them!--to be wives and mothers. _Wives and mothers!_ I say to myself,
as I see the throat and neck with only the protection of a gold
locket between itself and the cold autumnal winds. Wives and mothers!
I say, as I see them ruining their feet and throwing their ankles out
of shape, in the vain endeavor to walk on heels like corks, fastened
far into the middle of the soles of their boots; and those boots so
high upon the calf of the leg, and so tightly buttoned across it, that
circulation is stopped, and violent headaches follow. Wives and
mothers! I say, as I see the heating and burdensome panier tackled on
the most delicate portion of a woman's frame, to make still surer
confirmed invalidism. What fathers, husbands, brothers, lovers can be
thinking about, to be willing that the women they respect and love,
should appear in public, looking like women whom they despise, is a
marvel to me. Why they do not _say_ this to them, and _shame_ them
into a decent appearance--if their glasses cannot effect it--I do not
know. Oh, the relief it is to meet a _lady_, instead of a ballet-girl!
Oh, the relief it is to see a healthy, firm-stepping, rosy,
broad-chested, bright-eyed woman, clad simply and free from bunches
and tags! I turn to look at such an one with true respect, that she
has the good sense and courage and _good taste_ to appear on the
street in a dress befitting the street; leaving to those poor wretched
women whose business it is to advertise their persons, a free field
without competition. If I seem to speak harshly, it is because I feel
earnestly on this subject. I _had_ hoped that the women of 1868 would
have been worthy of the day in which they live. I had hoped that
_all_ their time would not have been spent in keeping up with the
chameleon changes of fashions too ugly, too absurd for toleration. It
is because I want them to _be_ something, to _do_ something higher and
nobler than a peacock might aim at, that I turn heart-sick away from
these infinitesimal fripperies that narrow the soul and purse, and
leave nothing in their wake but emptiness. Nor is it necessary, in
avoiding all this, that a woman should look "strong-minded," as the
bugbear-phrase goes. It is not necessary she should dress like her
grandmother, in order to look like a decent woman. It is not necessary
she should forswear ornamentation, because it were better and more
respectable to have it confined to festal and home occasions and less
to the public promenade. She is not driven to the alternative of
muffling herself like an omnibus driver in January, or catching
consumption with her throat protected only by a gold locket!
Oh, how I wish that a bevy of young, handsome girls, of good social
position, would inaugurate a plain lady-like costume for street and
_church_ wear. I say young and handsome, because if an old woman does
this, the little chits toss their heads and say, "Oh! she has had
_her_ day, and don't care now--and we want ours."
Now that's perfectly natural, and right too, that you should have your
youth; that you should, as girls say, "make the most of yourselves;"
but in doing so don't you think it would be well not to _lessen_ or
cheapen yourselves? and I submit, with all deference to your
dress-makers and mammas, that every one of you who appear in public in
the manner I have described, are doing this very thing--are defiling
womanhood, and are bringing it into derision and contempt, whether you
believe it or not.
* * * * *
Blessed be sleep! We are all young then; we are all happy. _Then_ our
dead are living. Then, the flowers bloom, though the snow may at that
moment be beating against our windows. Then, the ships that have been
wrecked are gaily sailing on the seas. Then houses are built and
furnished, and, above all, bills are paid. Then, editors have full
subscription lists and clergymen big salaries, and scribblers plenty
of ideas. Then, ladies have "something to wear," although they may not
have it on. Then, Sammy has his coveted velocipede, and Susy her big
doll, and Frank his boat, and Fanny a lover, and Grandpa has no
rheumatism, and Grandma has _not_ lost her spectacles. Blessed be
sleep!
_SOME HINTS TO EDITORS._
What a pity when editors review a woman's book, that they so often
fall into the error of reviewing the _woman_ instead. For instance,
"she is young and attractive, and will probably before long find her
legitimate sphere in matrimony; or she is an old maid--what can she
know of life except through a distorted medium? Let her wait, if so
she be able, till some man is deluded into inviting her to change her
name. That appears to be her present need. Or she has the affectation
of writing over a _nom de plume_--and must, perforce, be a fool. Or
she _did_ write a preface to her book; or she _omitted_ writing a
preface to her book, as one might expect of a woman. Or we hear she is
a widow; and notoriety is probably her object in writing."
