Part 65

=521. England.= In looking over the census of Great Britain, for 1850, we are surprised to find that in some of those occupations most suitable for women, as physicians, music composers, teachers of mathematics, macaroni packers, mask makers, honey dealers, lecturers, reporters, and spice merchants, not one female is reported; while, in occupations altogether unsuitable, many women are employed--in some, even hundreds. No doubt many of these women, perhaps a majority, and in some occupations it may be all, are the widows of men who have been engaged in the business, and who employ others to do the work. In some of the other occupations, the women probably do only the lighter work, under the direction of the masters or competent foremen. Circumstances, as regards occupation, certainly do much to influence the fate of every one. But in no respect is there a greater need of reform, than in the proper appreciation of employments by the sexes. Men have, in bygone times, seized upon the lightest and most lucrative occupations, and by custom still retain them. The most laborious and disagreeable work is left for women, and what is still worse, they are paid only from one third to one half as much as men, doing the same kind of work. Of the occupations that strike us as odd for women, in the census of Great Britain, are makers of agricultural implements, anchor smiths, barge women, barge boat builders, bell hangers, bedstead makers, bill stickers, blacksmiths, brass manufacturers, brick makers, bristle manufacturers, builders, carpenters, case (packing) makers, chimney sweepers, coke burners, commercial travellers, engine and machinery makers, ferriers, goldbeaters, grindstone cutters, gun makers, hawkers, hemp manufacturers, hinge makers, nail manufacturers, oil refiners, paper hangers, parasol and umbrella stick manufacturers, peat cutters, plasterers, potato merchants, railway-station attendants, razor makers, ring-chain makers, rivet makers, rope makers, saddle-tree makers, sail makers, scale makers, sawyers, scavengers, sextons, ship agents, ship builders, small steel-ware manufacturers, snuff and tobacco manufacturers, spade makers, spar cutters, spirit and wine merchants, stone breakers, stone quarriers, stove, grate, and range makers, sugar refiners, surgical-instrument makers, timber merchants, timber choppers and benders, tin manufacturers, trunk makers, turners, turpentine manufacturers, undertakers, vermin destroyers, well sinkers, wheelwrights, white-metal manufacturers, wine manufacturers, wood dealers, and zinc manufacturers. In the furniture trade of Great Britain, 5,763 women are employed, while 7,479 are engaged in conveyance. I would also add, that in Great Britain, women have been, and still are, to some extent, employed in coal, copper, iron, lead, manganese, salt, tin, and other mineral mines. Of those for men extremely inappropriate, are reported three hundred and sixty-six dress makers, and sixty-one embroiderers. "In the reign of George II. (says Mrs. Childs), the minister of Clerkenwell was chosen by a majority of women. The office of champion has frequently been held by a woman, and was so at the coronation of George I. The office of grand chamberlain, in 1822, was filled by two women; and that of clerk of the crown, in the court of king's bench, has been granted to a female. The celebrated Anne, Countess of Pembroke, held the hereditary office of sheriff of Westmoreland, and exercised it in person, sitting on the bench of the judges. In ancient councils, mention is made of deaconesses; and in an edition of the New Testament printed in 1574, a woman is spoken of as minister of a church." Miss Betsy Miller has for years commanded the Scotch brig, Cleotus. Her father commanded a vessel plying between England and France. After his wife died, the daughter frequently accompanied him. On his death, being without a home on land, she took command of the vessel, and remained in the capacity of captain several years. An English correspondent of an American paper writes: "Walking, lately, near some white-lead works, about the hour of closing, we observed the sudden egress of about a hundred women from the establishment, all Irish, and all decently clad and well conducted. On inquiry, we found that they are employed continuously in the works, piling the lead for oxidation, and in various other processes, not by any means coming under the denomination of light labor." A few years ago, a singular death occurred in England. It was that of a woman, who, owing to harsh treatment from her parents when a child, left her home at the age of eight, dressed in boy's clothes, got work as a boy, learned the trade of a mason, and worked at it until about middle age, when the business was changed for that of a beer house, in which occupation the individual continued until her death, at the age of sixty. She always dressed as a man. When quite young, she was very industrious and hard-working. Many of the large houses and tall chimneys in Manchester and Salford were built by her. "The 7,000 women returned in the census under the head of miners, are, no doubt, for the most part, the dressers of the ores in the Cornish and Welsh mines. The work is dirty, but not too laborious; less laborious than the work which may perhaps be included under the same head--the supplying porcelain clay from the same regions of country. Travellers in Devonshire and Cornwall are familiar with the ugly scenery of hillsides where turf is taken up, and the series of clay pits is overflowing, and the plastered women are stirring the mess, or sifting and straining, or drying or moulding the refined clay. The mineral interest is, however, one of the smallest in the schedule of female industry; and it is likely to contract, rather than expand--except the labor of sorting the ores." In Great Britain, some women work in alabaster, and some in alum mines. In what is called the Black country, some women are employed on the pit banks, and some about the furnace yards. A London paper says: "Melton and its neighborhood can boast of three public characters, which, perhaps, no other can; namely, two independent ladies, who have taken out game certificates, and who enter the field, and can bring down the game equal to any sportsman, as well as those indulging in fishing, hunting over the country with hounds, &c. The third is a female blacksmith, a daughter of Mr. William Hinman, who is such an adept at shoeing a horse or working at the anvil, as to cause universal excitement. It was but the other day that she took off the old shoes of a horse, pared the feet, and fitted the shoes at the fire, and affixed them in the most scientific manner possible, and in considerably less time than her father could, who is called one of the quickest shoers in Melton." Some women are employed as kelp burners in Great Britain; and some, as bathers, manage the bathing machines used on the coast. In the census of Great Britain are reported some women as hack proprietors.

