"Not a year ago," writes Anna Johnson of Germany, "I saw a young girl standing up to her knees in a manure-heap, which she shovelled into a cart, and then drove to the field. She was hired to do this work at fourteen dollars a year. On the mountains, the women were carrying soil and manure to the vines in baskets, as Queen Bertha taught them nine centuries ago." A still less pleasant picture may be drawn from Köhl's "Reminiscences of Montenegro." "Down among the stones, on the banks of the Fuimera," he says, "some Cattaro women and girls were washing and scraping the entrails of the goats that the men had brought to market. There was one tall, slender, handsome girl, dressed in a crimson petticoat, and jacket embroidered with gold, and her hair elegantly fastened with golden pins. A pair of richly wrought slippers lay on the stone beside her; and she laughed and talked merrily as she washed and scraped away. At last, she packed the whole into a tub, and lifted it on her gayly dressed head to carry home. The next day was Sunday; and I met her, radiant with beauty and gold embroidery, on her way to church. I often met these girls carrying on foot the baggage of the riding-parties."
In 1850, a clergyman of this city tells me that he saw women, wearing leathern breast-plates, harnessed to the canal-boats of the Low Countries, and doing the work of oxen.
In France, we find the same evidences of out-door work and physical ability. Galignani tells us, that, in consequence of the success of a certain Madame Isabelle in breaking horses for the Russian Army, the French minister of war lately authorized her to proceed officially before a commission of officers, with General Régnault de St. Jean d'Angely at their head, to break some horses for the cavalry. After twenty days, the animals were so completely broken, that the minister immediately entered into an arrangement with her to introduce her system into all the schools of cavalry in the empire, beginning with that of Saumur.
Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers, at Nantes, recently made a distribution of St. Helena medals to the old soldiers of the empire. Among the number was a woman named Jeanne Louise Antonini, who had served ten years in the navy, and fifteen in the infantry, where she obtained the rank of non-commisioned officer in the seventieth regiment of the line. She received nine wounds while bravely fighting. "It is not the coat that makes the man," said our marshal when he gave the medal.
One of the great celebrities of the Invalides was buried, very lately, with great pomp. This "old invalid" was an individual of the softer sex,—the widow Brulow,—who entered the army, in 1792, as a soldier in the forty-second regiment of infantry, authorized to enlist, in spite of her sex, by General Casabianca. At Fort Gesco, she was promoted to the rank of sergeant, after being severely wounded in the encounter which took place. Perceiving that the troops were getting short of powder, she set out alone at midnight for Calvi, roused the women of that place to the number of sixty, and started them off for Gesco, laden with powder and ammunition, which enabled the little fort to hold out eight and forty hours longer, until relief came. A little after, at the siege of Calvi, the widow Brulow, while in charge of a gun, was so desperately wounded that she was forced to renounce her military career; and none other was open to her but the retirement of the Invalides, where she was admitted with the rank of sub-lieutenant. The present emperor, to whom the widow Brulow was introduced on his visit to the Invalides, presented her with the cross of the Legion of Honor and the medal of St. Helena; her comrades, by acclamation, having designated her as most worthy of the honor. By a decree, dated from the imperial headquarters, since our first edition was printed, we learn that the race of heroines is not extinct; for two other women, by that decree, obtained the military medal for their courage at the battle of Magenta.
There recently died, at Portsea, in England, a woman, ninety years of age, named Nelly Giles. She was one of the few surviving witnesses of the battle of the Nile; having been on board His Majesty's ship "Bellerophon," in the command of Captain Darby, and in all subsequent engagements under Nelson. During the action of the Nile, she was surrounded by heaps of slain and wounded; and she nursed the latter tenderly, undismayed by the horrors of the scene. Three days after the battle, she gave birth to a son.
The government, in consideration of her great attention to the sick and wounded, and of the assistance she gave the surgeons, awarded her a gratuity of seventeen pounds a year for her life.
A young patriot, named Francisco Riso, was killed on April 4, 1862, at Palermo, during a popular demonstration which took place before Garibaldi's arrival. On April 20, his father, Giovanni Riso, sixty years old, was shot by the Bourbon soldiers, without so much as the form of a trial. On the very day that Garibaldi entered Palermo, a young and beautiful nun, Ignacia Riso, the sister and daughter of the two Risos named above, left the convent, and, amidst a shower of balls and grape-shot,—a cross in one hand, and a poignard in the other,—placed herself at the head of Garibaldi's column, crying, "Down with the Bourbons! Death to the tyrant! Vengeance!" She kept her place as long as the fighting lasted; and her courageous attitude electrified the volunteers. Ever since that day, the name of Ignacia Riso has been held sacred. When she passes in the street, the soldiers bow low, and bless her with the most profound respect. Garibaldi himself pays her great attention, and loves her as if she were his own daughter.
From instances like these, refreshing because they tell of self-imposed labor and eccentric character, we turn with less pleasure to the statistics of the factories. Here men have left to women not only the worst paid but the most unwholesome work of the respective mills.
Women, in France, are employed in the manufacture of cotton, silk, and wool. The cotton manufacture compels two processes which are very injurious,—the beating of the cotton, which brings on a distressing phthisis; and the preparation, or dressing, which needs a degree of heat not to be endured after mature age. Both these departments are filled by women paid at half-prices.