by a brother of Dr. Franklin, at 
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Newport. HIe died early, and his widow continued the work. She was aided by her two
daughters, swift and correct compositors. She
was made printer to the Colony, and, in 1745,
printed an edition of the laws, in 346 folio
pages. That she found time to do something
else, you may judge from this advertisement:
"The printer hereof prints linens, calicoes, silk,
&c., in figures, in lively and durable colors, without
the offensive smell which commonly attends linen
printed here."
Margaret Draper printed the "Boston News
Letter," and was so good a Tory that the
English Government pensioned her when the
war drove her away. Clementina Bird edited and printed the "Virginia Gazette," and
Thomas Jefferson wrote for her paper. Penelope Russell also printed the "Censor," in
Boston, in 1771.
When we record these things, and think
how women are pressing into printing-offices
in our time, it is pleasant to find a generous
91 
92       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
action to sustain them. At a recent Print
ers' Convention held in Springfield, Ill., the
following resolution was adopted -
"Whereas, The employment of females in printing-offices as compositors has, wherever adopted,
been found a decided benefit as regards moral influence and steady work, and also as offering better
wages to a deserving class; therefore, be it  "Resolved, That this Association recommends to
its members the employment of females whenever
practicable."
Mrs. Barney tells us that failures were
very uncommon in Nantucket while women
managed the business; and some of the
largest and safest fortunes in Boston were
founded by women, one of whom, I remember, rode in her own chariot, and kept fifty
thousand dollars in gold in the chimney corner, lest the banks should not be as cautious
in their dealings as herself. While writing
these pages, I have visited such a woman,
still living in Prince Street, at the age of 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
ninety-five.   Her  name  is Hillman.   She
lived for sixty-four years in the same house,
and made her property by a large grocery
business, and speculations on a strip of real
estate. Her father, Mr. William Hiaggo, was
a nautical-instrument maker; and she has a
very remarkable head, and as conservative
a horror of modern changes - steam-bakeries,
for instance- as any of you could wish.*
Some of you will remember the two sisters
Johnson, who, for more than half a century,
kept a crockery-shop on Hanover Street, and
separated about two years ago, - one sister
to retire on her earnings; the other to rest in
a quiet grave, at the age of fourscore. The
spirit of modern improvement has since seized
hold of the old shop.
It was one of the most distinguished of
our female merchants - Martha Buckminster
* I first saw Mrs. Hillnan the day after the destruction of
the steam-bakery at the North End. She was sitting up, reading the account of it, without glasses, and eloquent in behalf of
the trade, and against innovations.  Since the above passage
was written, she has passed away.
93 
94       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
Curtis - who planted, in Framingham, the
first potatoes ever set in New England;
and you will start to hear that our dear and
honored friend Ann Bent entered on her
business career so long ago as 1784, at the
age of sixteen. She first entered a crockeryware and dry-goods firm; but, at the age of
twenty-one, established herself in Washington,
north of Summer Street, where we remember her. She soon became the centre of a
happy home, where sisters, cousins, nieces,
and young friends, received her affectionate
care. The intimacy which linked her name
to that of Mary Ware is fresh in all our
minds. What admirable health she contrived
to keep we may judge from the fact, that she
dined at one brother's table on Thanksgiving
Day for over fifty years. She was the valued
friend of Channing and Gannett; and her
character magnified her office, ennobled her
condition, gave dignity to labor, and won the
love and respect of all the worthy. Less than
two years ago, at the age of ninety, she left 
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us; but I wished to mention both her and
Miss Kinsley in this connection, because they
were the first women in our society to confer
a merchantable value upon taste.
Instead of importing largely themselves,
they bought of the New-York importers the
privilege of selection, and always took the
prettiest and nicest pieces out of every case.
As they paid for this privilege themselves, so
they charged their customers for it, by asking
a little more on each yard of goods than the
common dealer.
I know nothing for which it is pleasanter
to pay than for taste. When time is precious
(and to all serious people it soon becomes so),
it is a comfort to go to one counter, sure that
in ten minutes you can purchase what it
would take a whole morning to winnow from
the countless shelves of the town.
Scientific pursuits cannot be said to be
fairly opened to women here. The two ladies
employed on the Coast Survey were employed by special favor, and probably on
95 
96       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
account of near relationship to the gentleman
who had charge of the department of latitudes and longitudes. Their work is done
at home.  Some years ago, Congress made
an appropriation for an American nautical
almanac; and Lieut. Davis was appointed to
take charge of it. Three ladies were at one
time employed upon the lunar tables. Lieut.
Davis told one of them that he preferred the
women's work, because it was quite as accurate, and much more neat, than the men's.
In 1854, Maria Mitchell was employed in computing for this almanac, with the same salary
that would be given to a man. I may say,
in this connection, that a great many extra
female clerks have been employed in Washington for many years. The work has generally been obtained by women who had lost
a husband or a father in the service of his
country; and, I am proud to say, such women have usually been paid the same wages
as men. During Mr. Fillmore's administration, two women wrote for the Treasury, on 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
salaries of twelve hundred and fifteen hundred
dollars a year; but the succeeding administration reformed this abuse, and very few are
now at work.
In 1845, there were employed in the Textile manufactures of the United States, 55,828
men and 75,710 women. This proportion, or
a still greater preponderance of female labor,
- that is, from one-third to one-half, - appears
in all the factory returns. As an employed
class, women seem to be more in number than
men: as employers, they are very few. The
same census reports them as
Makers of gloves,
Makers of glue,
Workers in gold and silver
Hair-weavers,        [leaf,
Hat and cap makers,
Hose-weavers,
Workers in India-rubber,
Lamp-makers,
Laundresses,
Leechers,
Milliners,
Morocco-workers,
Nu    rses,
Paper-hangers,
Physicians,
Picklers amd preservers,
Saddle & harness makers,
Shoemakers,
Soda-room keepers,
Snuff and cigar makers,
Stock & suspender makers,
Truss-makers,
Typers and stereotypers,
Umbrella-makers,
Upholsterers,
Card-makers, and
Grinders of watch crystals.
7,000 women in all.
7
97 
98       VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
There is no mention of female wood-engravers, though we have had such for twentyfive years; and pupils from the Schools of
Design have already achieved a certain success in this direction. To the enumeration of
the census, I may add, from my own ob
servation, -
Photographists and daguer  reotypists,
Phonographers,
House and sign painters,
Button-makers,
Fruit-hawkers,
e Tobacco-packers,
Paper-box makers,
Embroiderers,
Fur-sewers; and, at the
Wrest,
Reapers and hay-makers.
In a New-Hlaven clock factory, seven women are employed among seventy men, on
half-wages; and the manufacturer takes great
credit to himself for his liberality. At Waltham, also, a watch factory has been lately
started, in which many women are employed.*
* I do not dwell upon this watch factory in the text, because,
although fifty women are at work with one hundried and fifty
men, they are only "tending machines;" so that, although employment is open, a career can hardly be said to be. The
watches made  at Waltham by machinery are said to be so
superior to all others, that they are used by preference on
I I 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
In the census of the city of Boston for 1845,
the various employments of women are thus
given -
Artificial-flower makers,
Boardinghouse-keepers,
Bookbinders,
Printers,
Blank-book makers,
Bonnet-dealers,
Bonnet-makers,
Workers in straw,
Shoe and boot makers,
Band & fancy box makers,
Comb-makers,
Confection ers,
Corset-dealers,
Corset-makers,
Card-makers,
Professed cooks,
Cork-cutters,
Domestics,
D)ress-makers,
Match-makers,
Fringe and tassel makers,
Fur-sewers,
Ifair-cloth weavers, and
Map-colorers.
Brush-makers,
Cap-makers,
Clothiers,
Collar-makers,
the race-courses to time the horses.  Men and women do  not
compete with each other there; but both are at service, wvith a
steam-engine for their master.
For the first two months, the women earn two dollars and
fifty cents a week; for the tlird-(, three dollars; an(l, after that,
four dollars.  The men earn from five slulligs to two dollars a
day. It seems that no special skill is required in the women,
while tile men in a few departments are still paid according to
their ability.  The steam-engine, it appe.lrs, has not yet learned
how to cook dials! In this case, the operator must hold the
dial, turning it evenly, as if hlie were a smoke-jack, which requires judgment and "faculty"!
99
I
I.:
I.. I:
. II 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
I think you cannot fail to see, from this
list, how very imperfect the enumeration is:
not a single washerwoman nor charwoman,
for one thing, upon it. Yet here you have
the occupations of 4,970 women. Of these,
4,046 are servants,- a number which has,
at least, doubled since then; and which
leaves only 924 women for all other vocations.
In New York, Mr. Jobson, formerly surgeondentist to Victoria, offers to instruct women
in the duties of a dentist. I do not know
that he has a single practising pupil; but he
asserts that some of the most distinguished
dentists in Europe are women. A few years
since, the town of Ashfield elected two women and three men to the duties of a School
Committee,- duties for which women are
greatly to be preferred. A letter from the
senior lady shows that one of them at least
never attempted to do the actual work to
which she was called; considering it out of
her sphere! Does any one in this audience
100
I
I I 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
suppose that those women felt incapable of
the duty? We know better; but they were
not of the stuff of which martyrs are made,
and, deferring to popular views, set aside a
sacred opportunity.   They might have  so
done that work as to have secured the election of women for ever after.
The occupations of which the census takes
no account may be classed as
Professions,
Public Offices,
Semi-professions, and
Arts.
Under the Professions come
Physicians,
Lawyers,
Ministers,
of which there are increasing numbers.
Under Public Offices we find -
Postmistresses,
Registers of Deeds,
The few calculators it Washington, and
School-commnittee women at the West.
101 
102      VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
It is probably known to you all how largely
the rural post-office duties are performed by
women; petty politicians obtaining the appointment, and leaving wives and daughters
to do the work. There are several Registers
of Deeds; but I know only one, - Olive Rose,
of Thomaston, Me. She was elected in 1853,
by 469 votes against 205; was officially notified, and required to give bonds. Her emolu
ment depends upon fees, and ranges between
three and four hundred dollars per annum.
She continues to perform the duties of her
office, and, if an exquisitely clear handwriting
is of service there, will probably never be
displaced.
Under the head of Semi-professions come
Teachers,
Librarians,
Editors,
Lecturers, and
Matrons.
