_The Emancipation of Woman.--Extinction of Man.--War against
Beards.--Ladies Purifying the Streets of New York.--The Ladies
"Go it" Alone, and have a "Good Time."_
In a country where woman is a spoilt child, petted, and made so much of,
who can do and dare almost anything, it is strange to find women who are
not content with their lot, but demand the complete emancipation of
their sex.
American women asking for complete emancipation! It makes one smile.
I was talking one evening with Mrs. Devereux Blake, the chief of the
movement. (She is a lady middle-aged, well-preserved, of a fluent,
agreeable conversation, who has declared war to the knife against the
tyrant Man.)
"You must excuse me," I said to her, "if I ask questions; I am anxious
to learn. I have submitted so many times to the interviewing process in
your country, that I feel as if I had a right to interview the Americans
a little in my turn. The American woman appears to me ungrateful not to
be satisfied with her lot. She seems to rule the roast in the United
States."
"No," replied Mrs. Blake, "she does not; but she ought."
"But she certainly does," I insisted.
"_De facto_, yes; but _de jure_, no."
"What do you want more?"
"The right to make laws."
"What do you mean by that?"
"The right of voting for candidates for Congress, and even the right to
a seat in the House of Representatives."
"This appears to me a little too exacting, and almost unfair," I
observed timidly. "You probably already make your husbands vote as you
please: if, added to this, you are going to throw your own votes into
the electoral urn, it means the extinction of man, neither more nor
less; and, as Leon Gozlan said, 'it is perhaps as well that there should
be two sexes, for some time longer at all events.' My dear lady, you are
spoilt children, and spoilt children are never satisfied."
I felt a little out of place in this energetic lady's drawing-room,
almost like a wolf in the fold. Nevertheless, I learned very interesting
things that evening.
A lady, who enjoyed that most esteemed of woman's rights, the right to
be pretty, gave me some very curious details on the subject of New York
life. We were speaking of the security of women in the large towns, and
of the risk they ran in going out alone after nightfall.
"I have been struck with the respectability of your American streets," I
said to her. "One never sees vice flaunting by daylight; and, in the
evening, whenever I have been through the great arteries of your city,
I have never seen anything that could shock the eyes of an honest woman.
In Paris, the boulevards are infested with harlots from eight o'clock in
the evening; and the evil is much worse in London, where from four or
five in the afternoon a whole district is given over to them."
"You are right," said the lady; "but if the streets of New York are
respectable, it is thanks to us. If we had waited until the men swept
our pavements, we should have had to wait a long time. We cleaned them
ourselves."
"What do you mean?"
"A few years ago, several young women, among whom I might name members
of our best society, resolved upon going out alone in the evenings, and
of striking the first man who dared to accost them. They persevered for
a long while, and finally succeeded in accomplishing the disinfection of
the main streets. Vice still exists; but it keeps within doors, and
hides instead of parading itself. If you are able to go out at night
with your wife, or even your young daughters; if a lady can go to the
theatre alone, and, if it please her, return home on foot, it is to us
that thanks are due. And do you not think that women, young,
good-looking, and well-bred, who could master their disgust so far as to
do that which the authorities were too cowardly to undertake, are not
worthy to have a deliberative voice in the councils of the nation?"
I could not answer this.
Certainly, woman's influence upon public morality is most salutary, and
ought to be given free play. I do not doubt that, if women occupied
seats in all Town Councils, the streets would promptly be purified, and
women would be able to go into the public thoroughfares at all hours as
freely as their husbands and brothers.
* * * * *
I am going to launch a rather dangerous assertion.
It seems to me that the American woman does not render to man a
hundredth part of the adoration he renders to her. If love could spring
from gratitude, Jonathan would be the most beloved of men; but does it
ever spring from such a source?
In the eyes of the American woman, man has his good points. He ensures
her a good position when he marries her; he works hard to satisfy her
smallest wishes; and so long as his signature has any value at the foot
of a cheque, this will be an extenuating circumstance in his favour.
* * * * *
A young Baltimore lady told me one day that she often invited twenty or
thirty girl friends to lunch with her. Not the shadow of a man at these
parties. The same kind of entertainment is given by numbers of young
ladies in Society in other cities. At these lunches there often are as
many as forty or fifty of Brother Jonathan's fair daughters; and they,
with no other helps than their tongues and their teeth, spend three or
four hours most merrily without the aid of man, and have a "real good
time," as they call it.
* * * * *
There are numerous women's clubs in the United States, These sanctuaries
are never profaned by the presence of man. The very postman and
tradesmen only approach it with bated breath.
The members have their library, drawing-room, dining-room, boudoirs,
bedrooms. They make music, read, write, chat, and pass time very
agreeably.
One of the most important ladies' clubs is the Sorosis Club, of New
York. Once a year the ladies of Sorosis give a banquet, to which
gentlemen, as well as ladies, are invited. It was a source of sincere
regret to me that my engagements in the South prevented me from
accepting the kind invitation of the President to join that brilliant
gathering at Delmonico's.
* * * * *
This spirit of independence in woman produces excellent results, it must
be confessed. You find, in America, women who, by their talents, have
won for themselves positions which numbers of men might envy. And do not
imagine that I am speaking of blue-stockings, spectacled spinsters
disdained of Cupid. Not at all. The American woman has always tact
enough to remain womanly. Even among the heroines of the platform, I
have always noticed a little touch of coquetry, which proves to me that
man is not in imminent danger of being suppressed in America.
* * * * *
Only a few days after I set foot in New York, a friend took me to visit
the offices of the principal newspapers of the city. Passing along a
corridor in _The World's_ offices, I remarked a lady writing in one of
the rooms. My friend led the way in, and presented me to her. I found
her to be a pretty brunette of about twenty or twenty-two, delightfully
_piquante_, and with most distinguished manners. I was struck with her
simple bearing and her intelligent expression, and, on leaving the room,
naturally wanted to know to whom I had had the pleasure of being
introduced. I learned then that this young American girl did all the
literary reviewing and gossip for the _New York World_, and took up as
large a salary as a writer on the staff of the Paris _Figaro_.
The _St. Nicholas Magazine_ is conducted by a lady.
Since her husband's death, Mrs. Frank Leslie has carried on, under her
own management, the numerous magazines which issue from the house
founded by that gentleman.
The largest newspapers, and all the principal Reviews, have ladies on
their staffs.
Miss Mary Louise Booth, who directs the _Harper's Bazaar_, receives a
salary of eight thousand dollars.
The two editors of _The Critic_ are Miss Jeannette Gilder and Mr.
Joseph Gilder, sister and brother of Richard Watson Gilder, poet and
chief editor of the _Century Magazine_, who himself has for colleagues
Mr. Buel and a talented lady.
I might name many more.
The education of the women being, in America, very much the same as that
of the men, ladies naturally may aspire to many employments which, in
Europe, are looked upon as being the monopoly of man.