I introduced this article by saying what a pity that editors in
reviewing a woman's book should so often only review the woman.
Perhaps I should have said, what a pity all editors are not
_gentlemen_. It is very easy to determine this question, if one keeps
the general run of editorial articles. Not that it does not sometimes
happen that, in the editor's necessary absence, some substitute may
get him into "hot water;" or, as a foreigner who once tried to use
this expression, called it "_dirty water_,"--but taking the general
tone of editorial articles, from one day or one week to another, the
want of courtesy and self-respect, or the lack of it, are patent to
the intelligent reader.
It is a pity that an editor should not be a gentleman, _for his own
sake_, and because no position can be more honorable than his, if he
choose to make it so, nor more influential for good or evil. Think of
the multitude he addresses--the thinking men and women who pass his
columns under critical review. Surely, this is a career not to be
lightly esteemed, not to be slurred over bunglingly. Surely, this
messenger crossing the sacred threshold of home, might well step
carefully, reverentially, discreetly, and discuss fairly, justly,
all topics especially connected with home duties and home
responsibilities. Surely, his advertising list, if he have one, should
be a _clean_ one, such as any frank-browed, hitherto innocent young
boy, might read. Surely, the maiden, whose horizon is not bounded by a
strip of ribbon or silk, or even the marriage altar; should have the
great questions of the day, relating to the future of her sex, not
brushed aside with a contemptuous sniff, or treated with flippant
ridicule, because this is the shortest and easiest way of disposing of
that which requires thought and fair deliberation.
It seems so strange to me, who hold in such exalted estimation an
editor's calling, that one should ever be found willing to belittle
it; it is also a great comfort to know that there are those who hold
this their position, for honor and interest second to none, and in
this light conscientiously conduct their paper, so far as their
strength and means allow.
This would be a very stupid world, I grant, if individuality were not
allowed in the editorial chair as well as elsewhere; but leaving a
wide margin for this, is there not still room in many newspapers for
more justice, manliness, courtesy, and, above all, respectful mention
of woman, even though the exigencies of her life may compel her to
address the public.
There is a practice of certain penny-a-liners which cannot be too
severely reprehended. We do not refer to their personal descriptions
of public persons, male and female, which are often wholly false--they
having mistaken some one else for the individual they wished to
describe; and if certain of the identity, generally "doing" the
description in the worst possible taste. All this is bad enough; but
we refer now to cases where a forgery or a murder is committed. Not
contented with working up these cases in all their harrowing and often
disgusting details, your barren penny-a-liner, catching at the least
straw of an idea to secure another penny for another line, states that
the criminal in question is son of the Hon. Samuel So-and-so, nephew
of Mr. So-and-so, a gentlemen well known in the fashionable world, and
brother of the beautiful Miss Smith who was so much admired in society
last winter. Now, to say that a man who would recklessly carry
distress to innocent persons, already sufficiently crushed by their
calamity, should be horse-whipped, is a mild way of putting it. No
dictionary could do such cold-blooded atrocity justice. Of course such
items help sell a paper; but, alas, how low must be that editor's
standard of journalism who permits his employés to pander to so
corrupt and ghoul-like a taste! I think, could he sometimes look in
upon the sorrowing family circle, which he has assisted to drag into
this kennel publicity, or if he could suffer in his own family that
which he so remorselessly deals out to another, he might realize the
deadly nature of these poisoned arrows which he aims at his neighbor's
heart.
Again, because the victims so assailed have not the prefix of "Hon."
to their names, and have no "fashionable and beautiful sister," or
"prominent and wealthy uncle," shall we therefore excuse this cowardly
attack upon their poor hearths and homes? Let any one run over certain
police reports of the day, if he would see how misery and misfortune
are treated as a jest, by these small, brainless wits hard up for a
subject. One's blood boils, that the human being exists who could
regard such things from the standpoint of a circus clown. In fact, a
circus clown is respectable in comparison, since his jests are
legitimate and harmless.
These gentry never did me any personal harm.
