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40 WOMEN COMPOSITORS.
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.
After Controversy ; The Arose Meeting . ...
£ 11 a few blank years , or resorted to in the fall maturity of life ., without previous use or trainingon the pressure of necessity alone _.
, And those women who become printers , or enter upon any of the mechanical tradesmust have the determination to make that
sacri-, fice which alone can ensure the faithful discharge of their work . It is impossible to afford help to those who only consent to maintain
themselves when youth is over , and who commence by considering it a matter of injustice and unfair dealing that the work they cannot do .
is not offered at once to their uninstructed hands . I cannot insist too strongly upon this—every day ' s experience at the Victoria Press
enforces on my mind the absolute necessity of an early training , and habits of precision and punctuality- —from the want of it I
and receive solicitors useless app gentle lications women from who the have daughters been of _tenderl officers , nurtured clergymen in ,
_^ y the belief that they will never have any occasion to work for daily breadbut who from the death of their fatheror some unforeseen
_s , calamity , are plunged into utter destitution , at an age when it is dif _^ ficultI had almost said impossibleto acquire new habits of lifeand
, , , which leaves them no time to learn a business which shall support them . Thuslife ' s heaviest burdens fall on the weakest shoulders
, , and , hy man ' s short-sighted and mistaken kindness , bereavements are rendered tenfold more disastrous than they would otherwise have
been . The proposal that fathers , who are unable to make some settled provision for their daughtersshould train them as they
, train their sons , to some useful employment , is still received as startling and novel— -it runs counter to a thousand prejudicesyet it
, bears the stamp of sound common sense , and it is at least in accordance with the spirit of Christianity . We have all at some time or
other pitied men who , brought up to no business , are suddenly deprived of their fortunes , and obliged to work for their living— -we
have speculated on tlie result of their struggles , and if success has followed their effortswe have pronounced the case exceptional . Is
, it then a marvel that the general want of training among women meets us as one of the greatest difficulties in each branch of the
new employments opening for them ? The irreparable mischief caused by itand the conviction that it is only the exceptional case
in either sex , which masters the position , determined me on receiving no apprentice to the printing business . after eighteen years of
age . Boys begin the business very young , and if women are to become compositors it must be under the same conditions .
Still , in spite of all the difficulties we have encountered , I can report a steady and most encouraging _progress—r-the Victoria Press
can now execute at least twice the amount of work it was able to accomplish at the time of the Association ' s last Meeting . "W _"©
have undertaken a weekly _newspaper the Friend of the People _^ and a quarterlythe Law Magazine ; we have printed an appeal case for the
, Tloiise of Lords , and have had a considerable amount of Chancery
printing , together with sermons and pamphlets from , all parts of
40 Women Compositors.
40 WOMEN COMPOSITORS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1861, page 40, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091861/page/40/
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