Under that of Artists, 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
Painters,
Sculptors,
Teachers of Drawing and the like,
Designers,
Engravers,
Public Singers, and
Actresses.
I am sorry to conclude these attempts at
statistics with one reliable estimate, which
holds, like a nutshell, the kernel of this question of female labor.
In 1850, there were engaged in shoemaking,
in the town of Lynn, 3,729 males and 6,412
females,- nearly twice as many women as
men; yet, in the monthly payment of wages,
only half as much money was paid to women
as to men. The three thousand men received
seventy-five thousand dollars a month; and
the six thousand women, thirty-seven thousand dollars:  that is, the women's wages
were, on the average, only one-quarter as
much as those of the men.
If we inquire into details, we may find
many exceptional causes at work, not per
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VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
ceptible at first sight: still this remarkable
fact remains essentially unchanged.
In my first lecture, I showed you that women were starving, and that vice is a better
paymaster than labor. I showed you the
awful falsity of the cry, "Do not let women
work: we will work for them. They are too
tender, too delicate, to bide the rough usage
of the world." I showed you that they were
not only working hard, but had been working
at hard and unwholesome work, not merely in
this century, but in all centuries since the
world began. I showed you how man himself has turned them back, when they have
entered a well-paid career. Practically, the
command of society to the uneducated class
is, "Marry, stitch, die, or do worse."
Plenty of employments are open to them;
but all are underpaid. They will never be
better paid till women of rank begin to work
for money, and so create a respect for woman's labor; and women of rank will never
do this till American men feel what all Ameri
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VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
can men profess,   a proper respect for Labor, as God's own demand upon every human
soul, and so teach American women to feel
it. Hiowv often have I heard that every woman willing to work may find employment!
The terrible reverses of 1837 taught many
men in this country that they were " out of
luck:" howv absurd, then, this statement with
regard to women!  One reason why so many
young women are attracted to the Catholic
Church is, that the Catholic Church is a good
economist, and does not tolerate an idle member.  In Catholic countries, -nay, in Protestant, -the gray hood of the Sister of Charity
is as sacred as a crown.
When I think how happy human life might
be, if men and women worked freely together,
I lose patience. Such marriages as I can
dream of,-where, household duties thriftily
managed  and speedily discharged, the wife
assumes some honorable trust, or finds a noble
task for her delicate hands; while the husband follows his under separate auspices!
105 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
Occupied with real service to men and each
other, how happily would they meet at night
to discuss the hours they had lived apart to
help each other's work by each other's wit,
and to draw vital refreshment from the caresses of their children! It is your distrust, 0
men! that prevents your having such homes
as poets fancy. You will not help women to
form them. The sturdy pine pushes through
the tightest soil, and will grow, though  nothing more genial than a November sky bid
it welcome; but tender anemones - windflowers, as we call them- must be coaxed
through the loose loam sifted from thousands
of autumn leaves, and tremble to the faintest
air. Yet are anemones fairer than the pine,
and their lovely blossoming a fit reward for
Nature's pains. Follow Nature, and offer the
encouragement which those you love best
daily need. Do it for your own sakes; for
proper employment will diffuse serenity over
the anxious faces you are too apt to see. Do
not fancy that the conventions of society can
106 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
ever prevail over the will, it may be the
freak, of Nature. That stepdame is absolute.
She set Hercules spinning, and sent Joan
of Arc to Orleans.   She taught Mrs. John
Stewart Mill political economy, and Monsieur
Malignon netting and lace-work.  She enables
women to bear immense burdens, heat, cold,
and frost; she sets them in the thick of the
battle even; while in South Carolina, and in
the heart of Africa, or among the Indians of
the Rocky Mountains, old men croon over
forsaken babes till the milk flows in to their
withered breasts.*
Women want work for all the reasons that
men want it. When they see this, and begin
to do it faithfully, you will respect their work,
and pay them for it. We are all taught that
we are the children of God; only Mohammedans deny their women that rank: yet we
are left without duties, as if such a thing
were possible, -left without work that offers
* Livingstone's "Africa."   Paul Kane's "Travels in the
North-West."
107 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
any adequate end as a stimulus to diligence or
ambition; and, until "Work" becomes man's
cry of inspiration, woman will never train her self to do her work well.
It was Margaret Fuller, I think, who wrote of
the Polish heroine, the Countess Emily Plater,
" She is the figure I want for my frontispiece.
Short was her career. Like the Maid of Orleans, she only lived long enough to verify her
credentials, and then passed from a scene on
which she was probably a premature apparition." Ah! that is what all women should
do, - verify their credentials!  "Say what
you please," said a young girl to her lover,
as they passed out of a Woman's Convention; "a woman that can speak like Lucretia
Mott, ought to speak." And men themselves
cannot escape from this conviction. The duty
of women, therefore, is to inspire it by doing
whatever they undertake worthily and well;
patient in waiting for opportunities, prompt
to seize, conscientious to profit by them.
The Sorbonne, which still excludes woman
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from its courses and colleges, has formed a
separate course, and now institutes examinations, and distributes diplomas for women.
The Committee consists of three of the Inspectors of the University, two Catholic priests,
one Protestant clergyman, and three ladies.
A daughter of the greatest living French
poet passed the examination lately for the
mere honor of it. Another girl, the daughter
of one of the highest public functionaries,
passed the examinations; going through the
winter twilight every morning at five, that she
might not only be permitted to found a school
on her estate, but secure the right to teach in
it. Aware that her rank would befriend her,
she concealed her name that she might owe
nothing to favor. That is the right spirit.
When a majority, or even a plurality, of women are capable of it, farewell to lecturers
and lectures, to conventions, special pleadings, and the like! The whole harvest will
be open, and the laborers will come, bringing
their sheaves with them.
109 
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In receiving lately a letter from a distin guished French author,- Madame Sirault,
-I was struck by the following sentence:
"Every career from which woman is steadily
repulsed by man is, by this fact alone, marked
with the seal of death. The very repulse
stigmatizes it.  Man may not be conscious of
what he does; but the career which is too
vile for a woman to enter has outlived all
chance of reform, and must perish with its
abuses."
And, heroic as this statement may seem to
you, it is a simple statement of fact. Can
man demand of woman a higher purity, a
more ideal Christian grace, than the letter
of the Scripture, than the spirit of Christ,
demands of man himself? -  "Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in heaven is
also perfect."
That was the clear command laid upon the
simple fishermen, upon Luke the physician
and Matthew the publican, as well as upon
Mary and Martha. The world's eyes are slow
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VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
ly opening to the need of a pure life in men;
and it helps to show men what they ought to
be, when women knock at the doors of their
workshops, and insist on entering.
"What!" says the soldier, "must my sister
follow me to the field to take this blood-stained
hand; to see me decked in the spoils of fallen
men; or hunting unprotected women like a
brute beast, till they fall senseless on the
bodies of those they loved?"
"Shut her out!" cries the minister of State.
"Shall my sister see these hands, dripping
with blood-money, bribed by a slave power
or a party interest, signing papers that condemn children yet unborn to the miseries of
hopeless war?"
"Shut her out!" cries the advocate.  "I
am preparing to defend this man for luring
helpless innocence to the brink of hell, for
building up a fortune on dollars wrung from
starving women, for putting a bullet through
his brother because he did iiot live a life
purer than his own."
ill 
112      VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
"Turn her out!" cries the judge. "She will
see that my scales are loaded. She heard
that railroad company offer me a bribe. She
caught a whisper just now from the husband
of yonder outraged woman. She will hear
the liquor dealer's counsel, and see the golden
lure that South Carolina offers when the fugitive stands at the bar.  Turn her out!"
"Turn her out!" says the physician. "Shall
she hear me jeer at what she deems holy?
Would you have her grow shameless also?"
"Shut her out," says the trader, "while I
mark my goods! This spool of cotton is short
fifty yards: mark it two hundred. This yard
of muslin was made at Manchester: sew on
the Paris tack. This shawl was woven in
France: label it Cashmere. Color that cheese
with annatto, weigh down that butter with
salt, dilute that rose-water from the spring,
grate up turnip to mix with that horseradish;
but turn that woman out!"
"Turn her out!" cries the priest, last of all.
"Polemics and theology have no charms for 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALIS.
her.   She will ask me  why  I do  not do
justly and love mercy. Turn her out!"
"Turn her out!" and, in the shudder which
creeps over him while he speaks, man sees
not only how tender and strong is his love
for the sister that hung on the same maternal
bosom; but he sees also what the gospel without and the gospel within demand of the son
no less than the daughter of God.
Farewell to war, to statecraft, to  legal
tricks, to shifts of trade; farewell to bribery,
to desecration, to idle controversy, - when
woman enters in to man's labor!
You feel the doom falling, and strive to
put it off. Not because God has made woman
of a diviner nature; not because he has made
her more precious, to be kept from the rough
handling of the world, - does it shrink from
her pure gaze. No; but because God himself, in balancing  the world's forces, has
blended her moral nature with her mental,
purposely to check her brother's aggressiveness, and moderate his lust of gain.  So has
8
113 
114      VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
he given to man a cooler temper, a grander
deliberateness, a strength equal to every
strain, which shall repair the fault of her
warm impulses, her "nimble" action, her unfitness, casual or universal, for long-sustained
effort. But what can either of you do alone?
Impulse, tenderness, and moral promptings,
grow into tawdry sentimentalism, when shut
out from their fit arena, when untrained to
emulate a brother's active life.  Coolness,
forethought, and strength grow into cunning,
rapacity, and tyranny, when uninfluenced by
that gentler element of your nature which
God has placed by your side. Helps-meet for
each other you were ordained: why hinder
and obstruct each other's pathway?
From this moment, put aside ignoble jealousy, inert sympathy, and stupid indifference
to your own moral position. Only by heartily
accepting the sweet juices and flavors of her
life can you secure fragrant blossoms and
precious fruit to your own. The words are
just as true when I turn to counsel her. If 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
ever this earth grows liker heaven, it will
be when the broad and generous sympathies
prophesied by this new movement take prac
tical shape, and there are
"Everywhere
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,
Two in the tangled business of the world,
Two in the liberal offices of life,
Two plummets dropped for one, to sound the abyss
Of science, and the secrets of the mind:
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more:
And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth
Shall bear a double growth of its best souls."
