Various
Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP
A Future for Women.
From the last report of the Bureau of Education it appears that twice as many girls as boys enter high schools in the United States, and that three times as many complete the four years' course. "Nature," in commenting upon this fact, attributes it to the great attractiveness of commercial pursuits in this country, and the consequent eagerness of boys to enter upon them at as early an age as possible. This is doubtless the true reason, and the disproportion is more likely to increase than to diminish, even though the actual number of boys who rush into a money-making career as soon as they have mastered the arithmetic necessary for it may be growing smaller. It is beginning, moreover, to be an every-day matter for women to receive a college education. There are already three well-filled colleges of high rank exclusively their own, and the new Bryn Mawr bids fair to be a powerful rival to Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley. Many of the colleges for men are open to them; now, and the capitulation of those strongholds of conservatism. Cambridge. New Haven, and Baltimore, is only a question of time. Great colleges are ravenous for fresh endowments, and the offer of a large sum of money may at any moment procure from them the full admission of women. It is not impossible that before many years have passed there will be as many women as men receiving a college education. How is this army of educated women going to occupy itself?
There is another aspect to the question. Not only is the mass of women better fitted than ever before for worthy occupation, there has never been a time nor a country in which their traditionary sphere has shrunk to so small dimensions. Nowhere else are there so many women of such a station that they are not obliged to toil and spin, nor to sleep all day to make up for nights of dissipation. For all those who do not have to concern themselves with the wherewithal of living, the art of living easily has been brought to a state of great perfection. The general care of the house and of the children is still the duty of the woman, but the labor involved in acquitting herself of that duty is a very different matter from what it was a generation ago. Then all her energies were needed to bring up a family well. Brewing and baking and soap- and candle-making were all carried on in the house, and there were a dozen children to be kept neatly dressed with the aid of no needle but her own. Now the purchase of the day's supplies is the only important demand upon her time; well-trained servants, the descendants of the raw Irish girl her mother struggled with, are capable of carrying on the cooking and the scrubbing by themselves. Sewing it is hardly worth her while to do in the house. Stitching her linen collars was once an important item in her year's work; now it is safe to say that there is not a single woman who does not buy her collars ready made. Making cotton cloth into undergarments has become a manufacture in the unetymological sense of the word. The Viscount de Campo-Grande, in addressing the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences at Madrid, two years ago, admitted that sewing was no longer an economy, but urged women to practise it still for the purpose of quieting their nerves. But the modern American woman who has had a healthy bringing up, who has divided her girlhood between vigorous study and active out-door exercise, who can row and skate and play ball and tennis with her brothers, has no unquiet nerves. She does not ask for sedatives, but for some high stimulus to call into play her strong and well-trained faculties. Money-making, the natural sphere of man, has become a more and more absorbing pursuit, while the usual feminine occupations have become more than ever trivial and unimportant at the very moment when the feminine mind has taken a new start in its development. The woman who is fresh from reading Gauss and Pindar, and who has taken sides in the discussion between the adherents of Roscher and of Mill, cannot easily content herself with the petty economies that result from doing her own cutting and fitting and dusting and table-setting. Still less, if she has not married, is she satisfied to look forward to the position of nursery governess to her sister-in-law's children. Her education has fitted her for something better than to save the wages of an upper servant. Again the question is forced upon her, where can she find a fitting field for the exercise of her powers?
To many people, who have all the means of existence they care for without a struggle, it seems that the only thing that can give a thorough interest and zest to life is to devote themselves to the elevation of the degraded classes of society. They find such monotony in their own comfortable ways of living, and the misery of the very poor seems so appalling to them, that they cannot escape from the passionate desire to spend themselves in their service. The problems connected with the relief and the prevention of the wretchedness by which they are surrounded have all the interest of a scientific experiment, and are capable of calling out all the fervor of a religion. But for the few people here and there who have now the passion of the reformer it is not impossible that another generation may see many thousands. A second christianization of the world may convert all the happy into the consolers of the unhappy, instead of leading people to absorb themselves in the question of their own salvation. No one can say how great a change might be made in the fair face of the earth if the effort to remove the causes of poverty and of disease should become the serious occupation of half mankind. In the lower stages of existence the extermination of evil has been the work of a slow and gradual process. Millions of individuals have been sacrificed in order to produce the few who were fitted to their surroundings. But at last a creature has been produced of so much intelligence that he is able to undertake his own further development. He can speculate upon the causes of his failures in the search for happiness, and he can apply remedies. It is true that those