[11] "Now that we can produce artificially, and from waste and even
noisome materials, the ethereal liquids to which the fragrance of the
pear, the pineapple, and the melon are due, and can manufacture
spirits of wine from coal-gas and oil of vitriol, we can scarcely be
over-sanguine as to what we shall yet effect as competitors with
living organisms in the production of certain compounds."--GEORGE
WILSON'S _Life of Forbes_, p. 129.
[12] What I mean here will be understood by a reference to Emile
Souvestre's "Philosophe sous les Toits." In a pretty story of two
women employed in a clasp-factory, he speaks of their low wages, and
says, that, having worked for thirty years, they had seen ten masters
grow wealthy and retire from business, without having changed, in any
degree, their own position.
These claspmakers certainly supported these ten masters and their
families 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.
[13] This may strike some readers like the hardihood of willing vice;
but it is only callousness, born of exposure to hopeless cold and
hunger.
[14] 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 _general_ in this country.
[15] Those who are unaccustomed to this class of women will be
inclined to think that the state of things represented in the text has
long passed away. People who know nothing of the value of money talk a
great deal about "increase of wages," and are apt to say that any
honest woman can now get a living. Women's wages are at this moment of
less value than they were before the war; and, to confirm the
foregoing statements, I add here the statements of my friend Mrs.
Corbin, which reach me as I go to press:--
"At a meeting of the Liberal Christian League, held at Rev. Robert
Collyer's church, on Sunday evening, Feb. 3, a report was read by the
Chairman of the Committee on Friendless Women, from which the
following is an extract:--
Your Committee aimed [in visiting houses of ill-fame], in Chicago,
to find out, as nearly as possible, the general facts concerning
the lives of this class of women.
It was found that these women of pleasure, as they are called,
instead of leading the idle and luxurious life which many imagine,
are, in fact, the most steadily employed of any class in the
community, and have the least available leisure. Your Committee
have never yet visited a house of this kind, staying on the average
half an hour, but they have found male visitors, either there when
they entered, or coming in before they left; and this in the open
day. Inquiries put to the women concerning their hours of leisure
developed incidentally the fact, that it is only at certain times,
on certain days, that they can get out; and then it must be
strictly in the prosecution of their calling. The terms on which
these women are kept, are usually a certain stipulated sum per week
for room rent, and, over and above this, the half of their
earnings; which makes it necessary for the keepers to have a
constant eye upon the girls, to prevent their taking money outside.
The number of men supporting these houses is, moreover, so much
greater than the number of women supported therein, that every girl
is kept in constant requisition, either at the house, or as a
walking advertisement on the street and at public places.
Your Committee, before making these visits, were constantly assured
that these women preferred this way of life, and would scout the
efforts of their own sex at reforming them. Your Committee take
great pleasure in reporting, that, in every instance, they have
found this charge _utterly unsustained_. Everywhere doors were
freely opened to them; they were treated with as much politeness
and cordiality as they have ever received in the most respectable
houses; and the conversation was of the freest and most
satisfactory character.
'Are you happy in this life?' was asked of a delicate girl in her
teens, who had been seen, five minutes before, dancing and singing
about a man in an adjoining apartment in the most wanton
manner,--'Are you happy in this life?'
Tears, sudden and sincere, with a look of indignant protest, filled
her eyes, as she answered,--
'Think how we have to treat the men: that of itself is enough to
prevent _any woman_ from being happy.'
'But you do not always talk this way to men?' was the reply.
'Oh, no!' she said; 'I would never tell a _man_ that. We always
tell the men that we like this life, and would not live any other,
if we could; but _women know_.'
Another voluntarily mentioned the intemperance with which they are
universally and justly charged, as one of the hard necessities of
their position. Women ought not to drink, she admitted; but they
would die if they did not, or go mad with anguish and despair.
Your Committee feel, that, at the present stage of investigation,
it may seem premature to speak of the causes of this terrible evil;
this slavery, which their observation assures them is more
degrading and horrible than any other upon the face of the earth:
but two causes have met them so constantly face to face, that they
cannot in justice refrain from mentioning them.
The first is the terribly prevalent and everywhere tolerated
licentiousness of men. Your Committee believe it to be an admitted
fact, that, if to-day every woman of abandoned life could suddenly
be removed from the dens of this city and placed in a respectable
position, it would not be six months before their places would be
filled, from the ranks of women who are now virtuous; and they have
no faith in any system of reform which does not strike effectual
blows at this, the mainspring of the evil.
Over against this, the first great pillar of the institution,
stands the almost equally colossal one of poverty, and the
exclusion of women from the ordinary fields of labor.
'Here is what I work for,' said a fine, strong-looking woman, as
she placed her hand on the head of a bright boy of two years. 'He
is my child. I have him to support. There is no other way in which
I could earn a comfortable subsistence for myself and him.'