I have often spoken, not only in this lecture,
but in almost every one I have ever given, of
the great need of conscientious, painstaking
woman's work. During the last year, Baron
Toermer has been borne by torchlight to
his last home, and the medieval artist has
been mourned as a personal friend by many
a crowned head. The torches of the priests
who bore him to his grave very likely startled
to the window our two young countrywomen,
who are pursuing sculpture in the Eternal
City. Little did they guess, that, in the city
115 
116      VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
of Florence, there was living at that moment
a woman as able, as renowned, though, for
certain reasons, not so well known to them,
as the great artist just departed. I will close
this lecture with a brief sketch of Fdlicie de
Fauveau, for whose woman's work no apology
will ever need to be made.
Entering Florence by the Porta Romana,
you find, in the Via della Fornace, a darkgreen door, which opens in to a paved court,
once the entrance to a convent.  Beyond
stretches a cool, quiet garden; and all manner of birdcages and dovecotes remind you of
Rosa Bonheur's fondness for pets. Through
that quiet garden, hedged with laurel and
cypress, you might have walked, but a little
time ago, with a shrewd, sagacious, life-loving
French woman, an aristocrat and a Legitimist,
whose eyes had looked upon the guillotine,
and who was proud of having suffered for
her faith and country. She would lead you
to her small parlor, furnished with ancient
hangings, carved chairs, and gold-grounded 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
Pre-Raphaelite pictures of great value. Here
she would introduce you to her daughter,
F6licie de Fauveau.
A  forehead low and broad; soft, brown
eyes;  an  aquiline  nose; a well-cut, wellclosed mouth; a flexible, fine figure; a velvet skirt and jacket of the color of the "dead
leaf;" a velvet cap of the same, drawn over
blonde hair, cut square across the forehead,
as in the picture of Faust, -this is what you
see when you look at the artist; this is what
Ary Scheffer painted and valued so, that no
gold would buy the portrait while he lived.
Fire, air, and water are in that organization:
the movements of the arms are angular; but
the hands are soft, white, fine, and royal.
Born in Tuscany, she was early carried
to Paris; whence she removed, when very
young, to Limoux, Bayonne, and Besangon.
A great taste for music and painting she
inherited from her mother. Her studies were
profound, and among them she pursued archeology and heraldry. At Besangon she
117 
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painted in oils, but was not satisfied; and from
the workmen who carved for the churches she
got her first hint towards modelling. When
her father died, she was ready to devote herself to the support of her family. When
people told her it was unbecoming, she drew
herself up: "Are you ignorant," she asked,
"that an artist is a gentlewoman?"
Benvenuto Cellini was her prototype; and
to her may be attributed that revival of a
taste for medieval art, which, proceeding
from Paris, has had, of late years, so great
an influence on England.
Her first work was a group called "The
Abbot."   Encouraged by unlimited praise,
she made a basso-relievo, -containing six
figures, and representing Christina of Sweden in the fatal galley with  Monaldeschi.
This was in the last "Exposition des Beaux
Arts," and received the gold medal from
Charles X. in person.
Up to 1830, the young girl remained in Paris.  Her mother was so accomplished, F6licie
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herself so witty and profound a talker, that
a distinguished circle gathered round them;
among them, Scheffer, Delaroche, Giraud. All
manner of fine artistic experiments in modelling and drawing were improvised about
their study-table. There she executed for
Count Pourtales a bronze lamp of singular
beauty. A bivouac of archangels, armed as
knights, were represented as resting round a
watch-fire, where St. Michael stood sentinel;
round the lamp, in golden letters, "Vaillant,
veillant,"-"'Brave, but cautious;" beneath,
a stork's foot holds a pebble surrounded
by beautiful aquatic plants. Many models
were lost on the breaking-up of her Paris
studio. She was incessantly occupied with
commissions for private galleries; she was
to have modelled two doors for the Louvre,
and to have superintended the decoration of
a baptistery,- when the Revolution broke
up her calm and studious life. With the
celebrated daughter of the Duras Family,
she retired to La Vendee, and, virtuous and
119 
VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
honored, made herself as active, politically,
as the reckless women of the Fronde. To
this day, the peasantry know her as the Demoiselle. For those who remember her, there
will never be another. Finally came pursuit
and capture. After a long search, the two
women were dragged from the mouth of an
oven.   Felicie assisted  her  companion  to
escape; was watched more closely in consequence, and remained seven months in
prison at Angers. In prison she designed a
group representing the duel of the Lord of
Jarnac before Henry II., and a monument to
Louis de Bonnechose. At the close of the
seven months, she returned to her studio at
Paris. But very soon the appearance of the
Duchesse de Berri in La Vendee restored
hope to all Royalist hearts, and Felicie rushed
to her side.
"My  opinions are dearer to me than my
art," she said, and proved it by heroic sacrifices. On the failure of this second attempt,
she was exiled by the government. In the
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VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.
very teeth of the authorities, she returned to
Paris, broke up her studio, and joined her
mother in Florence, where they have ever
since resided, clad, not without significance,
in colors of the fallen leaf. No one but an
artist can guess what loss is involved in the
sudden and forcible breaking-up of an old
studio. At the very moment when F4licie
and her mother were all but starving in Florence, a man in Paris made an almost fabulous
fortune by selling walking-sticks made from
designs which she had sketched during the
happy evenings of her girlhood. The Fauveaus would not accept a dollar from the
party they had served; and Madame had as
much pride as her daughter in establishing
the new studio.  Felicie wrote, "We have
manna, but only on condition that we save
none for the morrow."
In her studio you find no Pagan traces,
only Christian art,- St. Dorothea lifting her
lovely hands for the basket of fruit an angel
brings; a Santa Reparata, perfect in terra
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cotta; exquisite mirror frames of wood,
bronze, and silver. She has executed for
Count Zichy an Hungarian costume, a collar
belt, sword, and spurs, of finest work. The
Empress of Russia has ordered from her a
silver bell. It is decorated by twenty figures,
the servants of a medieval household; who
assemble at the call of three stewards, whose
figures form the handle. Round the bell is
blazoned, in Gothic letters,
"De bon vouloir servir le maitre."
"With good will to serve the master."
Beside the crowded labors of twenty-five
years, F61elicie has studied the merely mechanical portions of her art, and tried to discover some old artistic secrets. To cast a
statue whole, so as to require no after-touch
of the chisel, has been her lifelong endeavor. She finally succeeded in her St. Michael,
though not till it had been recast seven times.
It is probable her experiments led the way
for those by which Crawford succeeded in
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casting his Beethoven. I cannot tell how
many of you have heard of Felicie de Fauveau. The fact that her works are chiefly in
private galleries and her own studio, screens
her from observation. The higher dignitaries
of the church and the princes of art are almost her only companions. She works constantly. About a year since, the death of
her devoted mother drew the veil still closer
round her daily life; but I retrace her story
with honorable pride.
Felicie de Fauveau is not merely an artist.
She is the first artist in the world, in her peculiar walk. As a worker in jewels, bronze,
gold, and silver, as a designer of monuments
and medieval furniture, she stands without
approach.
"Witness that she who did these things was born
To do them; claims her license in her work."
So let all women claim it.
123 
III.
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
" If such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come;
heroic purity of heart and of eye, noble, pious valor to amend us
and the age of bronze and lacquer, - how can they ever come? "  T. CARLYLE.
,, T destroy daughters is to make war
upon Heaven's harmony. The more
daughters you drown, the more daughters you
will have; and never was it known that the
drowning of daughters led to the birth of
sons."
This passage from the treatise of Kwei
Chunk Fu, upon Infanticide, may be translated so as to apply to every Christian nation.
The Chinese are not the only people who
drown  daughters.   England,  France, and
America, the three leading intelligences of
the world, are busy at it this moment. The 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    125
cold, pure wave of the Pacific is a sweeter
draught than that social flood of corruption
and depression, which, like a hideous quicksand, buries your sisters out of your sight.
"The more daughters you drown, the more
daughters you will have." Most certainly;
and if, instead of the word "daughters," you
insert the words "weak and useless members
of society,"'-which is what the Chinese mean
by it, - you will see that Kwei Fu is right.
Let women starve; let them sink into untold
depths of horror, without one effort to save
them; and, for every woman so lost, two shall
be born to inherit her fate.
Nor need the careless and ignorant man of
wealth fancy that his own daughters shall
escape while he continues heartlessly indifferent, though he never actively wronged a
human creature. When the spoiler is abroad,
he does not pause to choose his victims. The
fairest and most innocent may be the first
struck down; for human passions find their
fitting type in the persecuted beast of the 
126    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
forest. It is not the hunter alone who feels
his teeth and talons, but the first human flesh
his lawless members seize.
If these things are so, surely it is our duty
to consider well this question of work, to
suggest all possible modes of relief, and, while
waiting for the final application of absolute
principles, to help society forward by all partial measures of amelioration; for only partial
can they be, so long as the present modes of
thought and feeling continue. How little any
one person can contribute toward the solution
of our difficulties, I am well aware; yet I
venture to make a few suggestions.
The  "Edinburgh  Review," whether  prepared to recommend female preachers and lecturers or not, does propose women as teachers
of Oratory; and says distinctly, that, for this
purpose, they are to be preferred to men, as
their voices are more penetrating, distinct,
delicate, and correct than those of men. I
think it was a matter of surprise to American
audiences, when women first came forward as 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
public speakers, that, in so large a number of
cases, the parlor tone would reach to the extremity of a large hall. Women, too, were
heard at a disadvantage, because popular
curiosity compelled them to speak in the
largest buildings. There are a great many
women, and there are also a great many men,
whose voices are wholly unfit for public exigencies; but, when you consider that women
have been wholly untrained so far, how great
do their natural advantages appear! Several
female teachers of elocution in our midst
prove that this is gradually perceived. These
remarks should be extended so as to cover
all instruction in the pronunciation of languages. There may be men capable of distinguishing the delicate shades of sound, so
that a woman's voice can catch them; but
such men are rare exceptions to the common
incompetency. The French nasals cannot be
distinguished accurately by a man's voice:
the bass tone is too broad, and the treble
wavers in trying to find the middle rest.