remedies have often been productive of more harm than good, it is true that it would be hard to calculate the evil effects of the English poor-laws, for instance, but all the experiments that have hitherto worked badly are but so much material from which to draw a knowledge of better methods. When the Wlllimantic Thread Company has found a way to make its girls come singing from their work as they go to it, and to make better thread at the same time, no one can say that great changes may not be brought about when once scientific methods shall have been discovered for the extermination of disease and crime. What more interesting field for investigation, for theory, for active work, can women find than that large kind of charity which is to supersede in the future the indiscriminate alms-giving of the past? The unselfishness that is demanded by the life of a reformer they have already in large abundance. There is no limit to the devotion which many women show their families, but such devotion has in these days become so unnecessary as to be little more than a higher form of selfishness. Perhaps it only needs a leader to turn this store of energy into wider channels and to make it subservient to larger ends. Perhaps the labor and patience and self-renunciation that are necessary to the regeneration of the world are to come from women. Such an absolute disregard of self as they are capable of, if it were once allowed to overflow the narrow limits of the home, might in no long time turn a goodly portion of the world into a garden of roses. There are still men who wish to appropriate to themselves all the high qualities of their women, but they belong to a race that is destined to rapid extinction, and to most rapid extinction in this country. That American men are more thoroughly chivalrous than English is a common belief. It was curiously confirmed by the English clergyman who wrote to the "Nation," some years ago, to describe the qualities which an English clergyman ought to have in order to be successful in this country, and who said that he had found it necessary not to let it be known that his wife warmed his slippers for him. The theory that woman exists solely for the purpose of smoothing the wrinkles from the brow of man is one that seldom finds expression now, except in the Lenten sermons of men who are content to drop out of the ranks of those who influence opinion. But the great freedom that the modern woman has gained for herself, the thorough education that is for the first time within her reach, the strong sympathies that are her inheritance,—these are grounds of a responsibility that she cannot but feel to be a heavy one. What better outlet can she find for her activities than to carry forward that slow process of fitting together the human race and its surroundings which it is no longer necessary to leave to chance?
CHRISTINE LADD-FRANKLIN.
* * * * *
The Ice-Saints.
There are three days in the spring of the year called by the French Les Saints de Glace. These days are the 12th, 13th, and 14th of May, and the saints to whom they are dedicated are Saint Mamert, Saint Pancras, and Saint Servais. They are very obscure saints, in honor of whom few children have been named, and, were it not for the vast parish of Saint Pancras which once comprised all the northwestern part of London, their names as well as their history would be, to Protestants at least, entirely unknown. They have, however, the evil reputation of commonly bringing with them a nipping frost, and are abhorred in Burgundy as the great enemies of the vine.
Their advent this year was telegraphed to Paris by the New York "Herald," whose weather reporter was probably quite ignorant of any ecclesiastical traditions connected with the matter. On May 11 the following despatch was received in Paris: "A great depression, having its centre in the neighborhood of Lake Ontario, will be followed by a cyclone of great extent, travelling in the direction of Halifax, It will probably occasion great changes of temperature along the coasts of Great Britain and France, beginning May 12 and continuing till May 14." Never was prediction better fulfilled. The Ice-Saints sank the French thermometer to 6° Centigrade, corresponding to 21° Fahrenheit, a temperature more severe in those latitudes than the cold of an ordinary Christmas. When the Ice-Saints had departed the weather grew mild again.
M. Quetelet, the head of the Observatory at Brussels, has paid great attention to the periodicity of weather-changes in Europe. The result of his investigations is as follows:
I. That there is always a "cold snap" between the 7th and 11th of
January, during which ordinarily occurs the coldest day of the year.
II. That from January 22 to March 1 there is, as we say in our vernacular, "a let-up" on the coldness of the temperature. In France there is no ground-hog, or, if there is, he so generally sees no shadow upon Candlemas (February 2) that the three weeks succeeding it are called L'Été de la Chandeleur.
III. In April cold may be expected from the 9th to the 22d, and the Ice-Saints may prolong their influence to May 23, after which there is no more possibility of frosts in France, though within my memory June frosts have been twice known in Maryland and Virginia. The prolonged frost in May is said to be produced by an understanding between the Ice-Saints and what is called in France La Lune Rousse,—the Red Moon.
IV. Though it needs no prophet to foretell hot weather from June 6 to June 23. M, Quetelet's observations point to June 13 and June 22 as days of exceptionally high temperature.
V. Between July 4 and July 8 comes the hottest day of the summer, which is not to be looked for in the dog-days, which are from July 21 to August 20.
VI. July 25 distinguishes itself by being cool, and August 25 tempers ten days of heat which commonly begin on the 15th of August.
VII. September 14 and September 30 are days when the thermometer may be expected to make a sudden fall.
VIII. Cold weather may be looked for from October 20 to October 29, and from November 10 to November 19; but in the first ten days of November comes what we call Indian summer, and the French L'Été des Morts,—because it succeeds All-Souls' Day,—or L'Été de Saint Martin.
