THE POSITION OF WOMEN 77 



men in the homes does not leave the women scope for 

 independent action, while the brute force required in the 

 prosecution of the normal local occupation, the arduous 

 and exacting conditions of the employment, often cut- 

 ting off its followers from the influences of nature and 

 human society in their more delicate forms, are unsuited 

 to female labour, and do not lead to the development 

 of any by-products of human skill and ingenuity. No 

 one, even now, tries to start lace-making classes among 

 the wives and daughters of colliers. A mining district 

 or a congeries of foundries and smelting works usually 

 gives us a strong, somewhat turbulent population, a 

 high birth-rate since there is nothing to occupy the 

 women outside the homes, a high death-rate, and a 

 want of what for lack of a better term we may call 

 the refinement of manner and outlook, the natural in- 

 bred courtesy and philosophy, the deep religious instinct 

 that are so often associated with a sea-coast population 

 or one settled on the land. 



A purely agricultural life, carried on in regions such 

 as those of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, in con- 

 ditions of great hardship and constant insecurity, seems 

 to lead to a marked degradation of type. The women 

 especially are often little better than beasts of burden, 

 and all social conditions tend to depress humanity both 

 through the influence of environment and heredity. 

 Petty warfare leads to the perpetual extermination of the 

 more hardy and independent men ; crushing physical 

 labour debases the vitality of the women and children. 

 The introduction of a considerable pastoral element 

 relieves the situation, for the women are at once 

 employed in the lighter occupations of spinning and 