127 
128    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
Pursue the study of Italian for years with
the best teacher that Boston can furnish; and,
when you first hear a cultivated Italian woman speak, you will find that you have the
whole thing to learn over again. So there
was never any teacher of the French language equal to Rachel, whose nimble and
fiery tongue never dropped an unmeaning
accent nor tone; nor of the English like
Fanny Kemble, who, despite certain "stage
tricks," in vogue since the days of Garrick,
shows us what delicate shades of meaning
lie hidden in the vowel sounds, and what
power a slight variation of a flexible voice
confers upon a dull passage. The teaching
of oratory and of language, then, should devolve upon woman.
" Why," asks  Ernest Legouve, -  "why
should not the immense variety of bureaucrative and administrative employments be
given up to women?" Under this head would
come the business inspection of hospitals, barracks, prisons, factories, and the like; and the 
" THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    129
decision of many sanitary questions. For all
this, woman is far fitter than man. Her eye
is quick; her common sense ready: she sees
the consequence in the cause, and does not
need  to argue  every disputed  point.   A
shingle missing from the roof is a trifle to a
man; but, the moment a woman sees it, her
glance takes in the stained walls, the dripping curtains, wet carpets, sympathetic ceilings, damp beds, and very possibly the colds
and illness, which this trifle involves.   For
this reason, she is a far fitter inspector of
all small abuses than man.
Consider, then, Legouv4's proposition. The
proprietor of the London Adelphi advertised,
at the opening of the last season, that his
box-openers, check-takers, and so on, would
all be women. Throughout the whole range
of public amusements, there is a wide field
for the employment of girls, which this single
step-has thrown open.
Women are so steadily pressing in to the
medical profession, that I have no need to
9 
130    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
direct your attention toward it; but I may
say, that it is much to be wished that women
should devote themselves to the specialities
of that science. Until within a very few
years, a Boston physician has been expected
to understand all the ills that flesh is heir to:
an eye-doctor, or an ear-doctor, or a lungdoctor, must necessarily be a quack. Women
are entering, in medicine, a very wide field.
A few specially gifted may master every
branch of practice; but many will undoubtedly fail, from the want of inherited habits of
hard study, of transmitted power of investigation. I wish those who are in danger of
this would apply strenuously to one branch
of practice; and a great success in any one
direction would do more for the general
cause than a thousand competences earned
by an ordinary career.
I do not suppose there is a city in the United States,- and, if not in the United States,
then certainly not in the world, - where, if
you asked the name of the first physician, 
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you would be answered by that of a woman.*
I do not complain of this: it is too soon to ex
pect it. Colleges, schools of anatomy, clinical
* I am happy to find, on the authority of the "London
Athenoeum," that this statement was, when I wrote it, untrue.
" Germany," it says, on the 23d of July, 1859,-" Germany has
lost one of her most famed and eminent female scholars.  Frau
Dr. Heidenreich, nee Von Siebold, died at Darmstadt a fortnight
ago. She was born in 1792, studied the science of midwifery at
the Universities of G6ttingen and Giessen, and took her doctor's
degree in 1817; not, honoris causd, by favor of the Faculty, but,
like any other German student, by writing the customary Latin
dissertation, as well as by bravely defending, in public disputation, a number of medical theses. After that, she took up her
permanent abode at Darmstadt, indefatigable in the exercise of
her special branch of science, and universally honored as one
of its first living authorities."
"Universally honored as one of its first living authorities,"
that was what I was in search of; and French and German
papers confirm the statement. Dr. Heidenreich came of a family
highly distinguished in her speciality. It was ancient and noble:
she was a baroness in her own right. All readers of English
works on midwifery know the authority given to the name of
Von Siebold. Her father founded the famous hospital at Berlin;
and her brother, still living, stands high in medical fame, having
written the best history of midwifery extant.
Rosa Bonheur, also, is as unquestionably at the head of her
department as Sir Edmund Landseer. The three pictures Boston has had a chance to see this autumn ought to fill every
woman's bosom with a glow of honest pride.
I can find no better place than this, perhaps, to introduce the
following facts, to which my attention has been directed by
the kindness of Miss Mary L. Booth, of New York.
In the History of Southold, N.Y., - one of the oldest towns
131 
132    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
courses, have not yet been thrown open; and
success, so far, has been mastered mainly by
original endowment. Genius has held the
in the United States, -it appears that women have practised
there as "doctresses" and " midwives" from the first settlement
of the country.  From 1740 to the present time,-more than one
hundred years, -the town of Southold has had a trustworthy
female physician. The first of these, Elizabeth King, who practised from 1740 until her death in 1780, attended at the birth of
more than one thousand children.
During this time, - from 1760 to 1775, - a Mrs. Peck was
also known in the same town as an excellent midwife. The
direct successor of Mrs. King was, however, a Mrs. Lucretia
Lester, who practised from 1775 to 1779. Of her my authority
says, "She was justly respected as nurse and doctress to the
pains and infirmities incident to her fellow-mortals, especially
her own sex;" a remark which shows she attended both.  "She
was, during thirty years, conspicuous as an angel of mercy; a
woman whose price was beyond rubies. It is said she attended
at the birth of thirteen hundred children, and, of that number,
lost but two."
A Mrs. Susannah Brown practised from 1800 to 1840, and
attended at the birth of foburteen hundr?ed children. Fromn the
number of patients these women must have had, it would seem
as if they were sustained by the whole neighborhood. The
book.just published speaks highly of them, as what Henry Ward
Beeclher would call a "means of grace;" and pleads, from the
precedent, for the education of women to medicine.
Southold is in Suffolk County, on Long Island; and was
settled in the early part of the seventeenth century. It has now
three churches, and less than five thousand inhabitants.
The instance of so creditable a practice being maintained for
a whole century, by three women, stands alone, so far as I know, 
" THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
torch, and shown the way; but I want women
to remember, that, in this department, all the
teachings of nature and experience show that
they are bound to excel men.   Let them,
therefore, take the best way to accomplish it.
At the School of Design in New York, the
other day, I pressed upon the observation
of the young wood-engravers the possibility of
opening for themselves a new career by woodcarving. It is quite common, in old European museums, to see the stones of plums and
peaches delicately carved by woman's hand,
and set in frames of gold and jewels. Sometimes they are the work of departed saints
or cloistered nuns; and a terrible waste of
time they seem to our modern eyes. Properzia dei Rossi, -whose early history is so
obscure, that no one knows the name of her
in this country. Mrs. King probably studied abroad, and taught
her next successor, and possibly Mrs. Peck, who seems to have
assisted both. That two of the four women named should have
practised forty years each, seems very remarkable.
133 
134    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
parents; while the cities of Bologna and Modena still dispute the honor of her birth,Properzia began her wonderful career by
carving on peach-stones. One she decorated
with thirty sacred figures, holding the stone
so near the eye as to gain a microscopic
power. On one still in the possession of the
Grassi Family, at Bologna, she chiselled the
passion of our Lord; where twelve figures,
gracefully disposed, are said to glow with
characteristic expression. Properzia died a
maiden, according to Vasari and the best
manuscript contemporaneous authority; and
there seems to be no ground for the vile
stories that have clustered round her name,
other than the fact, that in her sculpture of
Potiphar's wife, finished when she knew that
she was dying, she ventured to cut her own
likeness. It is not to the carving of cherrystones, however, that I would direct the attention of young women, but to the Swiss carving
of paper-knives, bread-plates, salad-spoons, ornamental figures, jewel-boxes, and so on.  On 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
account of the care required in transportation, these articles bring large prices; and
I feel quite sure that many an idle girl might
win a pleasant fame through such trifles. No
one will dispute the assertion, who recalls the
pranks of her young classmates at school. Do
you remember the exquisite drawings which
once decorated the kerchiefs, the linen collars
and sleeves, of a certain schoolroom? The
sun of the artist set early; but I have often
thought that a free maiden career in the
higher walks of art might have preserved
her to us. The same fancy, displayed in
wood-carving, would have challenged the attention of the world; and the cherry-stones
also bore witness to her power. The only
practical difficulty would spring from the
want of highly seasoned wood; and that could
be obviated by a little patience. Should any
young girl be tempted by my words into
this career, I hope she will not give away
her carvings to indifferent friends, but carry
them into the market at once, and let them
135 
136    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
bring their price, that she may know her own
value and that of the work.
Properzia also excelled in engraving: so
did Elizabetta Sirani in 1660. Her engravings from Guido are still considered master.
pieces. We have female engravers on wood
and steel, and also female lithographers. I
want some woman to apply herself to this
work, with such energy and determination as
will place her at the head of it. Let her do
this, and she could soon establish a workshop,
and take men and women into her employ;
standing responsible herself for the finish
of every piece of work marked with her
name. Let some idle woman of wealth offer
the capital for such an experiment, and share
some of its administrative duties. "Success"
is the best argument. It would be possible
to organize in Boston, at this moment, a shop
of the best kind, where all the designing and
engraving should be done by women. Why
can it not be tried? Carvers on wood, and
engravers then. 
" THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    137
I have known several English barbers,not women of the decorative art, like our
sainted Harriet Ryan; but women actually
capable of shaving a man! Why, then, does
the "Englishwoman's Journal" inform  us,
that, in Normandy and Western Africa, there
actually are female barbers?
I think there is room in Boston for an establishment of this kind; a place from which
a woman could come to a sick-room to shave
the heated head or cut the beard of the dying; a place where women's and children's
wants could be attended to without necessary
contact with men; and with the absolutely
necessary cleanliness, of which there is not
now a single instance in this city.
When I mentioned wood-carving to women,
I was thinking, in part, of the immense annual demand for Christmas presents. In this
connection, also, I should like to direct the
attention of our rural women to the art of
preserving and candying fruit.  "But that is
nothing new," you will say.  "Did not your 
138    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
Massachusetts census for 1845 enumerate certain picklers and preservers?"  Yes;  but
thosq women were merely in the employ of
men carrying on large establishments. What
I would suggest is a domestic manufacture
to compete with French candies, and to occupy the minds of our farmers' wives and
daughters, to the exclusion of shirt-fronts
and shoe-binding.
