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FEMALE MIDDLE CLASS EMIGBATION. 21
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.
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In Re-Introducing Tlie Subject Of Female...
to that large body , the over-worked and under-paid women of this country .
There will be no necessity to repeat again how many persons land ly in vainfor one situation ; nor shall I detail the
appy , app , _ruany hideous straits into which thousands of our fellow countrywomen are drivenwhile seeking daily bread . I feel I should
materially damage , the cause I have so deeply at heart , were I to narrate the histories to which I have listened during the past
eighteen months , and that you would brand me at once for so doing , as an exaggerator and an over-credulous woman ; a woman whose
sympathies and whose feelings might have been developed , but whose judgment and whose discrimination had heen fearfully
stunted and dwarfed . But were half that I know , known and believedthe man least given to reflection amongst youthe man
most deep , ly buried in his business , the man most entirely g , iven up to aggrandizement or ambition , would pause with burning cheeks and
shame-crowned brows , perfectly paralysed with astonishment . You may have heard something of the sufferings of dependent
women ; you may , many amongst you must , in a measure know the fearful pressure of trials that are " beyond measure : " but know
what you may , and suffer what you may , I do not hesitate to declare that not a hundredth part of a dependent woman ' s temptations or
trials have ever been even so much as hinted to you . I admit that some , probably very much of this suffering is
occasioned hy ill-training , by inaptitude for the higher branches of tuition or artand by an unaccountable and absurd reluctanceon
the part of some , women , to enter into business or domestic service , ; and I have never proposed , and do not now propose , emigration as
the sole antidote for all this suffering : all I advance is , that colonization is capable of being effectually worked as a means for
improving the condition of women ; that the subject has been singularly neglected and overlooked ; that it is unjust to the colonies , as
well as nxost short-sighted policy on our x > art , to ship off , as a rule , only the illiteratethe unruland the ill-behaved .
I appeal to all , who know y , anything of social questions in this country , to every clergyman ' s wife and district visitor in the kingdom ,
whether when a girl or a woman has been guilty of any egregious folly , shows signs of an unruly temper , or a tendency to light
-behaviour , emigration is not invariably suggested as the last hope _^ -the Homes infallible and reformatories remedy ? workhouses and hanageshave each orp
contributed their quota , and , helped to swell the numbers , of unsuitamongst able emigrants the better , and class thus of assisted women in . making I would emi not gration ( at least unpopular in any
il large ( with hall prop perhaps presentl ortion an ) encourage excep j ) tion and in the emi favor gratio two reason of n from orp s hanages which such institutions , lead to mo which to ;
arrive s at this conclusion y recur are 1 stthe fact that if a girl has a , ,
Female Middle Class Emigbation. 21
FEMALE MIDDLE CLASS _EMIGBATION . 21
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1862, page 21, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091862/page/21/
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