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THE WORKING WOMEN OF ENGLAND.

Ir is now proved to be a fact that a very large proportion of the Women of England earn their own bread; not just in the same way that Adam, the first father of us all was doomed to get it after the ground was cursed through his great sin, by the sweat of his face in clearing away its thorns aud thistles, but in a great variety of ways, of which many are not aware.

In our own country in olden times a "Lady" was the "loafgiver," as the word "lady" is said to signify; and she had enough to do in preparing food and giving out wool to be spun, wove, and dyed, for clothing; all which she did in the mansion or castle. The poor women were slaves, who must do anything they were bidden, and they were sometimes sold as slaves, and, strange as it may now seem to us, many English women were sold to the Irish as working slaves.

We have not space now to tell you how slowly such a state of society passed away, for it took hundreds of years to remove it, and bring about changes for the better. Many things are not as they should be yet as regards women's work and wages, but there has been a great change; and as much attention has been paid to this subject lately, we hope the condition of the working women of England is improving and will improve more and more.

This, we think, will be seen by our readers if they carefully look at the following facts, which we have been at the pains of gathering from various authentic sources, and especially from the last census of the population of our country, which describes the occupations of all classes, both men and women. These facts and figures are more to the honour of the working women of England than the most eloquent language that could be spoken or written in their praise; and this is why we have devoted a few of our pages to a record of their industry, patience, and perseverance.

We begin with domestic servants, usually called "servant girls," two-thirds of whom are from the rural districts; their exact number in town and country in Great Britain (not Ireland) has not been ascertained, but it must be several hundreds of thousands, some say 500,000, half of whom are maids of all work.

THE WORKING WOMEN OF ENGLAND.

Female housekeepers, a class superior to the rest of those engaged in the domestic circle, number 50,000. Cooks are put down at 47,000, housemaids at 42,000, young nurses at 21,000, and servants at inns at 20,000.

Charwomen, who go out by the day, for which they receive from one shilling to eighteenpence a day and their food, are computed at 54,000.

About 130,000 women above twenty years of age are employed in agriculture, exclusive of widow-farmers and farmer's wives and daughters, who are put down at about 299,000. Many of these are engaged in rearing poultry, pigs, and lambs, and keeping bee-hives. Thousands are employed in nurseries and gardens, as well as in weeding the fields, hoeing turnips, haymaking, reaping corn, picking hops, and other field work.

Women are now forbidden by law from working under ground in coal pits, and yet 7000 are returned as connected with mines; it may be they are employed in washing the ore above ground.

All round our coasts many thousands of women, besides fisherman's wives and daughters, find employment in curing and selling fish, gathering sea weeds for manure, and making

nets.

Great numbers obtain an independent livelihood as monthly nurses, or nurses in asylums, hospitals, and workhouses; others go out to give help in families, when their aid is required for some special service.

Trades-women are very numerous; for, besides a great number now employed to wait in shops, a far greater number conduct business for themselves or render ready and efficient aid to their husbands. For instance, the shoemakers wives alone number 94,000, and of all trades thus employed it is computed there are not less than half a million.

Many clever young women are now finding employment as clerks in the offices of merchants and manufacturers, and as ticket-givers at railway stations. One remarkable fact we must here mention. In December, 1858, a great political meeting was held one evening in Manchester. The Times paper, in giving a report of that meeting afterwards, said :

"It is only an act of justice to the Electric and International Telegraph Company, to mention the celerity and accuracy with which our report of the proceedings at Manchester on Friday night was transmitted to the Times office.

THE WORKING WOMEN OF ENGLAND.

The first portion of the report was received at the telegraph office at Manchester at 10.55 on Friday night, and the last at 1.25 on Saturday morning. It may be added that the whole report, occupying nearly six columns, was in type at a quarter to three o'clock on Saturday morning, every word having been transmitted through the wire a distance of nearly 200 miles. Some of our readers may be surprised to hear that this report was transmitted entirely by young girls. An average speed of twenty-nine words per minute was obtained, principally on the printing instruments. The highest speed on the needles was thirty-nine words per minute. Four printing instruments and one needle were engaged, with one receiving clerk each, and two writers taking alternate sheets. Although young girls in general do not understand much of politics, there was hardly an error in the whole report."