Every one of us, probably, fills more than
one little stocking, on Christmas night, with
candied fruit.  If we belong to the "first families," and wish to do the thing handsomely,
this fruit has cost from seventy-five cents
to a dollar a pound; we knowing, all the
while, that better could be produced for half
or two-thirds the money. Last year, I purchased one pound of this candy, and examined it with practical reference to this
question. Plums, peaches, cherries, apples,
and pears, all tasted alike, and had evidently
been boiled in the same sirup. Apple and
quince marmalades alone had any flavor. Now, 
"t THE OPENING OF THE GATES." 
our farmers' daughters could cook these fruits
so as to preserve their flavor, could candy
them and pack them into boxes, quite as well
as the French men; and so a new and important domestic industry might arise. The
experiment would be largely profitable as
soon as all risk of mistake were over; and
perishable fruit at a distance from market
could be used in this way. A few years ago,
we had a rare conserve from Constantinople
and Smyrna, called fig-paste. Now we have
a mixture of gum Arabic and flour, flavored
with essences; made for the most part at
Westboro, and called by the same name.
Yes, we actually have fig-paste, spicy with
winter-green and black-birch! Now, what is
to prevent our farmers' daughters from making this? -from putting up fruits in air-tight
cans, and drying'a great many kinds of vegetables that cannot be had now for love or
money? Who can get Lima beans or dried
sweet-corn, that does not dry them from his
own garden?
139 
140    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
Do not let our medical friends feel too
indignant if I recommend to these same women the manufacture of pickles. The use of
pickles, like the use of wine, may be a questionable thing; but, like liquors, they are a
large article of trade: and, if we must have
them, why not have them made of wholesome
fruit, in good cider-vinegar, with a touch of
the grandmotherly seasoning that we all re'
member, rather than of stinted gherkins,
soured by vitriol and greened by copper?
There are many sweet sauces, too,-made of
fruit, stewed with vinegar, spice, and sugar,which cannot be obtained in shops, and would
meet a good market. How easy the whole
matter is, may be guessed from this fact,
that, sitting once at a Southern table,- the
table of a genial grand-nephew of George
Washington, who bore his name, -I was offered twenty-five kinds of candied fruit, all
made by the delicate hands of his wife; and
seven varieties in form and flavor, from the
common tomato. 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
I looked through Boston in vain, the other
day, to find a common dish-mop large enough
to serve my purpose. There was no such
thing to be found. Taking up one of the
slender tassels offered me, I inquired into its
history, and was informed that it was imported from France. The one I had been
trying to replace had been made by some
skilful Yankee hand for a Ladies' Fair. Now,
what are our poor women doing, that they
cannot compete with this French trumpery,
and give us at least dish-mops fit for use?
As teachers of gymnastics, women are already somewhat employed.   A  wide  field
would be opened, if a teacher were attached
to each of our public schools, - a step in
physical education greatly needed.
No conservative is so prejudiced, I suppose, as to object to placing woman in all
positions of moral supervision. Female assistants in jails, prisons, workhouses, insane
asylums, and hospitals, are seen to be fit, and
to have a harmonizing influence in every
141 
142    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
respect. How many more such assistants are
needed, we may guess from the fact that our
City Jail and Charlestown are still unsupplied.
Women of a superior order are needed for
such posts; and when will they be found?
Not till labor is thoroughly respected; not
till the popular voice says, " It is all very
well to be a Miss Dix, and go from asylum
to asylum, suggesting and improving; but
it is just as well, quite as honorable, to
work in one asylum, carrying out the wise
ideas which a Miss Dix suggests, and securing the faithful trial of her experiments."
Many men in Beacon Street would feel honored to call the moving philanthropist sister
or friend; but few would like to acknowledge a daughter in the post of matron or
superintendent. Why not? There is something " rotten in the State " where such
inconsistencies exist. How thoroughly men
accept such women, as soon as they are permitted to try their experiment, we may judge
from the case of Florence Nightingale and 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    143
her staff. The very men, whose scepticism
kept the army suffering for months, would
be the first to send them now; and the soldiers, who kissed her shadow where it fell,
would fill the whole Commissariat with women. When her gentle but efficient hand
broke in the doors of the storehouses at
Scutari, a general huzza followed from the
very men who were too timid to break the
trammels of office. The woman's keen sympathy, with the advancing spirit of her time,
taught her what it was fit to do; and, if the
rippling smiles of suffering men had not
rewarded her when the bedding and stores
were distributed, the warm encomiums of her
Queen, whose heart she had so truly read,
must have done it. Following out this train
of reflection, I have often thought it would
some day fall to women, and to women alone,
to exercise the function of parish minister!
I do not mean "parish preacher." I hold
pulpit graces cheap by the side of that fatherly walk among his people, which has made the 
144    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
name of Charles Lowell sacred to the West
Church. Go back to the history of the first
church in every town: see how the minister
knew the story of every heart in his parish;
how he kept his eye on every lonely boy or
orphan girl; how widowed mothers took his
counsel about schools and rents; how forlorn
old maids trusted to him to make all "things
come round right;" how the lad, inclining to
wild courses, found no better friend than he.
Hiow is it now? The minister has his Sunday sermons, his annual addresses before certain societies, his weekly association. In the
old time, such things were done, yet not
the other left undone. Now the lonely boy
or orphan girl must seek out the minister,
and how likely this is to happen, everybody
knows; the mother must tell over the story
of her widowhood, pained to see how "in
course" it falls upon that wearied ear; the
spinster must tell again how the boat floated
empty and bottom upward to shore long years
ago, and so no one was "spared to keep all 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
right;" and the wild lad- alas! how many
such do the clergy save now?
As I see such things, -and I do see them
often, a  s I  realize that change in men and
times, in manners and books, from which this
change is inseparable, - I confess I see a new
sphere opening for women. It takes no re markable gifts, in the common sense of those
words; only a kindly heart, a thoughtful head,
a tender, reverent care-taking, whol]y apart
from    meddlesomeness.  Not many  are the
ministers now who will pause to explain to
Martha that she is careful and troubled about
many things; and that really the visionary
Mary, with her dreamy eyes, is choosing the
good part. N        ot many can see  Nicodemus
under t         he fig-tree, and remind him of it at
the needful moment. But if, in every religious household, there were a deaconess, called
by nature and God to her work,- one whom
the young felt a right to go to, with questions home could not answer; one pledged
to secret counsel, whom the restless and un.
10
145 
146    " THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
happy might confer with,- it seems to me
the wheels of life would move more smooth
ly.* How the unlikeliest persons are some
* I did not think, certainly, when I wrote the above passage,
of Arthur Helps's "Companions of my Solitude;" but, taking up
the book during a day of illness, I find a parallel passage in what
he writes of the "sill of great cities."  In speaking of the many
excuses which ought to be made for fallen women, he says:
"And then there is nobody into whose ear the poor girl can
pour her troubles, except she comes as a beggar. This will be
said to be a leaning, on my part, to the confessional. I cannot
help this: I must speak the truth that is in me."
It seems to me that the "narrow" church, against which so
much is intimated in our times, is nowhere so narrow as in its
human sympathies. Oh that our clergymen knew how many
utterly friendless souls sit before them clothed in "purple and
fine linen"! It is not to be taken for granted, that, because a
woman has a home, a father and mother, and a genial, social
circle, she has a friend, or even a counsellor. It is not the
beggar-girl alone who needs a "Confessor" within our Protestestant churches. Many of the most refined, the most noble,
and the most wealthy, are hurried into unfit marriages, because
they dare not live alone, and think the superficial confidences
of common courtship only a prelude to something deeper which
never comes.
Why should not the "Comforter" have come to our churches,
with some special significance, before this?  If stout-hearted
Luther could say, " When I am assailed with heavy tribulations,
I rush out among my pigs, rather than remain alone by myself,"
why should any of us blush to confess our need of help? Herein, it seems to me, lies the vital want of the modern church.
Here and there, the rare personal gifts of a single pastor lessen
the evil; but what we want, in every religious circle, is a friend 
" THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    147
times raised up to such a ministry, let the
following story tell. In the dim and dreary
precincts of the Seven Dials in London, years
to whom we can go, without the smallest danger of being
suspected of impertinence or egotism, under the sanction of the
divine words, "Bear ye one another's burdens."  The burdens
of temptation must be borne alone; but the burdens of poverty,.
sickness, and grief, should be shared in every Christian church)
without regard to the social condition of the sufferer. Oftentimes the rich man is poorer than the pauper. I know all the
objections that will be raised. Ifeel, to this day, how I saw one
clergyman shrink, years ago, from  a tale which he ouglit to
have heard from one agonized woman's lips; and how others,
admirable in the usual pulpit and pastoral charge, will think
themselves unfit for this.  Under suchl circumstances, let a
clergyman call upon those of his conigregation who are willing
to become the friends of the rest, to meet in his study. From
the half-dozen who will have at once the modesty and the courage to come forward, let a man and a woman be chosen to act
as a "Committee of Comfort."  This might be done with the
utmost quietness; the minister alone need know the names of
those willing to serve: but if it were an understood thing, that
every church had such officers, the blessing would be beyond
belief.
In many cases, no actual help could be given, beyond patient
listening, a mutual prayer, or tender soothing; but in every
church there are souls that need these far more than eloquent
preaching,- souls that ask for nothing, except some one to hear
and consider who is not in a hurry, some one to appoint those to
their true uses who stand idle in a waiting world.  I claim such
an institution for the sake of friendless women; but such substitutes for it as the world has hitherto had, have been by no
means useless to men. 
148    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
ago, two orphan girls were left lying on doorsteps, fed by chance charity, to grow up as
they might. One died; and the other was
finally adopted by an old man, an atheist, who
had been neighbor to her parents. She grew
up an atheist also, and married,- saved by
God's mercy from what had seemed her likeliest fate. Stepping into the passage of the
Bloomsbury Mission Hall to shelter herself
from the rain, one night, a shaft, winged by
the Holy Spirit, struck to her empty heart.
The next week, a lending library was to be
opened in the district. Marian was first at
the door.  "Sir," said she, "will you lend me
a Bible? "-" A Bible!" exclaimed the man.
"We did not mean to lend Bibles; but I will
get you one."