True, black hair has often been awarded me, instead of light, by these
scribblers, "who were on very intimate terms with me," and I have
measured six feet in height, instead of four and a half; and I have
"a stylish carriage and footmen," which I fervently wish the
international copyright law would drive up to my door, bating the
usual vulgar livery; also, half the things which they have asserted I
"waste my earnings upon" would be agreeable to possess, and of course
I grieve to take them down a single peg on all these statements; but
lying did not die with the serpent in Eden, for his slimy trail is all
through newspaperdom, save and except the ---- now don't you wish you
knew?
No humane or decent person, can read the police reports in some of the
papers in New York, without feeling unutterable loathing and contempt
for the writers. Is it not enough that these poor wretches, in their
downward course, have lost almost the faintest impress of immortality,
that one who at least bears the semblance of manhood, can stand over
them and manufacture coarse jibes by the yard, to be perused by young
people at the family hearth-stone? It is a disgrace to our
civilization, and to the paper in whose columns they appear.
How would these writers like it, if the sister who once shared their
cradle--having, in some mad moment, thrown away all in life that is
pure and sweet to women--should she be brought up among that wretched
crowd for sentence, how would he like it, to have her spoken of in
this manner?--
"Miss Josephine Jones, a frail sister, with a bruised nose that once
had been prettier, and a bonnet that did _not_ originate in Paris, was
charged with getting drunk, and tearing the hair from Miss Alice
Carr's red head. The hair was produced in court, but for some
inexplicable reason the clerk of the court seemed disinclined to touch
it. Miss Josephine was found guilty, and gathering up the remnant of a
greasy silk gown in her fair hand, she walked gracefully forth, to be
provided with lodgings and grub, free of expense, on Blackwell's
Island, where so many of her sex rusticate for the pleasant winter
months."
Or, suppose he had a young brother, who had recklessly thrown off home
influences, and, before reaching maturity, was brought into court as a
common drunkard, how would he relish, having him spoken of in this
manner?--
"An infant of twenty-one, named Harry Dexter, with blear eyes, and
torn hat slouched over his swollen mug, was next called up. His boots
and the blacking-brush seemed not to have had a very intimate
acquaintance of late, and the laundress had evidently, for some cause
or other, neglected his linen. His youthful hands also would have been
improved by a dexterous use of soap and water. Young Harry had no
occasion to inquire the way to his future boarding house, having often
ridden down on previous occasions in that accommodating omnibus called
the Black Maria, to take a sail at the city's expense to Pauper's
Island."
We might multiply instances of this heartless and disgusting way of
speaking of the faults and vices of our fellow-creatures, but this
specimen will suffice to show the spirit in which they are penned.
Nor is it any excuse, that many of the friends of these wretched
beings can neither read or write, nor by any possibility ever be
wounded by these so-called _jocular_ allusions. I insist that the
effect on the young people of our community is demoralizing. God knows
that in the crowded city, with its whirling life, we have hard work
enough to avoid jostling aside the urgent claims of the erring and
unfortunate around us, without such help as this from the devil. It is
bad enough "to pass by on the other side" when Christian charity
challenges pity and help; but what must that man be made of, who would
stand over a crushed fellow-being, and, for a few dollars, make merry
with his misery? Surely, it seems to me, that the editors of the
papers where these disgraceful items appear, cannot be aware how
disgusting they have become, to those who would else gladly welcome
their daily issues in the family.
* * * * *
Burlesquing a drunkard! Why not burlesque a funeral? with the coffin
and the mourners, with their sobs and tears and grieving hearts? Do
those who get up such a painful exhibition ever think that there may
be amid their audience some persons who have had, day after day, their
lives saddened and imbittered by the dreadful reality? Is it a
legitimate theme for mirth or ridicule? We think not.
_HELP FOR THE HELPFUL._
I have never, in any temperance discussion, written or spoken, heard
or seen any mention of this class of inebriates; and yet the drunkards
on tea are just as surely sapping the foundations of life, as the
devourers of whiskey or gin. That women only, or mostly, are the
victims, does not lessen the importance of my statement. I say mostly,
for I have in my recollection at least two literary men of note, who
primed themselves on strong green tea, without sugar or milk, for any
literary effort, when overtasked nature flagged. One of them became in
consequence subject to distressing fits, and has since deceased.
