California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



rogiT^^, 



Business SuitabJe for Women. 



Ci.^DS. ActRictJLTnisisT: In the Popular Sci- 

 J|jJ. ence Montly there appears an article from 

 ^5 the able pen of Dr. Van De Warker on 

 S'i^, the subject of " Women in the Profes- 

 sions and Skilled Labor. ' ' The logical con- 

 clusions deduced from the sexual disability of 

 women to compete with men in business pur- 

 suits denote great stud}' as well as a thorough 

 understanding of the subject. But we would 

 ask how many of our tender, struggling sex 

 are not compelled, day after day, to lay aside 

 sexual incompatibility in order to put bread 

 into the meuths of children and clothes upon 

 their backs? Is the wash-tub better fitted to 

 woman's delicate organization than mental 

 pursuits? Can she more easily attend to a 

 house full of boarders, often doing the entire 

 cooking for them, than to act in the capacity 

 of physician, or attend to various kinds of 

 skilled labor requiring less outlay of vital 

 force? Would not our women of to-day be 

 far healthier if, instead of uncongenial drudg- 

 ery, her hie was filled with satisfying work 

 suited to her taste and temperament? 



Training schools for preparing young 

 women for self support in the way which suits 

 them best will place before us a different con- 

 dition of things. Physicians of both sexes 

 are needful to attend to the diseases of each. 

 Then our young women would not neglect 

 their health till almost past remedy before 

 consulting a physician. 



Query : Are the natural infirmities of women 

 a greater drawback to business occupations 

 than the rapidly increasing infirmities of men 

 for what is found in the saloon and gambliue 



l,oI19 ■», ^ ,. •» 



hall? 



Nell Van. 



What Women Hate Gained.— For the time, 

 still fresh in the minds of middle-aged per- 

 sons, when there were no remunerative occu- 

 jiations open to women, when there was no 

 high school for girls, no college that would 

 admit women; when women lecturers, law- 

 yers, doctors, editors, and ministers, were un- 

 known, up to this time, when all these things 

 and many others are free to women, the gain 

 seems marvelous. But the gain in le^al 

 rights is even greater. ° 



It is not thirty years since a married 

 woman could not own money, even when 

 she had earned it by hard work. She could 

 not make a will of any property she pos- 

 sessed. She gave birth to a child, and the 

 law said it was not hers. She could not 

 make a contract. She could not make a valid 

 deed of the land she owned. She could not be 

 the guardian of children— not even of her own. 

 She had only the pauper right, viz., the right 

 to be maintained. AU the hard work of her 

 hands, and all the income from her brain be- 

 longed to the husband, who owned, and was 

 supposed to support her. To-day a wife can 

 legally earn aud own ; can buy and sell and 

 sell and will; can make a valid deed; can be 

 guardian of children, and, at the marriage 

 ceremony is not necessarily required to prom- 

 ise to obey. 



In Wyoming and Utah Territories women 

 are voters. In Michigan more than forty 

 thousand men at the polls cast their vote for 

 woman suftrage. Xu many States women are 

 legally elected and do serve on the school 

 Board. 



Iowa has taken the first legal step to se- 

 cure suftrage to women. Three judges of the 

 Supreme Court in Maine express the opinion 

 that women may legally servo as justices of 

 the peace in that State. In Congress and in 

 every Northern state legislature, the equal po- 

 htical rights of women are discussed. 



Thus, from the smallest of all beginnings 



through three decades, has the good cause of 

 woman's rights grown into place and power. 

 Now it only waits to be crowned with woman 

 suffrage. 



To this end societies exist in every Northern 

 State, supi)lemented by county and town so- 

 cieties, by political clubs, pledged to secure 

 the election of legislatures of such men as 

 will vote for the enfranchisement of women. 



An army of women are leagued together in 

 solemn covenant to secure their rights to a 

 voice in making the laws which they are re- 

 quired to obey. The time cannot be "far away 

 when this will be accomplished. 



As an incentive to activity, it should never 

 for a moment be forgotten' that in the differ- 

 ent States the law makes women the political 

 equals of paupers, idiots, lunatics, felons; of 

 men guilty of bribery, forgery, illegal voting, 

 duelling, treason, aud any other crime or 

 weakness which unfits men to be trusted with 

 the rights of citizenship. 



This picture of gain and loss closes the 

 year IST-t. May the next one end with 

 brighter colors.— iucy Stone, in the Woman'a 

 Journal. 



Sensible Fashions for Women.— The dress 

 committee of the New England Women's Club 

 seek to make the changes in women's dress 

 as unobtrusive as possible. They begin with 

 the under garments. Those of the old style 

 which they utterly condemn are the chemise 

 and the corset. These they entirely abandon. 

 The principles which they "carry out are these 

 —perfectly free action for the vital organs, 

 thus abolishing all tight-fitting waists and all 

 tight bands around the waist; an equalizing 

 of the heat of garments over the entire body, 

 and increasing it upon legs and arms; a reduc- 

 tion of the weight of the clothing, by making 

 skirts as few and light as possible; the sup- 

 porting of all clothing from the shoulders, by 

 attaching skirts to waists or suspenders. 