How long she read, how she was at first
moved, none but God can know. But, whethier from mental distress or from the sad
vicissitudes of her needy career, she became
very ill, and went to a public hospital. While
there, she saw the sufferings of those who 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    149
applied for its charity, and observed that the
filthy state of their persons needed a friendly
female hand. When she came out, she wrote
to the missionary, and told him she wished to
dedicate all her spare time to the lost and
degraded of her own sex.  "God's mercy,"
she writes, "has spared me from their fate:
for me their misery will have no terrors.  I
will clean and wash them, and mend their
linen. If they can get into a hospital, I will
take care of their clothes." You may suppose the missionary did not lose sight of
Marian, and you may guess how gladly she
undertook to distribute Bibles; going, where
none of the gentry could go, into dens of
misery known only to the police-officers and
herself. Spending her mornings in distributing Bibles, and giving the kind and pastoral
counsel everywhere needed, she discovered,
in the autumn of 1857, a new want, and devoted her afternoons to teaching the ignorant
women about her to cut and make their children's clothes. Why 8she knew better than 
150    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
they, who shall tell? Then came the November panic and its wide-spread distresses; and,
seeing how food was wasted from ignorance,
she opened a soup-kitchen of her own. She
used what is called vegetable stock: her
wretched customers liked it, and she sold it
all through the winter for a price which just
paid the cost of cooking. Her noble work
goes on. The stone which the builders of
our modern society would have rejected, is
now the head of the corner; and Seven Dials
knows her as "Marian, the Bible-woman."
Another mission has been begun at St.
Pancras, where, in one of the worst neighborhoods, the most profligate men have gathered together, between church hours, to
hear a young lady read the "Pilgrim's Progress," and are thus softened and led to
higher things. Would you shut those sacred
lips because they are a woman's? Would
you quote St. Paul to her, and blush for
her career, if she were your own daughter?
I will not believe it. 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
A very important work could be done in
this city by the establishment of a proper
Training-School for Servants.   One reason
why our house-work is so miserably done is,
that it is never regarded as a profession, in
which a certain degree of excellence must be
attained, but rather as a "make-shift," by the
aid of which a certain number of years can
be got through. The only thorough servant
I ever had was one who had been educated
at such a school in Germany. Hlere would
be an admirable field for some of the women
who have money and time, but no object in
life. Such a school must be carried on in
connection with a good-sized boarding-house
of a respectable kind; and beside the regular
superintendents, who will, of course, be hired
for the different departments, there must be
committees of ladies who should see to the
practical working of the institution in turn.
This is necessary to secure that thorough
working in every department which the best
housekeeping demands. Only by intelligent,
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152    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
refined oversight can feathered "flirts" be
hindered from taking the place of the tidy
dusting cloth; only so will a girl learn to
sweep each apartment separately, without
dragging her accumulations from floor to
floor; only so can soap-suds be kept off your
oil-cloths, soiled hands from your doors, and
dust from your shirt-fronts. I do not believe
a better service could be done to the community than the establishment of such a
school, especially in relation to cooking.* A
good many such experiments have been successfuilly tried in England, but none so thor(o)ugh as that I would propose in Boston.
* I must suggest, in this connection, a thought which I have
not had time to elaborate in the text. Very much needed in
Boston is a restaurant for the lower classes, presided over by
the highest skill and  intelligence, where well-cooked, wellflavored, and stimulating food could be offered at all times; and
where a judicious alternation of pea soup, baked beans, and
very simple dishes, with roast meat and broths, might secure
daily nourishment for a very low price.  There is a great deal
of very cheap food, which an epicure might desire, but which
the poor have never been taught to prepare. Hundreds of
wretched families in Boston ought never to try to make a cup
of tea for themselves. In hot weather, the shavings and wood
necessary to boil the water are worth as much as the tea itself. 
" THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    153
With regard to the lowest class of employed
women, such as are employed at home, we
have, it seems to me, several distinct duties
to perform.
In the first place, we need a public but
self-supporting Laundry.   By  this I mean
two large halls, with an adjacent area, built
at the expense of the city, and properly
superintended, where, for so much an hour,
women of the lower class may wash, starch,
dry, and iron the clothes they take home.
A bleaching-ground would be desirable; but,
if it could not be had, a steam drying-room
would be the next best thing. Good starch,
Crime of all sorts, and especially intemperance, will retreat
before a proper provision of nourishing and stimulatting food for
the lower classes. Gallons of oyster liquor are thrown away
every day by dealers who sell the fish "solid," which would
make the most nourishing of soups and stews; for no food replenishes the vital essences so rapidly as the oyster: hence its
inseparable connection with all places of dissipation and vicious
resort. If men would only make a good instead of an evil use
of the few natural secrets they discover! With such a restaurant,- which should, of course, be self-supporting, - a capital
training-school for cooks might easily be associated; and so it
would become an infinite blessing, in the end, to the kind hearts
and wise heads of those who should project it. 
154    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
soap, and indigo should be for sale upon the
premises at wholesale prices; it not being
desirable that the city should make money
out of the necessities of its poor. If such
an establishment could be had, a great many
women would be changed firom paupers to
decent citizens. They are tired of seeking
washing; for, in their one close room, scented
with boiling onions or rank meat, without a
proper area for drying, and compelled to pay
high prices for poor soap and starch, they
cannot do decently the very work which
philanthropy soon becomes unwilling to intrust to them, and for which they are compelled to charge higher than the best private laundry. The city could buy coal, wood,
soap, starch, and indigo at manufacturers'
and importers' prices, and so give them a
fair chance for competition.   I hope this
project, long since partially adopted in many
cities of the Old World, may find favor with
my audience.
There is in Boston no place, strange as it 
" THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
may seem, where plain, neatly-finished clothing can be bought ready-made. I can go
down town, and buy embroidered merinos,
Paris hats with ostrich feathers, and lacetrimmed, welted linen: but if I want a plain,
cotton skirt for a child, whereof the calico
was eight cents a yard; if I want a plain,
cotton print made into a neatly fitting dress;
if I want a boy's coarse apron,- such
things are not to be had, or only so very
badly made that no one will buy them. I do
not want lace or embroidery or silk, or fine
linen; but I do want my button-holes nicely
turned and strong, my hems even, my gathers
stroked, and, however plain and coarse, the
whole finish of the garment such as a mistress
of the needle only would approve, such as no
lady need be ashamed to wear. So do others.
The reasons given to explain the non-existence
of such a magazine in Boston are, first, That
our women of the middle class are, for the
most part, accustomed to cut and make their
own clothes; second, That there is a preva
155 
156    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
lent but mistaken idea, that clothes made for
sale cannot possibly fit. With regard to the
first point, it may be said, that, as more and
more avenues of labor are opened for women,
this class perceives that it is not good economy
for them to do their own sewing. Hands
compelled to coarser or heavier labor cannot
sew quick or well, and those training to more
delicate manipulation lose practice by returning to it; so there will be a constantly-increasing class of purchasers.
As to the impossibility of fitting, that is a
vulgar mistake. The human frame is quite as
much the result of law as Mr. Buckle's statistics. Any comely, healthy form is a good
model for all other forms of the same height
and breadth. Who ever heard of a French
bonnet or a bridal trousseau that did not fit?
yet these things are made by arbitrary rules.
Our superintendent could find every measure
she would ever need in one of the teeming
houses on Sea Street. She must take her
measures from life, not books. Nor would I 
" THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    157
have the sewing done with machines, unless
those of the highest cost could be procured
and ably superintended. The best machine
is as yet a poor substitute for the supple,
human hand; and many practical inconveniences must result from its use. It requires
more skill and intelligence to manage man's
simplest machine, than to control with a
thought that complicated network of nerve,
bone, and fibre which we have been accustomed to use.
Capital to start such an establishment as I
refer to is all that is needed. How desirable
the thing is, you can easily see. In the first
place, if good common clothing could be so
purchased, mothers need not keep a large
stock on hand: an accident could be readily
repaired. In the second, it would greatly
simplify and expedite many a charitable task.
The terrible suffering which followed the
panic of November, 1857, you all remember.
Purses, always open hitherto, were necessarily
closed; no Sister of Charity was willing to 
158    " THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
tread on the heels of the sheriff: yet the need
was greater than ever. Many persons who
had dismissed their servants were found willing to give a rough, untrained girl her board;
but who was to provide her with decent
clothes? They could not be bought, and to
make them was the work of time and strength.
May I always remember to honor, as God will
always surely bless, one woman possessed of
wealth and beauty, who did clothe from head
to foot with her own needle, in that dreadful
winter, three " wild Irish girls," and took them
successively into her own family; training
them to habits of tolerable decency, until
others, less self-sacrificing, were found ready
to do their part.
No people in our community suffer such
inconvenience, loss, and imposition, in having
their clothes made, as our servant girls. If a
plentiful supply of calico sacks and skirts or
loose dresses could be anywhere found, few
girls would ever employ a dressmaker.
I have spoken of Public Laundry Rooms, 
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and a Ready-made Clothing Room. There is
a class of women greatly to be benefited by
the establishment of a Knitting Factory. It
is well known to every person in this room,
especially to physicians, that no knitting done
by machinery can compete with that done
by the human hand, in durability, warmth, or
stimulative power. Invalids are now obliged
to import the Shetland jackets, which  are
always badly shaped; or to hire, at our fancy
stores, the making of delicate and very expensive fabrics. Men's socks and children's
gloves may be purchased; but the first cost
from seventy-five cents to a dollar a pair, and
the last are of very inferior manufacture.
We cannot give out knitting to advantage,
because of the dirt and grease it is liable to
accumulate where water is neither plenty nor
ventilation to be had; and very good knitters
of socks have not skill and intelligence to
manage the different sizes, or to shape the
larger articles, such as drawers and underjackets for the two sexes. Coarse crocheting
159 
160   "A THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
would answer better than knitting for manly
articles.
Let a large, airy room be hired, well supplied with Cochituate. Let all sorts of material be kept on hand, and some coarse, warm
kinds of Shetland yarn imported that are not
now to be had. Let at least two superintendents be appointed from among the women,
who work best for our fancy stores; let knitting-women be invited to use this room for
twelve hours a day, or less, as they choose,
- receiving daily pay for their daily needs;
and in less than one year you would have an
establishment, for which not merely Boston,
but all New England, would be grateful. I
should hope that neither this nor the Clothing Room would ever offer very expensive or
highly ornamental articles for sale. There is
no danger that the interests of the wealthy
will suffer. What I desire is to provide for
the needs of the lowest women and the comfort of the middle-class customer.
