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NOTICES OF BOOKS. 63
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.
North America. By Anthony Trollope. In 2...
Trollope ' s acquaintance , they are unable to see that " they have had an easy tinie of it for these years past" and do not < e know
, -when they are well off . " We have even met with needlewomen so blind to the advantages of their position , that they would gladly
change places with the young women in the Boston library , whom Mr . Trollope pitied so much , when he heard that they were employed
in a comfortable room at the lightest , cleanest , and most amusing kind of workfrom eight in the morning till nine at night . That
these hours are , too long is evident enough ; but are English women better off , who work at sorting rope or rags , in continual contact
with rough men , from six in the morning till six at night , for a shilling a daywith the privilege of working overtime at the rate
, of a penny an hour ? We are told that " Chivalry has been very active in raising
women from the hard and hardening tasks of the world . " Be it so . Let it be a little more activeand raise them still more ; for
, surely while such a state of things as we have described is not a thing of the imaginationnor of the past , but is actually going on
, in England at this moment , much yet remains for chivalry to do . So far , we have spoken of women who are obliged to work and
are working . But there is another class , whose fathers provide for themand whohaving no external obligation to workare
only led to , seek it by , their instincts and the law of Nature . , How about these ? Mr . Trollope says that " Men , as a general rule
among civilized nations , have elected to earn their own bread and the bread of the women also . " This we cannot admit . Until
quite recent times , women have contributed their full share to the family earnings . If the man worked in the counting-house , or oti
the farm , the women of the household were doing their part at home—in inningweavingbaking , brewing , knitting , sewing *
and what not sp . It is , because , the introduction of domestic machi , - nery has to a great and continually increasing extent taken this
-work out of the home , that women of this generation are obliged to follow their work into the factory and the shop . They must so
follow it , or be idle , and it should be carefully borne in mind that the virtues of our female ancestors were not the fruit of idleness
and that idleness will not produce similar virtues in their descen- , dants .
It is easy to say that an industrious woman will always find something to do . Industrious women are finding it , and that ia
the cause of all this outcry . In this age we are , perhaps , more than ever " the fools of habit ; " and menwho have never felt
, the burden of enforced idleness , can seldom understand why women should want anything more exciting than the apparently pleasant
occupation of amusing themselves and other people . f " his What children does ? any tradesman it not this , any that professional his shall man , any forth mechanic to their wish
bread or , and that Ms Is daughters shall — remain with sons Mm till go they are e m arn arried ?
Notices Of Books. 63
NOTICES OF BOOKS . 63
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1862, page 63, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091862/page/63/
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