M. Quetelet adds no observations on December, it being presumably a cold month everywhere.
M. Fourmet, of Lyons, has also made meteorological observations of the same nature in Southern France, and especially in the valley of the Rhone. He says the lowest temperature in each month is as follows: January 9 and 21. February 3, 12, and 20. March 5 and 21. April 19. May 12, 13, and 14. June 8, 20, and 27. July 12 and 25. August 2, 12, and 24. September 5, 15, and 30. October 22. November 5 and 17. December 3 and 29.
M. Charles Sainte-Claire Deville has also been engaged in careful weather-calculations for many years, and has been in constant correspondence on the subject with the Académie des Sciences. His theory is based on the existence of the three Ice-Saints in May, and he considers that a similar periodic influence may be traced in other months of the year. He maintains that there are three days in every month, with an interval of about ten days between them, in which we may look for a fall of temperature, and that the weather gradually grows warmer during the interval that separates them. His observations are only in part corroborated by those of M. Quetelet and M. Fourmet.
E.W.L.
* * * * *
A Svenska Maid.
Marie has been in the United States about four years, and still accents her English with the Lapp-Finn modulations of Northern Sweden. She is only eighteen years old now. She has fair hair and a serene fair face somewhat like the Liberty face on our silver dollar. Her young shape is strong and handsome, and she has white little teeth like a child's, and the innocent nature of a child.
Marie's father is a Swedish farmer. Many adventurers came to America from her neighborhood, and, though but fourteen years old, she wanted to come too; and a cousin's husband, already settled in Illinois, lent her the passage-money. The last Sunday, according to custom, all her friends brought offerings to church, and she was made to go through the congregation holding her apron. They filled it with cake, a Bible, etc. The young people walked with her parents and herself to the steamer-landing, and kept from crying until she was aboard.
When the steamer was under way an old woman came across her in the steerage, and exclaimed, "Why, child, where are your father and mother?"
To which Marie responded, with the gentle persistence peculiar to her,
"I leave them in Svadia. I go to America."
Though all the steerage people were kind to her, she fell into bad hands by way of her tender sympathies. There were a man and woman with a family of small children, who were coming to America carrying an unsavory record. The woman fell ill, and Marie nursed her, and she fastened herself upon Marie with brutal tenacity. She took away a little silk shawl the child had inherited and was bringing over as a chief bit of finery. She had a delicate appetite for steerage fare, and ate up the precious cheese Marie's mother had given for a parting gift. And she took charge of Marie's bit of money, never returning it.
"If she had but left me my cheese," says the Svenska maid, "I might have had something to eat between New York and Illinois. I just had my ticket in the cars, and, oh, it was more than two days, and I had such feelings in my stomach! I was all alone and speak not a word of English, and everybody around me eat, but I would not try to ask for somethings. A German family by me have lots to eat, and when they left the cars I got down under the seat and pick up orange-peel they throw down, and eat that. I could not sleep in the night, I feel so bad. And when I get to Illinois and to Willingham, the Swede people not meet me yet, and a woman took me to her house to get my dinner, I never taste anything so good in my life, but I eat with my hat on. The woman tried to take it off, and I hold on with both hands. I thought she was going to take my hat for pay, and I could not do without it."
The little maid fell sick among her kin, and a great doctor's bill of a year and a half accumulated upon her. The cousin's husband paid it and added the debt to her passage-money. By the time she was able to work, her pretty pale face had attracted an old man, and this persistent suitor tormented her until she was wellnigh helpless in the hands of her relatives. They set her debt before her, and reminded her of the obligation she was under to marry a rich man.
"But I said, 'I won't, I won't, I won't,'" says Marie. "That is all the English I could talk, and I would say, 'I won't.' Then my cousin told me I must leave; I could not stay in her house. And I felt dreadful bad. The young folks come in with provisions to see me: they made a party because I was going away. And I notice that all kept being called into the next room but me. I was weak yet, and it made me feel as if they wanted to slight me. But last of all they called me into the next room, and there was twenty-five dollar they had made up to give me. And I cried; I could not talk and thank them, but just cried hard as I could cry. Then I took that money and paid part of my debt, and got a good place to work."
Marie is strong, willing, humble, and touchingly friendly in the position of the Western "girl." She is ambitious to learn American ways. She makes the most delicious pancakes that ever fluffed upon a griddle or united with butter and maple syrup. She is religious, she is tender with children, she is full of love for her native land. Her lovers are not encouraged.
"I go back to Sveden to visit it once more in five years. I go back before I marry any man, now my debt is all paid."
This Svenska maid is full of folk-stories. She tells the children how St. John's eve is celebrated in Sweden. The young men and girls bring boughs and construct arbors. They stay up all night, eating, playing, and visiting from arbor to arbor. About midsummer, it is true, there is very little night in Northern Sweden.
