244 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the state of civilization and the industrial development of a 

 country, this generalization is valueless. The employments of 

 men and women also depend upon the condition of the nation, 

 whether militant or peaceful, and in regard to certain kinds of 

 work no universal rule can be made. Women act as horse-car 

 conductors in South America ; Chinamen prefer the laundry in 

 the United States ; while in East Central Africa men insist upon 

 sewing their own and their wives' garments, leaving the women 

 to build the houses and hoe the corn. The modern readjustment 

 of vocation in our midst arises, as it has been pointed out, from 

 the increased leisure afforded women by the introduction of 

 machinery. It is a wonderful evolution for woman, proceeding 

 as noiselessly as the spinning of countless cocoons, liberating 

 many who would have grubbed a hundred years ago to try their 

 wings to-day if they will. 



The next statement volleyed at us is very like an explosive 

 used by Mrs. Lynn Linton in one of her harangues against 

 women.* " The political disability is one irrevocably connected 

 with that very office and raison d'etre which called woman into 

 existence.'' 



Despite our advancement in science it seems next to impossible 

 to extricate some minds from the mire of tradition. Brushing 

 biology and common sense aside, these primitive souls continue to 

 regard woman as the mythical rib of Adam. Those of us who 

 have progressed beyond this dogma look upon it just as flatly 

 contradictory to Nature as the biblical view of the earth as a 

 plane. Woman's sexual life is shorter than that of man, her in- 

 dividual life longer. Therefore, if either was " called into exist- 

 ence " for the office of parenthood, it was obviously the man, not 

 the woman. From a biological point of view the functions of 

 life are two — nutrition and reproduction ; and there is as much 

 sense in saying that nutrition is the reason of man's existence as 

 to state that motherhood — if that be " the office " meant — is the 

 "raison d'etre" for women. 



As for us, we frankly confess we do not know anything about 

 " reasons of being " or causes of existence. If Mrs. Lynn Linton, 

 Mr. Talbot, et al., have been taken into the creative confidence, 

 no doubt they have interesting revelations to offer the world ! 



Our antisuffragist, not being quite content with delving into 

 prehistoric purposes, next hazards a prophecy of the feminine 

 officeholder. As wives and mothers are, according to his premises, 

 ineligible, only " those who have made shipwreck of their domes- 

 tic ventures," the forlorn and dedassees, will pose as nominees. 



* The Wild Women as Politicians. Mrs. E. Lynn Linton. Nineteenth Century, July, 

 1891. 