But it is the women who practise this form of inebriation of whom I
would now speak. The working-girls, the sempstresses, the tenders in
shops, who, being able to pay but slender price for board, get
badly-cooked, poor food, and, in consequence, often three times a day,
call for the fatal "cup of tea," which, for the moment, "sets them
up," as they call it, and enables them to shoulder again the load they
have dropped, till another fit of exhaustion overtakes them, worse
than the preceding, to be followed by a repetition of the same
_pro-tem._ remedy. Then follow indigestion, headaches, sleepless
nights, and the usual long train of miseries, which any physician who
has ever been called upon to prescribe for these overworked, underfed
unfortunates, will immediately endorse. Tea to the working-girl, taken
in this way, is like the "corner-grocery-drink" to the working-man,
and just as deadly in its results as if it sent her reeling through
the streets, as rum does him; although she neither sees, knows, nor
would admit it, any more than he would. Sometimes, when you speak to
them about it, they reply, "But I must have something to keep me up; I
have no appetite for food; I am so tired all the time, and tea makes
me feel so good."
The old plea of the drunkard the world over. Look at these weary
women, with dark circles about their eyes, nervous almost to insanity,
ready to "cry" at the slightest notice, the blue veins on their
temples looking as if they were painted _outside_ the skin. Look at
their long, thin, _sick_-looking fingers, and their slow, weary steps,
from which all the spring and elasticity of youth has long since
departed. See them swallowing "pills" by the dozen, and trying every
quack medicine afloat, instead of resisting the enemy which has done
all or two-thirds the mischief.
Of course, the world over, _bad food_ is the sworn ally of drunkenness
in every shape, and these poor girls have much to contend against in
that shape.
Then, again, I think few women can long preserve their self-respect
amid dirty surroundings. One often sees with a pained pleasure--if
this expression is not paradoxical--their faint attempts to make light
out of darkness, and beauty out of deformity, in the solitary plant,
struggling for life, and its one slant ray of sunshine, outside some
tenement-house window. Or, if you enter, a rude print upon the soiled
wall, of some saint, or child, or some scene in nature; upon which
latter the weary eyes often turn with a vain longing at realization.
These sights, to the humanitarian, who is trying to solve life's great
problem for the benefit of those on whom it bears so heavily, are
suggestive. It is clear, at least, that woman, from choice, would not
be amid dirt or noisome odors. What _man_ would become, without her
refining influence, and the touch of her reformatory fingers, and her
unpolluted sense of smell, of which tobacco has deprived him, it is
not my purpose now to consider, although I have very firmly rooted
ideas on this subject. But there is a class of women among those whom
adverse circumstances have thrown into such places, upon whom it bears
the more hardly, because they have been accustomed all their life to
the reverse of this.
Hundreds so situated, sunk out of sight of former acquaintances by
cruel want, bear it bravely, heroically, while struggling hopefully
and one-handed, against discouraging odds, for better days. Some,
alas! go _down_, soul-sick, body-weary, under the unequal contest, as
we who live in this great, swarming city know. Benevolent ladies in
New York are awake to this; and the question arising, What can we do
for such? has been answered, by energetic and Christian ladies, by the
establishment of boarding-houses, in respectable and pleasant
neighborhoods; with board at prices but little higher than those which
they were obliged to pay in the disagreeable localities above
mentioned. Indeed, in some urgent and genuine cases, upon application,
the applicant has been received upon merely nominal board, in
recognition of the Bible fact that "bricks cannot be made without
straw." In one such institution, I lately spent a most profitable and
delightful morning. It is located on Washington square--one of the
most delightful as well as central spots in New York City--by ladies
of wealth and position in society, and, better still, ladies of
intelligence and piety,--executive ladies, who do something beside
_talk_, and know how, and when, and where to act for this great and
humane object.
