MUSCULAR DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN. 159 



But our one-sided civilization has sought to perpetuate the 

 widest departures from the original type, and to produce a 

 monster of curious formation, in which weakness and imbe- 

 cility are the predominant traits. This physical degradation 

 of woman has reacted upon the whole race, — the puny, sickly 

 mother transmits her defects not alone to her daughters, but 

 the sons partake of the very infirmities which they have allotted 

 to their sisters. 



It would be a curious study to trace out the extreme limits 

 of muscular power in woman. Mr. Crafts told us last year of 

 the Amazonian warriors of Dahomey, who take equal share 

 with the men in all the dangers and toils of war, and who often 

 enter into direct competition with them, and beat them on their 

 own ground. 



The Comte de Paris found that in some of the iron works 

 in England, women are employed to stack large bars of iron 

 after they have been hammered. For this labor, which no strong, 

 healthy man would undertake for less than two shillings and 

 threepence a day, they are paid only a shilling. 



In Germany, Switzerland and France, women take part in 

 all the labors of the field, and are harnessed with the cows into 

 the plough, while the man walks lazily beside them. 



We know what severe field labors the Southern women under- 

 went under the oppression of slavery ; a Southern planter once 

 told me that women ploughed better than men. 



Irving, in his Life of Mohammed, gives the following striking 

 account of the strength and courage of the Arabian women, in 

 the wars which were carried on for the extension of the 

 Mohammedan religion. It shows how hardy were their habits, 

 and how little their education differed from that of the men. 



If according to the vulgar but erroneous idea, the Mo- 

 hammedan did not let woman have a soul with which to take 

 her share in the joys of the next world, he at least allowed a 

 free development of the body, so that she had some chance for 

 life and health in this. Irving writes : — 



" This done, the captors went into their tents to carouse and 

 make merry with the spoils, leaving the women among the 

 baggage, bewailing their captive state. 



" Caulah, however, was the worthy sister of Derar. Instead of 

 weeping and wringing her hands, she reproached her com- 