The garments already devised, which em- 

 body these principles, are the chemiloon and 

 the gabrille underskirt. The first is made of 

 flannel or cotton, a long-sleeved waist and 

 drawers in one, covering the person from 

 wrist to ankles. Outer drawers may be but- 

 toned to these. The stockings are drawn 

 over the long drawers fitting at the ankle, and 

 fastened with safety pins, or with buttons 

 fastened on the drawers. No garters are al- 

 lowed, because these hinder the circulation of 

 the blood. The gabrille under skirt is made 

 of white cotton usually, gored from shoulder 

 to hem, after the plain gabrille pattern, rather 

 loosely fitting, and sufficiently short and scant. 

 The outer skirts button upon it, so arranged 

 that one band does not lie over another. If a 

 hoop is worn (and this is recommended, as it 

 keeps the folds of the skirt from clogging the 

 limbs m walking, and holds the tops of the 

 other skirts so as to prevent undue heating of 

 the pelvis and spine), there should be a stout 

 button hole in the middle of the back of the 

 hoop band, to fasten upon a strong button on 

 the back seam of the under skirt waist. On 

 eai-h side of ibis buttou hole place the buttons 

 for holding common suspenders, placing the 

 front buttons just over the firm side termina- 

 tions of the upper hoops. This brings the 

 suspenders back under the arms, so that they 

 do not interfere with the bust. The balmo- 

 rel may rest njion this hoop, with a binding 

 made in Semicircular shape, so us to lie upon 

 the skeleton below its binding. 



For outer dress, the plain gabricUe pattern 

 is recommended, not too full in the skirt, and 

 lightly trimmed if trimmed at all. This for 

 the house dress; and an added polonaise 

 or ovorskirt and sack for the street.— ^i/ieri- 

 can Aariculturixt. 



A Novel Experiment in HousE-KEEriNO. 

 The troubles and vexations which house- 

 keepers seem inexorably doomed to suffer in 

 consequence of the great difficulty— the ap- 

 parent imjiossibility, as a general rule— of 

 obtaining good domestic servants, have given 

 rise to a variety of curious suggestions. 



Among these we remember none more singu- 

 lar than that which it is said an English lady 

 is now subjecting to the test of actual experi- 

 ment. It is not dilEcult to imagine by what 

 process of reflection a woman of strong phil- 

 anthropic impulses and hopeful nature, 

 slightly dashed with the Quixotism character- 

 istic of female reformers, might be led to con- 

 ceive so extraordinary an idea. Probably the 

 lady in question felt acutely the annoyance 

 inseparable from the existing system of do- 

 mestic service; on the other hand, she saw all 

 over the land a class of young women need- 

 ing employment, but unable to obtain any 

 which, according to prevailing social ideas, 

 they could accept without disgrace; a class 

 sufficiently refined and well-educated to qual- 

 ify them for at least the humbler grade of 

 positions as teachers or governesses, and who 

 for that very reason could not, without a 

 painful feeliug of degradation, become house- 

 hold servants. She saw that this class.already 

 too numerons to titid occupation of the kind 

 deemed siutable for them, was rapidly in- 

 creasing with the more general diffusion of 

 education; and reflected that the time must 

 come when a proportion of those belonging to 

 it would have to choose between menial labor 

 and pauperism, or accept a lot worse than 

 either. She knew that it was not the actual 

 hardship of the work involved in domestic 

 service, but the popular idea that such occu- 

 pation is only suitable for the ignorant, the 

 ilhterate and those coarsely reared, that made 

 young women possessing a measure of culture 

 and refinement shrink from it as from some- 

 thing almost equivalent to disgrace. Having 

 thus got at the real difficulty in the case, the 

 solution would not be far to seek for such a 

 person as we conceive the originator of this 

 new sociological experiment to be. Accord- 

 ingly, we are told that she proceeded to put it 

 to a practical test by dismissing her servants 

 and engaging in their places five young women 

 of the class that had aroused her benevolent 

 solicitude. These were to act respectively as 

 lady's maid, dairy maid, upper house maid, 

 kitchen maid and cook. The terms of the 

 agreement were that the new "help" or "do- 

 mestic companions" (for of course no such 

 word as servant figured in the contract) were 

 to receive the same wages paid to the former 

 incumbents of their respective positions; and 

 further, that when off duty they should be 

 treated in all respects as equals. When there 

 is company they are to mingle with the guests 

 and assist in entertaining them; when the lady 

 of the house rides out, they are to join her; 

 in short, all the existing barriers between the 

 positions of mistress and maid are to be 

 broken down. Such is the outline of the new 

 social disi^ensation which is said to be now 

 actually on trial. 



An Anii-Cokset Society. — If there ever was 

 a country distinguished for its love of moral 

 and social revolutions, it is this country of 

 ours. Some of the attempted revolutions are 

 absurd enough, but others are not only sound 

 but practical. Among these is the efl'ort, the 

 organization started in Brooklyn by a num- 

 ber of ladies, "to put down corsets, high- 

 heeled boots, false hair, and such like auxili- 

 aries to feminine attraction." This is an 

 undertaking that at once commends itself to 

 every man aud woman of sense iu the land. 

 It will be supported heartily by the medical 

 profession, and, we trust, both by the pulpit 

 aud the press. It is time that seusible peojde 

 shoiUd put their foot upon senseless clothing. 



Carbolic Acid a Preservative for Hides. 

 In South America and Australia, it is stated 

 that the immersion of hides fiU' twenty-four 

 hours in a two per cent, solution of carbolic 

 acid, aud subsequently drying them, has been 

 successful substituted for the more tedious 

 and expensive process of salting. 



After taking up a carpet, sprinkle the floor 

 with a very lUlute carbolic acid before sweep- 



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