With such a good and solid foundation, they have moved on, as their
strength and means have permitted. I passed from one to another of the
pleasant rooms of the young ladies, who occupied apartments here, and
who were, at that hour in the forenoon, scattered far and wide over
the city; some as teachers in schools and in families, some as pupils
in the School of Design, or the ward schools, while many were occupied
as dress-makers, sempstresses, copyists, &c. I looked around me at the
clean white little beds, at the books, at the prints upon the walls,
at the climbing ivy and flowering plants, upon which the sun was
shining as if in blessing, at the innumerable little tokens of
personality, which are so suggestive to the stranger on entering an
unoccupied apartment; those _little_ things which say to you as you
read the title of a genuine and well-thumbed book, "Ah! here lives one
who _thinks_;" or you see by the thousand little refined touches, and
orderly and wise arrangement of clothing and furniture, the neat
thrift of woman expressed, and you feel thankful that they will not
come home, when the day's toil is over, to unholy sounds, and unclean
sights, and bad air, and loathsome food. You thank God that such women
can keep up heart for their exhaustive and unaccustomed toil, by the
_certainty_ of a safe and respectable shelter over their heads, when
night draws its curtain over the temptations and the wickedness of
this great city. You are thankful that their self-respect is not only
preserved in this most important way, but by intercourse and contact
with the ladies of worth and refinement who have the institution in
charge and at heart.
If this is not a noble institution, what is? I do not call it a
charity. It were wrong so to designate it. From out that threshold
pass noble, _self-supporting_ girls, putting to shame the useless
lives of the idle, paniered ladies who remorselessly wear out the
souls of husbands, fathers, and brothers, in the vain struggle for
fashionable supremacy. No: this Institution is a _help_, not a
_charity_. Its object is to help those who wish to help themselves.
Upon one of the walls of a little room there I saw a representation of
the "Grecian Bend." I looked on this picture, and on that, and my eyes
were moist with gratitude for one, and with womanly shame for the
other.
* * * * *
Do you ever think how much work a little child does in a day? How,
from sunrise to sunset, the dear little feet patter round--to us--so
aimlessly. Climbing up here, kneeling down there, running to another
place, but never still. Twisting and turning, rolling and reaching and
doubling, as if testing every bone and muscle for their future uses.
It is very curious to watch it. One who does so may well understand
the deep breathing of the rosy little sleeper, as, with one arm tossed
over its curly head, it prepares for the next day's gymnastics. A busy
creature is a little child.
_WOMEN ON THE PLATFORM._
"Miss Marianna Thompson, now a student at the Theological
school, received, during her summer vacation two invitations to
settle with good societies, each of which offered her twelve
hundred dollars per year. Pretty good for a school-girl, I
think."
Yes, that is very good; and we trust Miss Thompson will accept
one of these (or a better) and do great good to her hearers.
And, should some excellent young man ask her to "settle" with
him as wife, _at no salary at all_, we advise her to heed that
"call" as well.--_N. Y. Tribune._
Well, now, Mr. _Tribune_, I don't. I have seen too many women, quite
as capable as Miss Thompson of being self-supporting individuals,
exhausting the last remnant of their strength in the family, and
carefully saving every penny for a husband, who never doled out
twenty-five cents, without asking the purpose for which it was needed,
and reiterating the stale advice to spend it judiciously. I have seen
such women, too proud to complain or remonstrate, turn away with a
crimson cheek, and a moist eye, to dicker, and haggle, and contrive
for this end, when the husband who gave this advice, had effectually
blotted out the word self-denial from his own dictionary.
No, Mr. _Tribune_, I differ from you entirely. I advise no woman to
refuse twelve hundred independent dollars a year for good, honest
labor, to become such a serf as this.
And while we are on this subject, I would like to air the disgust with
which I am nauseated, at the idea of any decent, intelligent,
self-respecting, capable wife, ever being obliged _to ask_ for that
which she so laboriously earns, and which is just as much hers by
right, as the money that her husband receives from his customers is
_his_, instead of his next-door--dry-goods--neighbor's.
No man should thus humiliate a woman; no woman should permit herself
to be thus humiliated. I am not now speaking of those foolish women,
to whom a ribbon, or a necklace, is dearer than their husband's
strength, life, or mercantile honor. I put such women entirely out of
the question; only remarking, that if a man marries a fool in the hope
of her being pliant, and easily ruled by him, he will find too late
that he is mistaken. But that's his affair. Men always have, and
always will keep on admiring their own perspicacity in reading female
character, when not one in ten knows any more what his wife is
spiritually made of, than what sheep furnished the coat for his own
back.
Sary Gamp advised her comrade--nurse--to put the mutual bottle on the
shelf, and "_look the other way_!"