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404 LADIES IN THE ORCHESTRA.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
. ? A Two Problems, The Importance Of Wh...
the sound of whose bugles the walls of tlie new Jericho are to fall down flatand the le inside throw themselves on their knees
and implore , a mercy peop , which we hope the fair conquerors ; will ., grant . Whyafter allshould M . Sax not succeed ? The musical
aptitudes of the , female , sex have never "been questioned , and there is not the shadow of a reason why women who have no better _,
prospect should not learn to blow some of the charming instruments which -M . Sax has endowed . with every contrivance that can
render their use easy and effective . Let nobody tell us that people do not want to have their wives taken away from their children
and their homes , to go and blow trombones and saxophones in orchestras . "We know that ; we do not wish for anything of the
kind , and M . Sax least of all . Besides , the attraction is not such as to easily entice ladies away from cheerful homes , or congenial
occupations already adopted . Ladies who have _every comfort at home are not those to whom M . Sax offers , at the end of a course
I of instrumental music , an _engagement to play in an orchestra , at \ a salary of from six to twelve pounds a month . He offers this , a
I good , a rare prospect indeed , to young women who , having nothing better to domay beevery day of their lives , tempted into doing
a great deal , worse . , To such M . Sax can be nothing else than a benefactor . .
But there is another point of view from which M . Sax's innovation is to be examinedthe hygienic . Not only does M . Sax
contradict the generally receive , d opinion that the playing of brass instruments predisposes to consumption , but he contends that a
moderate use of wind instruments is one of the best prophylactic means of combating pulmonary phthisis . M . Sax ' s experience
on this point is so personal and conclusive that we cannot do better than give our readers the letter this gentleman addressed some
time ¦ " Mr ago .-Editor to the Cpurrier Medical , from which we take it .
, " I hear it every day repeated—and it seems that medical men agree on this point with the popular belief—that playing on wind
instruments , and especially brass instruments , predisposes to pulmonary phthisis .
" That question , though its importance be a great one , has neveras far as I knowundergone any serious examination ; and
in this , , as in many other , things , authors have contented themselves with repeating what they learnt by reading or hearsay . It ,
however , deserves well to be examined , at a time especially when music isand happily socultivated by all classes of society .
"I do , not mean to > dogmatise on subjects which do not fall within my province , and I leave to medical men the task of sifting
that question ; but I must , in the name of facts , the truth of which I knowobject to an opinion which I think is ill grounded ; and
this is wliy , I beg you to give these few lines the publicity of your
columns .
404 Ladies In The Orchestra.
404 LADIES IN THE ORCHESTRA .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1863, page 404, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081863/page/44/
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