Another, the keeper of a house of ill-fame, an intelligent,
graceful, refined-looking woman,--a woman who would have been an
ornament to any society,--said:--
'I was left suddenly poor, with my mother to support. I had never
been used to work, and there seemed no work I could do that would
support us both. The circumstances of my life seemed to force me
into this way of living;' which meant, of course, that some man
stood ready to offer her kindness, protection, support, every thing
but marriage, and she accepted it. 'My mother, to-day, is as
innocent of any knowledge of my way of life, as a saint in heaven.
I live in daily terror and solicitude lest she should find it out,
for it would kill her. I am going soon on a visit to her, and shall
carry with me twelve hundred and fifty dollars, with which to
secure her a home for life; so that, whatever happens to me, she
will be provided for.'
In confirmation of this story, a hack came to the door while she
was speaking, to carry her to the train she had previously
indicated; which fact, together with her earnest and sincere
manner, left no doubt in the minds of your Committee concerning the
truthfulness of her story.
In regard to the series of meetings proposed to be inaugurated,
your Committee are obliged for the present to report unfavorably,
for the following reasons:--
The proposition was everywhere cordially met among the women. They
readily agreed to the usefulness of the project, and mentioned only
one objection, and that to time. 'Sunday,' was the invariable
answer, 'is our busiest day. We could hardly get away at all on
that day; but we will try to do so.' Your Committee saw at once the
blunder they had made in forgetting that Sunday is the leisure day
of men; and therefore went to the first appointed meeting, through
a cold and blinding snowstorm, with little hope of success. They
found the room already occupied by some six or eight street roughs,
evidently waiting for what might transpire. They left the room very
soon, but took their station about the door, and remained there as
long as the Committee did. Subsequent inquiries confirmed the
impression, that they were sent there by some of the men who had
been in the houses at the time of the visits, to break up the
meetings, for which purpose, of course, only their presence would
be necessary.
Beyond this determined opposition which would no doubt be
encountered at the hands of the male supporters of the institution,
your Committee see but one serious difficulty; and that is, the
deep-rooted scepticism which prevail among the women concerning any
general sentiment of Christian charity in their behalf. They have
so long been persecuted with unjust opprobrium, abandoned, outcast,
left to live or die as they might, without one word of pity or
encouragement, while the men who shared their sins, and were
oftentimes the guiltier partners, were the honored and trusted
associates of Christian women, pillars perhaps in Christian
churches, that they have naturally come to feel, that the sympathy
of one or two good women, however earnest and grateful it may be in
itself, will be of little avail against the malignity of the whole
banded world.
Still your Committee have seen nothing, so far, to discourage them
in their efforts, but every thing to impress upon them the feeling
of imperative duty in this direction.
(Signed) Mrs. C.F. CORBIN, Chairman.
"The plan of action proposed by this Committee was to visit the women
in a friendly, Christ-like spirit, inaugurate a series of meetings
among them, organize efforts in the direction of saving their money,
so that they might be able to take an independent position, with only
such moral support as should be necessary to enable them to face the
opposition of the world, and to direct their lavish free-heartedness
into channels of benevolence toward the old and worn-out of their
number. Pure and healthful pleasures would also be provided for them,
good music, the reading of fine poems and interesting stories, and so
a beginning made toward introducing principles of steadiness and
sobriety into their now totally abandoned and desperate lives."
[16] This expression, used in all such places to denote the food, tea,
coffee, or gin, used by the overstrained girls, is terribly
significant.
[17] I do not know that any person has ever practically carried out
Legouvé'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 self-support. 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."
[18] 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
found 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 Bihéron
adapted wax to the purposes of medical illustration; and it was to the
observations of Mademoiselle Bihéron, recorded in wax, that Dr. Hunter
owed the illustrations of his best work. He was her generous friend;
but she preceded 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
cases of restoration from 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, _the first 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 further 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 animal and vegetable matter, acting 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 singular 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.
Starch first came into use in England in 1564. It was carried thither
by a Mrs. Dinghen Vanden Plasse, of Flanders, who set up business as a
professed starcher, and instructed others how to use the article for
five pounds, and how to make it for twenty pounds.
Side-saddles for ladies first came into use in 1138. Anne, queen of
Richard II., introduced these to the English ladies.
The braiding of straw in this country was first begun in Providence,
in 1798, by Mrs. Betsey Baker, lately residing in Dedham, Mass. The
first bonnet she made was of seven straws with bobbin let in like
open-work, and lined with pink satin.
I had hoped to add to these names that of a peasant woman, who
successfully drained a large estate in France after her own original
fashion, and was sent from Paris to do the same in French Guiana for
the government; but, although no phantom, she eludes my researches.
[19] Historical Pictures of the Middle Ages, in Black and White.
[20] Ernest Legouvé.
[21] While these papers were preparing for the press, the record of
another such sale, in August, 1859, disgraced the English nation.
Opposite the brewery, at Dudley, in Staffordshire, not many 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 wife? What 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 fairest and loftiest woman in
England--nay, for Victoria herself--not to suffer, in some degree,
from the public opinion which such transactions, ever so rarely
occurring, tend to form.