PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY EMILY FAITHFULL AND CO., GREAT CORAM STREET, W.C. Entered at Stationers' Hall. AN ENGLISH TRAVELLER SAW THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS, HE SOUGHT A NAME WHEREBY MIGHT BE EXPREST A FLOWER, A WOMAN, OR A QUEEN COULD CLAIM! SO WE THIS TITLE WITH DUE REVERENCE CHOSE FOR THIS OUR FLOWER, WHICH WE ASPIRE TO LAY AT HER DEAR FEET ROUND WHOSE DOMINION FLOWS THE PERFECT LIGHT OF UNDECLINING DAY. VICTORIA REGIA! MAY OUR BLOSSOM HOLD IN PURE WHITE LEAVES A LOYAL HEART OF GOLD. Dec non fortena PREFACE. HE attention of the Council of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science was forcibly called, in the month of November, 1859, to the necessity for providing new channels for the remunerative employment of women. No attempt at any interference with the natural laws regulating the supply of labour or the rate of wages was recommended to the Council, or for a moment entertained by them. They were well aware that any such attempt would be equally foolish and futile. But it appeared to them that the miserable condition of the women employed in several branches of industry and the artificial obstacles raised to any extension of their employments by social prejudice or trade jealousies, certainly called for inquiry, and, if that were found practicable, for redress. A Committee was accordingly appointed to inquire and report on this question, and the Council, convinced of the good that would result from enlisting the aid of educated and intelligent women in the cause of the less fortunate of their sex, resolved that this Committee should be constituted of an equal number of gentlemen and ladies, of whom the latter |