"This was once in the papers," says Marie innocently. "They said it was true. There was a girl going to take her first communion, and she got into the churchyard before she missed her braid. Then she turned round and started home after her braid, and met a man with a covered basket on his arm. He asked her what she was going for, and she told him she was going home for what she forgot, and the man said, 'Look in the basket, and see if that is your switch.' She looked, and there was the hair coiled up. Then he asked her if he might put it on her head, and the girl said yes, and he put it on, and she went to church.
"It came to the place where the minister gives her the bread, and her braid slipped down on one shoulder; but when he gave her the wine it jump like it going to strike the cup, for it was a snake the man put on her, and it was fast to her head and never came off again."
Marie's mother in youth worked for a Swedish farmer, and it was her duty to get up about three o'clock in the morning and light a fire under the boiler where the cows' feed was heated. This was in the barn. The cows stood upon a floor over a large pit wherein were caught all the liquids of the stable. The sleepy maid took a coal upon a chip, instead of matches, and this primitive custom saved her from horribly drowning. For as she opened the cows' stable one morning, and was taking a step within, the chip flared up, and showed her three cows swimming below in the pit. The floor had given way.
"Sometimes there are excursions across the ocean," says Marie, speaking of that star of a home visit which lures her into the future, "and you can go and come back for twenty-five dollars. They do not have nice things to eat in the steerage, but you can keep alive." M.H.C.
* * * * *
The "Additional Hair" Supply.
The late war between France and China had one effect which the public did not expect,—it created a panic among the French dealers in human hair. Before that war began it was not generally known that a vast proportion of the false hair used in Europe and America was imported from China into France and there prepared for the trade. But the beginning of hostilities between the two countries made the fact apparent by the sudden cutting off of the customary supply from the Celestial Empire. A German paper mentions that in 1883 the hair thus imported amounted to one hundred and twenty-four thousand seven hundred and fifteen kilograms, for which the French dealers paid at the rate of only ten or twelve francs per kilogram. As no other country can, or at any rate will, supply human hair in such enormous quantities and at such a low price, the effect on the market may easily be imagined. The hair-merchants of Marseilles had been accustomed to furnish at least twenty-five thousand coiffures for women and several thousand wigs for men every year; and even before the stoppage of direct communication with China they had found it hard to get as much raw material as they needed. When their principal drawing-point became inaccessible they were reduced to despair, and perhaps presented the only case ever known in which "tearing the hair" would seem to have been attended with some practical benefit. However, the termination of the war revived their hopes, and they are now making up for the lost time with a vigor and determination which even threaten the male Celestial with the loss of his sacred pig-tail.
The European sources from which human hair is obtained are not numerous or very prolific. Many peasant-women of Normandy and Bretagne sell their beautiful brown, red, or golden locks, but these are of such fine quality that they command very high prices. Norman or Breton girls having braids eighty centimetres in length sell them for as much as a thousand francs. Perfectly white hair from the same French provinces brings a sum which seems almost fabulous. The French journal "Science et Nature" declares that the price commonly paid for a braid of such white hair weighing one kilogram is twenty-five thousand francs.
The hair-merchants of France have never been very successful in drawing supplies for their business from England, Germany, or any of the countries in the northern part of Europe. Lately, however, they have begun to have a good deal of success among the lower classes of the Italians. Their imports from Italy are already comparatively large, and they seem to be increasing every year. Such an easy way of getting money as this opportunity affords must appear vastly attractive to the swarms of professional beggars who infest every highway, church door, and public square in Southern Italy, and whose enjoyment of the indispensable dolce far niente cannot be spoiled by merely submitting to the operation of having their hair cut off. It is probable that they furnish much more of the hair brought from Italy than do the laboring-classes of the cities or the honest contadini of the rural districts.
The idea of actually wearing hair which once belonged to some member of "the unspeakable" lazzaroni tribe cannot be considered a fascinating one. At the same time it is at least not more unattractive than the consciousness of having fallen heir to the capillary adornments of a Cantonese tonka-boat girl. And in reality such a feeling, though natural enough, would be based upon nothing but imagination. All the hair purchased and used by the dealers in Paris, Marseilles, and other French cities to which the Chinese and Italian hair is brought goes through a number of preparatory processes, which cleanse and purify it thoroughly; and when it is ready to be sold again it is probably in as unobjectionable a state as hair can reach. As for the imagination, if we were to allow it to govern us entirely in all such cases we should soon find ourselves restricted to almost as few comforts and conveniences as those unhappy historical characters whose constant fear of poison reduced their whole diet to boiled eggs. Still, the feeling is one of which it is very hard to rid ourselves; and in all probability the ladies who derive the most unalloyed satisfaction from their "additional" braids are those who have had them made from "combings" of their own hair. J.A.C.
* * * * *