=522. France.= A Paris correspondent of the New York _Times_ writes: "My washerwoman is a man. He lives in the Rue Blanc, and any one may see him up to his elbows in soap suds, or ironing frills on bosoms. His wife is a wood sawyer." It is not unusual, in the public gardens of Germany, and on the broad sidewalks of the Boulevards in Paris, for men and women to hire a chair for a sou to a passer by who wishes to rest. In France, some women are engaged in cutting and drying seaweeds, and some in making wooden shoes. "In the department of Somme, France, women alone have the right to go into the fields and gather stones to repair the roads. In the cantons where peat is dug, the privilege of loading and unloading the boats which carry it is given them. At Cistal, in Provence, women alone have been authorized to sell the water which was brought from a fountain some distance from the city. No man could be a carrier of water. In other parts, to women is given the transport of trunks, valises, clothes bags, and effects for the use of travellers on packets. These resources are momentary. Accorded by one mayor, they can be withdrawn by another." "In Paris, women cry the rate of exchange, after Bourse hours." They also "undertake the moving of furniture, agree with you as to price, and you find them quite as responsible as men." The author of "Parisian Sights and French Principles" mentions a number of female employments rather novel to Americans: "I will say nothing of their laboring in the field, their driving huge carts through the streets of Paris, and other rude labors which soon rub out of them all feminine softness; but confine myself to the more agreeable duties which they have here usurped from men. Indeed, a man is but a secondary being in the scale of French civilization. The 'dames à comptoir' are as essential to the success of a Parisian _café_ as the cook himself. More hats are donned at their shrines than before the most brilliant belles of the metropolis. My boot maker, or the head of the establishment, is a woman; my porter is of the same sex, older in years and worse in looks; my butcher, milkman, and the old-clothes man, newsboy, and rag gatherer beneath my window, ditto. They are waiters at the baths, doorkeepers at the theatres, ticket sellers, fiddlers, chair letters of the churches; they figure in every revolution, and have a tongue and arms in every fight; in short, they are at the bottom and top of everything in France." In the Hotel des Invalides, at Paris, is Lieutenant Madame Brulow, who entered in 1799, and has been there ever since. Her father, brothers, and husband were soldiers, and were all killed in battle; at the age of twenty she was a widow and a mother. She joined the French army at Corsica, where she behaved very bravely; but was disabled for service by the bursting of a bomb while in the discharge of her duties as sergeant. She is a woman of chaste manners and correct principles. She dresses in the uniform of the Invalides. Louis XVIII. conferred on her the rank of second lieutenant, and by the present Napoleon she was made a member of the society of the Legion of Honor. A female soldier, whose history is similar to Madame Brulow's, died near Paris, a short time since, at the age of eighty-seven. She was a dragoon, and served in Italy, Germany, and Spain, in all the campaigns of the French, from 1793 to 1812. When Bonaparte was first consul, he expressed a wish to see her, and she was kindly received by him at St. Cloud. She received many wounds in battle, and had four horses killed under her. We find the following article, taken from Galignani's _Messenger_: "In consequence of the success obtained by Madame Isabella in breaking horses for the Russian army, the French Minister of War authorized her to proceed, officially, before a commission of generals and superior officers of cavalry, to a practical demonstration of the method, on a certain number of young cavalry horses. After twenty days' training, the horses were so perfectly broken in, that the Minister no longer hesitated to enter into an arrangement with Madame Isabella to introduce her system into all the imperial schools of cavalry, beginning with that of Saumur."