The young girls in Beacon Street have 
" THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
now something to do. I offer them the establishment of a Training School for Servants,
of a public but self-supporting Laundry, of a
Ready-made Clothes-Room, and a Knitting
Factory; all simple matters, entirely within
their control, if they will but believe it.
A certain human faithlessness often interferes with the execution of such plans. If
my young friends doubt, let them go and talk
to Harriet Ryan about it. She will show
them, how, having taken the first step toward
duty, God always leads the way to the second.  To cheer them still further, I will tell
them - for I may never have a fitter opportunity - of the splendid success of the industrial schools in Ireland, established in 1850
by Ellen Wood, -a name destined to stand
honorably by the side of Florence Nightingale; nay, worthy to precede it, in so far as
preventive measures are always a greater
good than remedial. Mrs. Ellen Wood has
powers of statement, according to the "London Times," equal to her extraordinary powers
11
161 
162    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
of execution; and it is from her own account
of the work that I select what I have to
offer you.
In 1850, Mrs. Wood had placed her only
child at school, and began to look round for
something to do. A lady, who had started an
industrial school on a gift of $250 from a clergyman, asked for her help. She proposed to
teach young girls to do plain sewing. Very
soon, there were more seamstresses than customers; but God did not fail to open a way.
One poor, half-blind creature- very poor and
very earnest - failed in the plain sewing,
and was put to make cabbage nets. She did
it so well, that Mrs. Wood taught her to make
silk nets for the hair. The nets took: other
girls were taught; and Mrs. Wood went to
all the shops in Cork, and coaxed the merchants to buy of her. She succeeded so well,
that very soon she began to make nets for
exportation. Mrs. Wood's fashionable niece
arrived from Dublin, with a new style of
crocheted net. Her aunt had a dozen made 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
directly; and, by showing these, got orders
from all the merchants for the new style.
One day a merchant came into the school,
and saw a little girl at work on a mohair net.
He asked the price, and found that she would
make him twelve for the same money that he
paid for one in London. So you may guess
where his next orders went.
Mrs. Wood then made interest with the
"buyers," or young men who go to London
twice a year to purchase goods. They took
over her patterns, and returned with orders
so large that their principals at once entered
into the business. Yellow nets were made
for Germany. Many were sent to England
and America; and orders came so thick that
they had to share them with the convent
schools. They paid out a hundred dollars
weekly; and alacrity and intelligence beamed
where there had been, at first, only hopeless
suffering and imbecility. Of course, this point
was not reached without much self-sacrifice.
At first, the children made awkward work
163 
164    " THE OPENING OF THIE GATES."
that would not sell. Then the lady patronesses got tired, and dropped off. Worn and
worried, Mrs. Wood fell ill. If you ever undertake any of the schemes I have mentioned,
you must be prepared for all these things:
they will certainly happen. No one ever
fought a revolutionary war, and established
an independence, without one or two defeats
like that at Bunker Htill.* When they become historic, we call them victories. When
Mrs. Wood found that she was human and
liable to fall ill, she sent for some of' the
Sisters of Charity, and trained several, so
that they could, on an emergency, fill her
place well.
But Mrs. Wood did not stop here. She
used to teach the Catechism in the parish
church; and, one day, she gave notice that a
* This allusion was made before an American audience, to
show that the defeats suffered in a noble cause are honored in
time as victories. So strong is our popular delusion on this
point, that few of the common people can be found willing to
believe that we were actually defeated at Bunker Hill. It was
our "first battle."  All honor to all such! 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."   165
new school would be opened in that neighborhood. The next morning, one hundred and
fifty girls, between the ages of fifteen and
twenty-five, presented themselves. Mrs. Wood
asked every girl, who had ever earned any
money before, to hold up her hand. Four
girls did so. They had sold apples in the
streets. One hundred and forty-six suffering
creatures, who had no way to earn a cent!
Think what a class it was! Do you remember what I told you, the other day, of eighteen
hundred and eighty women in New York
who had never been taught to support themselves? Ten of the best workers from the
first school were taken to teach these girls;
and, for a salary, the teacher received the
first perfect dozen of nets made by each of
her pupils. This plan was not costly, and
worked well. There was no lack of faithfulness. Travellers came to see the schools.
There was no time wasted in looking for
orders: they had more than they could fill.
Of course, they must keep these hands em 
166    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
ployed: so other manufactures must be tried.
Mrs. Wood thought she would try fine shirtfronts for the city dealers. What do you
think the people said? That it could not be
done in all Ireland; that there was nobody
to wash and iron them properly; that they
would have to be sent all the way to Glasgow
to be boxed in card boxes! Well, the nuns
undertook the first washing and ironing,
making apprentices, let us hope, of some of
the older pupils; and Mrs. Wood found a
starving band-box maker, whom she herself
taught to make fiat boxes. And look now
at the blessing which always follows wise
work. This fiat-box maker has had to take
apprentices, has opened another branch of
her business in Limerick, and has put money
into the Savings' Bank.
Mrs. Wood's account of her work would be
a great help to any young persons engaged
in philanthropic effort. She lays the very
greatest stress upon her machinery,- her
methods.   Every industrial work ought to 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
support itself: if it does not, it is a failure.
All her schools earn their own bread, in every
sense; and all reforming agencies must always
stand second to any institution which does
that. See how she carried this thought into
her daily life.  Mrs. Wood had a brother who
was one of the Board of Poor-law Guardians. Seeing the success of her work, he
persuaded the other members to employ an
embroidery mistress in the Union School for
a few months.
When these children knew enough, Mrs.
Wood took out six, and put them into her
industrial school, till she was sure they could
support themselves. Then she let them look
up lodgings, and continued to give them work
from the school. In a few weeks, they got
on so well that they began to take their rela,
tions and friends out of that terrible poorhouse. Three young girls took out their
mother and cousin, and supported them.
Eighty girls were brought off the parish by
the first working of her schools. A house
167 
168    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
has also been opened for orphans, where they
are trained to support themselves.
Now, my friends, the census, at the end of
ten years, will report a great change in the
industrial condition of Ireland; and the beginning of that change was Mrs. Wood's
intelligent moral effort to benefit her countrywomen, - in the first place, to teach one
little sufferer to make cabbage-nets. That
element will enter into the statistics on which
Mr. Buckle bids you so confidently rely. Do
not believe him when he says that moral
effort can never help anybody but yourself,
because it will be balanced, in the long run,
by your neighbor's immoral effort. Two and
two make four in all statistics, and always
will while the world stands; but two and two
and one make five, and not four, as he asserts;
and the one which he forgets to enumerate is
no other than the divine Centre of life and
action,- God himself. I value Mr. Buckle's
book. I see how clearly he thinks; how much
he has read; and how much truer his histo 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    169
rical attitude than any ever before assumed.
But when a man separates goodness from
knowledge; tells you that intelligence may
reign alone; does not see that the two are
now and for ever one, equal attributes of the
divine nature, - then he makes a mistake
which saps the very foundation of his own
work, and writes fallacy on every page.
What he says is perfectly true of mistaken,
ignorant moral effort. That does help yourself, and does not help anybody else. It
helps you, because it develops your rightmindedness, - your generosity. It does not
help anybody else. It hinders others who
are clearer intellectually: they see and despise the mistakes, and are not inspired by
the purpose. Hiad it been intelligent, they
would have seen it to be divine.
Mrs. Wood's work was both intelligent aid
moral. What inspired the pupils was her
moral force and disinterested love. They
saw this, and were kindled by it; while the
community at large respected the intelligence 
170    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
and common sense with which she laid her
plans. Intelligence made these plans selfsupporting; intelligence gave them solid
pyramidal position in the world: but moral
energy gave them their prestige, and will win
its way by the side of intelligence into the
very columns which Mr. Buckle's closing volume must quote.
Do not be disheartened, then, as to the
ultimate profit to others of any kindly work
you feel inclined to do. Let kindliness inspire,
let intelligence direct, your efforts.  God has
made your success certain from the very
foundations of the world.
I cannot close such inadequate survey of
this field as I have felt it my duty to offer,
without alluding to one other fact, and making one parting suggestion. It cannot but be
realized, by all the women to whom I speak,
how very casual is the communication between the laboring class in this community
and their employers. Suppose a housekeeper
wants additional service, how can she secure 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."   171
it? If she is not wealthy enough to hire
regularly, her "chance" is a very poor one;
and she must take the recommendation, in
nine cases out 6f ten, of some one in the charwoman's own rank of life.
Suppose a maid of all work leaves a mistress alone early some busy Monday morning,
where can her place be filled? How can any
one be found who will work by the hour or
the day, in a cleanly, respectable manner, till
a new servant can be deliberately chosen?
Nobody knows of a washer-woman who is out
of work on Monday. The intelligence offices
hold no women so distressed that they will
go out for less than a week, and that on trial.
Yet, somewhere in the city, there must be
women pining and longing for that waiting
work.
Suppose a
hausts your
waiting-maid
kept before;
tives, passing
sudden  influx of visitors exhousehold staff, and makes a
a necessity where none was
suppose a large group of relaquickly through the city, come 
172    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
for a plain family dinner at a moment when
your personal superintendence is impossible,
where is the active, tidy girl who can be
summoned, or the decent w6man of experience who can order matters in your kitchen
as well as you can yourself?
Somewhere they sit waiting - suffering, it
may be - for the opportunity which never
comes. The intelligence office will get them
places; but places they are not at liberty to
seek.  They need what they call "a chance
lift."
I am well aware that wealthy and longestablished families may not suffer much from
this cause. Old servants well married, or a
variety of well-paid servants with wide connections in the neighborhood, or deserving
objects of charity personally met and understood, often prevent such persons from feeling any inconvenience; but for young housekeepers, for new residents, for persons of
small means and few connections, there is no
help. 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
I need not enlarge on the subject. There
is no kind of female labor of which it is easy
to get a prompt and suitable supply. To obviate this difficulty, I think there should be a
sort of "Labor Exchange;" and this is a pro
ject which all classes would be glad to have
carried out. How shall it be done? That,
of course, must be settled by those who have
the task in charge; but, to explain what I
mean, I will offer a few suggestions. In the
first place, What are the defects in the intelligence-offices now in existence? * There are
* I cannot allude to the subject of Intelligence-offices without saying, that all such institutions ought to be brought, in some
new and efective manner, uinder public supervision and control.
