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ASSOCIATION FOR THE EMPLOYMENT OP WOMEN....
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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Transcript
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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.
_ We Desire To Call Our Readers' Especia...
to live as best they may . And all this misery is inflicted on them for no fault , but that of having conie into a world where there is
no employment for them . " . But-can this state of things Ibe natural ? Could Providence
have created several thousand superfluous women for the purpose of rendering them useless burdens on societyas inmates of our prisons ,
, workhouses , and charitable institutions ? Or is it that there is something wrong in our social arrangements , whereby they are
unfairly deprived of occupations that were intended for their peculiar benefit ?
" If this want of employment extended to the men , it would be a sign that the country was in a state of decadency , but happily
this is not the case , for everywhere we hear how high their wages are . " Government is obliged to raise the bounties for soldiers and
sailors , or they could procure none , and even then finds it "difficult to obtain hoccupations for men being so plentiful , and so
well remunerated enoug . , From the colonies , letters declare they are at a stand still for want of workmen . « We want nothing / says a
newspaper from Cape Town , ' but more men , more carpenters , more blacksmiths , more bricklayers . If we had twice as many as at
present , they would all find full employment . ' Is it not somewhat strange , tkat , while men ' s labor is in such demand , women should
experience a difficulty ( often amounting to an impossibility ) in earning a living bhonest industry ? That , while in some
departments of labor , men y will only work three days a week , because in that time tliey can earn enough to provide food for their families
and the means of drunkenness for themselves , women should be lad to work sixteen hours a day for fourpence ?
g " Surely there must be something wrong in this disproportion ; something unnatural , and that was never intended . Let us then
look roundand see whether men are never to be found occupying women easy , remunerative laces , that p ori laces inall , that belonged could be to as them well , and or better that they filled would by
have remained ; p in possession gy of to this day , had riot artificial means been used to displace them . We refer to those departments in the
great shops , which are devoted to the sale of light articles of female attire . Wliy should bearded men "be employed to sell ribbon , lace ,
gloves , neck-kerchiefs , and the dozen other trifles to be found in a _silk-xnercer's or haberdasher ' s shop ?
" The ' Edinburgh Review , ' in its April number , gives us the reasons . One isthat women are too ill in . stru . cted in arithmetic for the
purpose ; , the other is , that ladies prefer the services of men . The first reasonhoweveris sufficientand fullexplains the second . Ladies
would , rather be , waited on by , a man who y understands his business , than by a woman who keeps them waiting for ten minutes while
she is trying to make out their bill . The cause of this great ignorance ' women is told us by the Rev . J . P . Norris , the
Government School among Inspector , in his Report to the Committee of Council
of Education : —
Association For The Employment Op Women....
ASSOCIATION FOR THE EMPLOYMENT OP WOMEN . 57
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1859, page 57, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091859/page/57/
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