=523. Other Countries.= Professor Ingraham, in his "Pillar of Fire," describing the Hebrews at work in Egypt, says: "The men that carried brick to the smoothly swept ground where they were to be dried, delivered them to women, who, many hundreds in number, placed them side by side on the earth in rows--a lighter task than that of the men. The borders of this busy plain, where it touched the fields of stubble wheat, were thronged with women and children gathering straw for the men who mixed the clay." "The Egyptian ladies," says the same writer, "employed much of their time with the needle, and either with their own hands, or by the agency of their maidens, they embroidered, wove, spun, and did needlework." Herodotus says: "It was expected of the virgins consecrated to the service of the Egyptian temples to gather flowers for the altars, to feed the sacred birds, and daily to fill the vases with pure, fresh water from the Nile." During the middle ages, "women preached in public, supported controversies, published and defended theses, filled the chairs of philosophy and law, harangued the popes in Latin, wrote Greek, and read Hebrew. Nuns wrote poetry, women of rank became divines, and young girls publicly exhorted Christian princes to take up arms for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre." "In the Greek island of Hinnin, the inhabitants gain a livelihood by obtaining sponges for the Turkish baths; and no girl is allowed to marry till she has proved her dexterity by bringing up from the sea a certain quantity of this marketable article." The wife of the Burmese governor was observed, by some Englishmen, to superintend the building of her husband's ship. "In many of the South Sea islands, women assist in the construction of the buildings appropriated to common use. Sometimes a woman of distinction may be seen carrying a heavy stone for the foundation of a building, while a stout attendant carries the light feathered staff to denote her rank." "In Genoa there are marriage brokers, who have pocketbooks filled with the names of marriageable girls of different classes, with an account of their fortunes, personal attractions, &c. When they succeed in arranging connections, they have two or three per cent. commission on the portion. The contract is often drawn up before the parties have seen each other. If a man dislikes the appearance or manners of his future partner, he may break off the match, on condition of paying the brokerage and other expenses." In the "Art Student in Munich," we find this passage: "You know, in Germany, your neighbor's dresses by meeting the laundresses bearing them home through the streets upon tall poles, like gay pennons." "In Munich, a servant girl will be sent around with a number of advertisements and a paste pot, and pastes up the advertisements at the corners of the streets throughout the city." "At Homburg, Germany, four, six, or eight girls, according to the season, dip the water from the spring, by taking three tumblers by the handles in each hand, and filling them without stopping, and supplying those in waiting, so fast that there is no crowd and no jostling and impatience." Mrs. Nicolson says: "Many a poor widow have I seen in Ireland, with some little son or daughter, spreading manure, by moonlight, over her scanty patch of ground; or, before the rising of the sun, going out, with her wisp about her forehead and basket to her back, to gather her turf or potatoes." "In the elevated, cold, dry regions of Thibet, the goats are furnished with a fine down or hair-like wool under the coarse, common outer wool. The long hairs are picked out, the remainder washed out in nice water, and then handspun by women." "In some African tribes, it is common for the women to unite with the men in hunting the lion and the leopard." During the reign of Anne of Austria, the French women often appeared at the head of political factions, wearing scarfs that designated the party to which they belonged. Swords and harps, violins and cuirasses, were seen together in the same saloon. There was a regiment created under the name of mademoiselle. "During the late war, Polish women assisted the men in erecting fortifications, and one of the outworks was called the 'lunette of the women,' because it was built entirely by their hands. The Countess Plater raised and equipped a regiment of five or six hundred Lithuanians at her own expense; and she was uniformly at their head, encouraging them by her brave example in every battle. The women proposed to form three companies of their own sex, to share the fatigues and perils of the army; but their countrymen, wishing to employ their energies in a manner less dangerous, distributed them among the hospitals to attend the wounded." "In the army of the King of Siam, one corps particularly attracts the attention of strangers, which is a battalion of the king's guard, composed of women. This battalion consists of four hundred women, chosen from among the handsomest and most robust girls in the country. They receive excellent pay, and their discipline is perfect. They are admitted to serve at the age of thirteen, and are placed in the army of reserve at twenty-five. From that period they no longer serve about the king's person, but are employed to guard the royal palaces and crown lands."

MINOR EMPLOYMENTS.

=524. United States.= A little boy told me he used to catch butterflies, and sell them in New York at a penny apiece for canary birds. Sometimes he would get one hundred a day; and at other times, not as many a week. Some women are seen on the streets of our large cities, selling baskets, brushes, sponges, and wash leather--and many with baskets containing tape, cord, pins, &c. Some women buy waste paper to sell to grocers, butchers, fishmongers, and such others as would use it for wrapping. A few resort to levees and warehouses to seek the scraps of waste cotton that are lost by the removal of bales. Some collect ashes, separate the cinders, wash and sell them; while some collect wood scattered about lumber yards, and catch that drifting in rivers.