A private Intelligenice-office, kept in the superintendent's own
house, cannot be interfered with, unless it can be proved a nuisance; and how difficult it is to abate a nuisance I need not tell
anybody who has ever tried the experiment.
The Keeper of a General or Public Intelligence-office makes
application for a license to the city government, sustained by
a certain number of respectable vouchers, and pays, I believe, a
yearly fee of one dollar.
This looks fair enough; and, if every officer of the city
government, from the lowest police-officer to the mayor, were
immaculate, it would be so; but we all know what the fact is.
It is an open secret, that, in all our largest cities, the marts of
173 
174    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
several. They take cognizance of domestic
servants alone. They are kept by ignorant
or inexperienced persons, who often lose sight
of the interests of both the employer and the
employed in their own pecuniary loss or gain.
These persons have necessarily little insight
into character, and do not see how to bring
the right persons together. They will send
vice are stocked from these places, and that they serve the purposes of bad men better than houses of professedly vicious resort. One of the most excellent and respectable women I know,
who superintends one of these offices, told me herself that four
women made assignations on her premises, and went out of her
office to keep them, without her having power to prevent it.
She proved the correctness of her suspicions by employing one
of her vouchers to watch the result. If this happens under the
eyes of the virtuous and vigilant,' what may not happen when
the head of the establishment is in the pay of interested parties?
I do not know in what way this wickedness can be broken up;
but, in the words of Dr. Gannett, " what must be done, can be."
Is it not a terrible thought, that fashionable women and tender
girls should supply themselves with servants from the very brink
of that hell they believe they have never touched? Is it not a
far more terrible thought, that an innocent stranger cannot seek
her daily bread without running the risk of certain perdition?
How real these possibilities are, there are those in this city able
to testify.
Ought not the ministers at large, of all denominations, and
our overseers of the poor, to unite in prompt and efficient action
in this regard? 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    175
a slow, dawdling girl to an impatient, lively
mistress; - a smart upstart to some meek,
little wife, who has hardly learned the way
to order her own house; and the natural misunderstandings will occur. Then the books
of the office are irregularly kept, and closed
to the applicant, so that you have no chance
to select for yourself. Go down to an office,
and ask for a servant; tell the keeper not to
send a raw girl, not to send one without a
recommendation, not to send a foreigner who
cannot speak English; and go home. The
odds are, that, while you are taking off your
bonnet, there will be three rings at the bell.
The first girl will be a barefooted imp of
Erin, just from the steerage. Some one at
the office has been watching three days for
just such a hand to be broken into a farmkitchen. The second wears a flower-garden
on her head, more flounces than you do, and
has, of course, no recommendation. Some
soda.room wants her; but you do not. The
third is high Dutch, and, when you ask her 
176    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
for the coal-hod, brings you, in her despair,
the bread-tray.  Neither of these three is
what you ordered or wanted.
Do you ask me the reason of this bad
management, and whether I think it can be
remedied?  The reason of it is, that the superintendence of these offices is not treated
like a profession. People neither fit themselves for it, nor are attracted to it by nature: they simply do it; and how they do it
we feel. They want comprehensive insight,
have no business ways, and these difficulties are only to be obviated by bringing a
higher intelligence to bear upon the arrangements.
Let us have a place where all kinds of
female work can be sought and found; an
intelligent working committee first, who know
what is wanted, and how to get it, and who,
most important of all, shall not be too wise
to accept diplomas from experience.
Let us have a committee of five; its quorum
to be three. Let these persons hire a large, 
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clean, airy room, and appoint an intelligent
superintendent, -one who will be interested
to have the experiment thoroughly successful. Let them line the walls, and screen off
the room with frames, having glass covers, to
lock and unlock. Let one frame be devoted
to cooks; another, to laundresses; another, to
washerwomen, window-washers, charwomen,
seamstresses, dressmakers, copyists, translators, or what you will; and under the glass
the notices should be posted. Each should
contain the name, age, and residence of the
applicant; the situation last held, and for how
long; the full address of the reference; and
the date of posting. The date should be
printed and movable, and changed semi-weekly, on the personal application of the poster.
Each woman should pay five cents for the privilege of posting; should lose this privilege
from misconduct, from neglect to report herself, from proved falsehood. No date should
be left unchanged more than a week, and the
superintendent should be responsible for
12
177
?I 
178    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
the strict observance of the regulations. No
woman, not even a charwoman, should be
allowed to use the posting privilege, unless
she has a reference.  "What!" you will say,
"is that kind?"  Yes it is kind: the want of
it is doubly cruel. A woman who needs
work can afford to offer a day's free work
to get a reference; and referees should be
required to tell the simple truth. A lady
who once recommended a dishonest or incapable servant without the proper qualification should be struck off the books, not
allowed to testify again in that court.
With regard to all transient labor, it should
be the duty of the superintendent to see that
the references are reliable before posting, so
that those who apply in haste need not be
delayed.
If a dressmaker or charwoman inform the
superintendent that she has worked for A, B,
and C, let a printed circular, addressed to
such persons, inquiring if they can recommend her, and to what degree, be placed in 
" THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
her hands. To this she should bring written
answers before being allowed to post.
If the institution became popular, books
would have to be kept, corresponding to
these glass cases, - one book for cooks,
another for housemaids, and so on; but the
cases  should  never  be given up.   There
should always be as many as the room will
hold. Ladies should pay a certain sum for
each servant they obtain; and the servant
should pay for every place she gets, at a
rate proportioned to the wages received. In
most intelligence offices, the servants get two
places for the same fee, if they do not stay
over a week in the place, and the lady gets
two girls or more on the same condition.
This works like a premium  on change of
place.  The servant should prove to the Labor Exchange, that she did not leave her
place of her own will, and the lady should
show that incapacity or insubordination made
it impossible to keep her.
It should be a cash business, and a fee
179 
180    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
should be paid for each application. Wanting a cook, you go down to the room, and
consult the proper frame. Finding, perhaps,
forty posters, you select one that reads like
this:
Matilda Haynes.
Irish.
Twenty-five years of age.
In the country four years.
Thoroughly understands plain cooking.
Expects two dollars.
Is willing to go out of town.
Lived last at No. 4, Pemberton Square.
Kept the place six months.
May refer to it.
Can be found at 24, High Street.
You first go to Pemberton Square. It is
quite possible that this girl may not be what
you want; but if she is, and your eye tells
you that you can trust the judgment of her
referee, you have only to go to High Street,
and make your own terms. If you are already prejudiced in her favor, you will go
prepared to make some concessions, so that 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."    181
the chance will be better for you both; and
this process may be repeated without loss of
time, till you are supplied.
You will see that this is quite a feasible
plan, and has two advantages. One is, that
you have access to the books, and can choose
for yourself; the other is, that there would
be no waiting-room for servants, where they
should talk with, prejudice, and morally harm
each other. You would also be saved the
pain of rejecting servants to their faces, on
the ground of "greenness," or bodily unfitness.   Such an institution would offer this
advantage over the present offices, that it
would direct you to temporary laborers, and
give you in a moment the addresses of some
dozens. Such an institution would be a very
great saver of time, and so a great blessing.
If, in the course of these lectures, any
words that I have spoken have touched your
hearts, or carried conviction to your minds,
do not put aside, I beseech you, such impulse
as they may have given. Remember that, 
182    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
however feebly the subject has been treated,
however presumptuous may seem the attempt, the subject itself is the most important theme that is presented to this generation. In my first lecture I showed you, that
while women, ever since the beginning of
civilization, have been sharing the hardest,
and doing the most unwholesome work, they
have also done the worst paid in the world.
I showed you that this poor pay, founded on
a false estimate of woman's value as a human being, and consequently as a laborer,
was filling your streets with criminals, with
stricken souls and bodies, for whose blood
society is responsible to God. Having proved
thus, that women need new avenues of labor,
I tried in my second lecture to show you, that,
when she sought these, she had been met too
often by the selfish opposition of man. I
showed also that all such opposition proved,
in the end, unavailing; that all the work she
asks will inevitably be given.  I showed you,
from the censuses of Great Britain and Ame 
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
rica, how much labor is even now open to
her; that it is not half so necessary to open
new avenues of labor as to make work itself
respectable for women; and I therefore intreated women to learn to work thoroughly
and well, that men might respect their labor
in the aggregate.  "Woman's work" means
nothing very honorable or conscientious now.
Alter its significance till it indicates the best
work in the world.
In my present lecture I have indicated
some of the steps that might be taken to benefit the women in the heart of this city. To
encourage you to take them, I have briefly
pointed out Ellen Wood's remarkable success.
Have I kindled any interest in your minds?
Can you enter into such labors? Have you
strength or time or enthusiasm to spare?
In the ballads of Northern Europe, a loving
sister trod out, with her bare feet, the nettles
whose fibre, woven into clothing, might one
day restore her brothers to human form.
Your feet are shod, your nettles are ga
183 
184    "THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
thered: will you tread them out courageously, and so restore to your sisters the nature
and the privileges of a blessed humanity?
Opportunity is a rare and sacred thing.
God seldom offers it twice.  In the English
fields, the little Drosera, or sundew, lifts its
tiny, crimson head. The delicate buds are
clustered in a raceme, to the summit of which
they climb one by one. The topmost bud
waits only through the twelve hours of a
single day to open. If the sun do not shine,
it withers and drops, and gives way to the
next aspirant.
So it is with the human heart and its purposes. One by one, they come to the point
of blossoming. If the sunshine of faith and
the serene heaven of resolution meet the ripe
hour, all is well; but if you faint, repel, delay,
they wither at the core, and your crown is
stolen from you, -your privilege set aside.
Esau has sold his birthright, and the pottage
has lost its savor.
THE END. 
L'E N V O1.
My Song, I do believe that there are few
Who will thy reasoning rightly understand,
To them so hard and dark is thy discourse.
Ihence, peradventure, if it come to pass
That thou shouldst find thyself with persons who
Appear unskilled to comprehend thee well,
I pray thee, then, my young and well-beloved,
Be not discomforted; but say to them,
Take note, at least, how beaatif.l I am!
Art thou not beautiful, my new-born song?
Then thou art piteous, and shalt go thy way.
DANTE, from the " Banquet."
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