[26] I am happy to find, on the authority of the "London Athenæum,"
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, _née_ Von Siebold, died
at Darmstadt a fortnight ago. She was born in 1792, studied the
science of midwifery at the Universities of Göttingen and Giessen, and
took her doctor's degree in 1817; not, _honoris causâ_, 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 specialty. 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 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 1745 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 _fourteen hundred_ children. From 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 Beecher 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, in this
country. Mrs. King probably studied abroad, and taught her next
successor, and possibly Mrs. Peck, who seems to have assisted both.
That three of the four women named should have practised forty years
each, seems very remarkable.
[27] See Appendix, sketch of Mrs. Roberts, and other female
preachers.
[28] 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 "sin 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 Protestant 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 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. I _feel_, to this day, how I saw one clergyman shrink,
years ago, from a tale which he ought 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 such
circumstances, let a clergyman call upon those of his congregation 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_.
[29] 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, well-flavored, 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. Crime of all sorts, and
especially intemperance, will retreat before a proper provision of
nourishing and stimulating 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.
[30] 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!
[31] I cannot allude to the subject of Intelligence-offices without
saying, that all such institutions ought to be brought, in some _new_
and _effective_ manner, under public supervision and control.
A private Intelligence-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 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?