SEWING MACHINES.
The question having been asked Mrs. Bloomer, What will women do now sewing machines are coming into use? she replied as follows:
“It will be no strange thing to see, within a few years, women merchants, women bookkeepers, women shoemakers, women cabinetmakers, women jewelers, women booksellers, typesetters, editors, publishers, farmers, physicians, preachers, lawyers. Already there are some engaged in nearly or quite all these occupations and professions; and, as men crowd them out of their old places, the numbers will increase. It is well that it is so. Woman has long enough stitched her health and life away, and it is merciful to her that sewing machines have been invented to relieve her of her toilsome, ill-paid labor, and to send her forth into more active and more lucrative pursuits where both body and mind may have the exercise necessary to health and happiness. Men are aiding to forward the woman’s-rights movement by crowding women out of their old places. Women will be the gainers by the change, and we are glad to see them forced to do what their false education and false delicacy have prevented their doing in the past.”