236 



NEW ENGLAND PARxMER. 



May 



ue are accounted rich, cannot afford to pay for it. 

 Other avonues to competency are opening to our 

 daughters, who must labor to live. The pen of 

 the editor, the types of the printer, the tools of 

 the painter, the engraver and the designer, are al- 

 ready, partly, in female hands. Let us encourage 

 -the republican sentiment that labor is not degrad- 

 ing, and give employment to women, in whatever 

 departments of mental and physical toil, she is 

 found best fitted to fill. Let her teach in our 

 schools, let her tend the looms in our fac- 

 tories, let her take the place of the dandies behind 

 the counter, let her write in our banks and count- 

 ing rooms, and keep the records in our offices. 

 •Give her the clerkships in our post offices and other 

 departments of the government, and do not longer 

 drive her from fair competition with the other sex, 

 and so depress the value of her labor, and keep 

 her dependent and helpless. Let a good educa- 

 tion, and a pure character, be to your daughter, 

 as to your son, a capital, that shall ensure an in- 

 dependent support. Read Hood's "Song of a 

 Shirt," and then sneer, if you can, at the efforts of 

 those, who are striving to provide for woman bet- 

 ter rewards fo^r labor than the poor pay of a sew- 

 ing girl. 



" Oh ! men with sisters dear, 

 Oh ! men with mothers and wives. 

 It is not linen you're wearing out, 

 But human creature's Uvea." 



While female labor is finding more profitable 

 employment than sewing, no relief could come to 

 ladies in charge of families, except by the use of 

 machinery. I am told, that the common sewing 

 for a family of eight persons, would employ one 

 sempstress constantly. Now this, in any part of 

 our country, involves a great expense. At the 

 South, where women are bought and sold, your 

 living machines would cost, perhaps, a thousand 

 dollars, and bo very expensive to maintain. At 

 the North, we cannot afford the expense of hiring 

 such labor, but fortunately, we can now do what 

 is far better than either. In my own house, in 

 Exeter, we have in use, one of "Wilson's Stitch- 

 ing Machines," manufactured by Wheeler and 

 Wilson. 



It has been tested long enough to justify us in 

 confidently recommending it to those who have 

 large families, and what most of us, in New Eng- 

 land, have therewith, limited means of support. A 

 woman's pen is alone competent to set forth the 

 advantages of this wonderful piece of mechanism. 



The following statement is from the pen of Mrs. 

 E. Oakes Smith, a lady not unknown to fame. 

 The ladies of my own household assure me that 

 the good qualities and conduct of the machine 

 are by no means overstated : 



Messrs. Wueeler & Wilson, Manufacturing Co. 



Gentlemen : — Having had one of your sewing 



machines in my family for more than two months, 



I am willing, unsolicited, to give you my testi- 



mony in its favor. Adverse as I am to append 

 my name to the ordinary projects of the day, I 

 wish, nevertheless, to say something through such 

 a medium that may benefit my sex. 



In the first place then, your m-ichine is all that 

 it purports to be. I have myself learn.jd to use it 

 with skill, that I may pronounce undei-standingly 

 upon its merits. 



I have never had a needle broken in its use, nor 

 has it in the least become disordered ; notwith- 

 standing that I have allowed several persons to 

 learn upon it, and all kinds of household work has 

 been executed thereon ; indeed fine muslins and 

 heavy broadcloths have tested not only its delicacy 

 but strength also. 



Secondly the work does not rip, and every 

 housekeeper can appreciate that quality. The 

 work is what is called stitching, and I find it 

 much more elegant than a common hem for all 

 needle purposes. It gives handsome finish to the 

 tucks and hems of skirts, while in shirt-making no 

 work done by the hand can compare with that ex- 

 ecuted upon the sewing machine. 



No woman's eyes or fingers can execute work 

 with an equal ptrecision and finish 



.Thirdly, it is a vast saving, not only of nerves 

 and patience, but of time also. The machine is 

 equal to the labor of nine or ten persons. One 

 individual can sit profitably at the machine, and 

 do that proportion of the work. 



Now these are facts which I wish to present to 

 the heads of families. I wish to see the petty toil 

 of my sex lessened whenever it can legitimately be 

 done. I find the sewing machine does this in one 

 very essential branch of home industry, and, there- 

 fore, I wish to urge upon families and neighbor- 

 hoods, to combine together and procure an instru- 

 ment calculated so much to alleviate house hold 

 toil. 



If our brothers ply any vocation of thrift or ne- 

 cessity, they are careful to procure the best tools. 

 They do not hesitate to expend hundreds and thou- 

 sands for the purchase of all sorts of "labor-saving 

 machines" to lighten their own burdens. 



Now, will they not carry the principle further, 

 and by the purchase of the sewing machine, lessen 

 the toil, the anxieties and the wear and tear of 

 nerves to their wives and daughters ? I do not say 

 say this to sell your machines, gentlemen, but I say 

 it because I sympathize with my sex. 



I know how wearisome is the bondage of the 

 needle to woman, and I seize upon this invention 

 of the sewing machine as one of the best means of 

 relief the age affords us. I do not know that it 

 is even second to the cotton-gin. 



I look upon machinery as the great emancipa- 

 tor of the word, and am doubly thankful to see its 

 benefits extended to the relief of us — our sex. 



The price of this machine, $125, is to many 

 quite startling. The man who can readily enough 

 pay twice that sum for a piano, for a daughter 

 who has no taste for music, or for an observatory 

 and weathercock on his barn, or for a new car- 

 riage, which he does not need, and has not room 

 for, in his buildings, cannot afford to pay so much, 

 for so small a matter as his wife's health and hap- 

 piness ! 



But I will not, even in jest, thus wrong my bro- 

 ther men. When they have once seen this little 