Many other young women are now employed in the art of engraving and painting, in book folding and binding, in composing types, and other employments once limited to the other But the most remarkable fact of this kind is from the United States, where women are becoming regular surgeons and physicians, and some have obtained diplomas. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first.

sex.

Dr.

We need only refer to the hundreds of thousands of women employed in the factories of Yorkshire and Lancashire, Birmingham and Sheffield, Nottingham and Leicester, and in the Potteries of Staffordshire.

Not less, it is supposed, than one million and a quarter of women, above twenty, are engaged in manufacturing industry. Needlewomen and governesses appear to be the worst paid and ill used of all our female workers; but other fields of industry are opening, especially in the art of cooking. Already more than three out of six millions of women in Great Britain, above twenty, maintain themselves by their own industry, and some of them their own idle or drunken husbands into the bargain. All honour, we say again, to the Working Women of England. But there is room for improvement yet, and that will not come until we have a better class of schools for teaching girls. An Inspector of Schools says:

"For want of good schools for girls three out of four of the girls in my district are sent to miserable private schools, where they have no religious instruction, no discipline, no industrial training; they are humoured in every sort of conceit, are

THE WORKING WOMEN OF ENGLAND.

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called 'Miss Smith' and Miss Brown,' and go into service at fourteen or fifteen, skilled in crochet and worsted work, but unable to darn a hole or cut out a frock, hating household work, and longing to be milliners or ladies' maids. While this is called education, no wonder that people cry out that education is ruining our servants, and doing more harm than good!

But there are other evil results arising from the neglect of girls' education, far more serious than the want of good servants; -as the girl is, so will the woman be; as the woman is, so will the home be; and as the home is, such, for good or for evil, will be the character of our population. My belief is, that England will never secure the higher benefits expected to result from national education, until more attention is paid to girls' schools. No amount of mere knowledge, religious or secular, given to boys, will secure them from drunkenness or crime in after life. It may be true that knowledge is power, but knowledge is not virtue. It is in vain for us to multiply the means of instruction, and then sit down and watch the criminal returns in daily expectation of seeing in them the results of our schooling. If we wish to arrest the growth of national vice, we must go to its real seminary, the home. Instead of that thriftless untidy woman who presides over it, driving her husband to the gin palace by the discomfort of his own house, and marring for life the temper and health of her own child by her own want of sense, we must train up one who will be a cleanly careful housewife, and a patient skilful mother. Until one or two generations have been improved, we must trust mainly to our schools to effect this change in the daughters of the working classes. We must multiply over the face of the country girls' schools of a sensible and practical sort. The more enlightened women of England must come forward and take the matter into their own hands, and do for our girls what Mrs. Fry did for our prisons, what Miss Carpenter has done for our reformatories, and what Miss Nightingale and Miss Stanley are doing for our hospitals."

There is much good sense in the above remarks, but we take leave to tell this Inspector that all girls private schools are not the "miserable" places he describes. Neither, on the other hand, are public schools, supported by national funds, what they ought to be. We want English girls taught how to become good women, good wives, and GOOD MOTHERS.

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POETRY.-ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

Poetry.

PLEASURE AT HOME.

FOR pleasure a man seeks all round,
And after it far will he roam,
Forgetting it is to be found,

With wife and with children at home.

For pleasure some fly to the pot,

Filled up to the brim with its foam;
But there they discover it not-

True pleasure is best found at home.

Some think it belongeth to wealth,

And is found in a mansion or throne;
But the peasant may have it himself,
With his wife and his children at home.

For pleasure some go with the gay,
And some with the gossip or drone;
But sure they all go the wrong way,
True pleasure is found best at home.

'Tis bought not with silver or gold,
Nor confined to one station alone;
'Tis free for the young and the old,
In that beautiful spot called our home.
Then if for true pleasure you sigh,
I would not persuade you to roam,

For the truest of pleasure is nigh,

With wife and with children at home.

R. C.

Anecdotes and Selections.

THE NEW YEAR-We have just entered upon a new period in our earthly history. The last sands in another year have just run out. How rapid is the flight of time, and how true it is that when once past, it can never be recalled! We gazed upon the opening beauties of spring, we inhaled the fragrance of the summer's flowers, we partook of the luxuriant fruits of autumn, and we have again felt the biting colds of winter-the year has terminated, but we fear that of some of our readers, it may be said, "the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and you are not saved." The commencement of the year is a fitting time to review the past. Have you kept

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