=525. England.= Some children on the streets of London are employed in the sale of fly-papers. Some sell paper cuttings to ornament ceilings. Sand is sold on the streets for scouring and for birds--also gravel for birds. Some women, in London, go around and buy the skins of rabbits and hares to sell again, and some keep little shops where they buy kitchen stuff, grease, and dripping. In England, women are hired to pick currants and gooseberries, put up fruit, weed gardens, bind grain, pick hops, and sometimes even to cut hay and dig potatoes. On the streets of London, some women sell conundrums and playbills, which are pinned to a large screen, and a number sell stationery. In old countries nothing is lost. Use is found for every article, even when no longer of value for its original purpose. For instance, old tin kettles and coal scuttles, we learn from Mr. Babbage, are cut up for the bottoms and bands of trunks, and by manufacturing chemists in preparing a black dye used by calico printers. In some cities of the old countries, every variety of second-hand miscellaneous articles are sold in shops, from a Jew's harp to a bedstead. In London, Mayhew says: "Among the mudlarks may be seen many old women, and it is indeed pitiable to behold them, especially during the winter, bent nearly double with age and infirmity, paddling and groping among the wet mud for small pieces of coal, chips of wood, copper nails that drop out of the sheathing of vessels, or any sort of refuse washed up by the tide. These women always have with them an old basket, or an old tin kettle, in which they put whatever they may chance to find. It usually takes them the whole tide to fill the receptacle, but, when filled, it is as much as the feeble old creatures are able to carry home." Little girls, too, eagerly press into the mud as the tide recedes, to secure what trifles they can, by which to gain bread.

=526. France.= In France, many women are employed in vineyards to pick grapes, tie up the vines, &c. L. told me he had seen women in France employed in preparing a kind of fuel made of clay mixed in water, cast in moulds, and dried. Females are employed by some of the merchants in Paris to carry goods home for purchasers. One of the most flourishing of the minor street trades of Paris is that in fried potatoes, invented some twenty-five years ago by a man that made his fortune at the business. A few years back might have been seen in the grounds of the Tuileries an old woman with a long stick, drawing off the surface of the water the feathers that loosened and fell from the swans that floated on the ponds. That old woman sold the feathers to buy bread.

=527. Occupations in which no Women are employed.= I have received information from persons saying women are never engaged in their branches of business, which are the following: Architectural Ornamentation, Bonedust, Buckets, Carriage painting, Copperas ("hard and unsuitable"), Currying, Drug Mills ("only fit for able-bodied men"), Edge Tools ("not adapted to the sex"), Emery Paper, Flour Mills, Glazier's Diamonds, Gunpowder ("dangerous"), India Rubber Belting, Magnesia, Melodeons, Mercantile Agencies, Metallic Furniture, Oil, Oil Cloth, Organ building, Paint Mills, Pattern making (of wood), Pearlash ("unsuitable"), Philosophical Instruments (except Globes), Pine Furniture, Pork packing, Reed making, Rivets, Roll covering, Seed crushing ("requires able bodied men"), Sellers of License, Ship Crackers, Shot and Lead ("dangerous and unhealthy"), Shovels, Slate, Spools, Starch ("too hard"), Steel-letter cutting, Stone quarrying, Street-lamp lighting, Sulphur ("unhealthy"), Superphosphate of Lime ("requires too much muscular strength"), Surveyors' and Engineers' Instruments, Tanning, Tinfoil, Trowels, Vinegar, Wholesale Fruit dealing, Wire drawing, Wool combing, and Zinc manufacture.

=528. None in the United States.= There are no women employed in any capacity in connection with mining and shipping coal in our country. Neither could any branch of the business be well placed under their supervision, for very nearly all the labor is performed by foreigners of the most low and illiterate class. None are employed in Baggage transportation, Bleaching, Brokers' Offices, Chemical Works, Cutlery, Furniture moving, Glue drying, Gun making, Iron Works, Landscape gardening, Lead Pencils, Sail making, Savings Banks, Silvering Mirrors, Tending Sheep, and Wood carving.

=529. Very few employed.= Attending in offices of ladies' physicians, Charcoal burning, China painting, Chiropody, Clock Work, Lacquering, Marble Work, Mirror Frames, Sign painting, Stencil cutting, and Stone Ware. "As a curious incident of the growing availability of female labor, Vermont returns four females engaged in ship building, and Virginia reports two so employed." Mrs. Swisshelm is an inspector of lumber, receiving a salary of $500 per annum. Mrs. N. Smith was recently elected mayoress in Oskaloosa, Iowa, the first time that office was ever filled by a lady. We have been told of a Miss D., who furnishes houses, receiving a stipulated sum for the exercise of her taste and judgment, and the time and trouble of making purchases. In the Southern States, a few colored women are employed about sugar mills, and many in gathering cotton. I suppose that in some countries women may be, and probably are employed in the preparation of isinglass and gelatine; also, in collecting cochineal, and gathering rice and coffee.

=530. The South.= There will be openings in the South for business in the following branches: