In France, a Mlle. Reugger, from Algeria, lately passed a brilliant examination, and received the degree of Bachelor of Letters. She appealed to the Dean of the Faculty at Montpellier for permission to follow the regular course, and was refused on account of her sex. She then turned to the Minister of Public Instruction, who granted it on condition that she should pledge herself to practice only in Algeria, where the Arabs, like the Cossacks, refuse the attendance of male physicians. Unlike our Russian friend, she refused to give the pledge. She threw herself upon her rights, and appealed in person to the Emperor. This was in December last, and I have not been able to find his decision. It was doubtless given in her behalf, for Louis Napoleon will always yield as a favor what he would stubbornly refuse as a right. The physicians of this country have been occupied this winter in discussing the discovery by one of their number of the active infectant in fever and ague. It has been found in the dust-like spores of a marsh plant—the Pamella. In Paris, at the same time, a woman of rank claims to have discovered the cause of cholera in a microscopic insect, developed in low and filthy localities. Her details were so minute, that the Academy of Science, which began by laughing at the introduction of the matter, has been compelled to listen, and the subject is now under investigation.
THE PULPIT.
In spite of the bitter words of warning which John Ruskin has thought it his duty to speak to such women as enter upon theological studies, a good many women in Great Britain and this country have engaged in what is properly the work of the Christian ministry. The only ordained minister whose work has come under our notice since the marriage of Antoinette Blackwell, is the Rev. Olympia Brown, settled over the Universalist Society at Weymouth Landing, Mass. Her ministry has been highly successful, and is to be mentioned here chiefly on account of a legal decision to which it has given rise. The church at Weymouth Landing made an appeal to the Legislature last winter as to the legality of marriages solemnized by her. The Legislature gave the same general construction to the masculine relatives in the enactment which the English law gave to the old Latin word in the Charter of Apothecaries' Hall, deciding that marriages so solemnized are legal, and no further legislation necessary.
LABOR.
The advance of women, as regards all sorts of labor, in the United States, has been such as might be expected by watchful eyes, and yet reports on the general question will not read very differently from those published ten years ago. In New York, women are still reported as making shirts at 75 cents a dozen, and overalls at 50 cents. These women have two protective unions of their own, not connected with the workingmen's union, and most of them have naturally enough sympathized with the eight-hour movement, not foreseeing, apparently, that the necessary first result of that movement would be a decrease of wages proportioned to the limitation of time. Ever since the beginning of the war, women have been employed in the public departments North and South. It has been a matter of necessity, rather than choice. The same causes combined to drive women into field labor and printing-offices. All through Minnesota and the surrounding regions, women voluntarily assumed the whole charge of the farms, in order to send their husbands to the field. A very interesting account has been recently published of a farm in Dongola, Ill., consisting of two thousand acres, managed by a highly educated woman, whose husband was a cavalry officer. It was a great pecuniary success. In New Hampshire, last summer, I was shown open-air graperies wholly managed by women, in several different localities, and was very happy to be told that my own influence had largely contributed to the experiment. In England field labor is now recommended to women by Lord Houghton, better known as Mr. Monckton Milnes, who considers it a healthful resource against the terrible abuses of factory life. At a meeting of the British Association last fall, he produced a well-written letter from a woman engaged in brick-making. This letter claimed that brick-making paid three times better than factory labor, and ten times better than domestic service. In addition to persons heretofore mentioned in this country as employing women in out-door work, I would name Mr. Knox, the great fruit-grower, who, on his place near Pittsburg, Pa., employs two or three hundred. I have seen it stated that, during the last four years, twenty thousand women have entered printing-offices. I do not know the basis of this calculation, but judging from my local statistics, I should think it must be nearly correct. To the Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, on the eight-hour movement, the following towns report concerning the wages and labor of women:
Boston—Glass Co., wages from $4 to $8 a week. Domestics, from $1.50 to $3 per week; seamstresses, $1 a day; Makers of fancy goods, 40 to 50 cents a day. Brookline—Washerwomen, $1 a day. Charlestown and New Bedford are ashamed to name the wages, but humbly confess that they are very low. Chicopee—Pays women 90 per cent the wages of men. Concord—Pays from 8 to 10 cents an hour. Fairhaven—Gives to female photographers one-third the wages of men. Hadley—Pays three-fourths. To domestics, one-third; seamstresses, one-quarter to one-third. Holyoke—In its paper mills, offers one-third to one-half. Lancaster—Pays for pocket-book making from 50 to 75 cents a day. Lee—Pays in the paper mills one-half the wages of men. Lowell—The Manufacturing Co. averages 90 cents a day. The Baldwin Mills pay 60 to 75 cents a day. Newton—Pays its washerwomen 75 cents a day, or 10 cents an hour. North Becket—Pays to women one-third the wages of men. Northampton—Pays $5 a week. Salisbury—For sewing hats, $1 a day. South Reading—On rattan and shoe work, $5 to $10 a week. South Yarmouth—Half the wages of men, or less. Taunton—One-third to two-thirds the wages of men. Walpole—Pays two thirds the wages of men. Wareham—Pays to its domestics from 18 to 30 cents a day; to seamstresses, 50 cents to $1. Wilmington—Pays two-thirds the wages of men. Winchester—Pays dressmakers $1 a day; washerwomen, 12 cents an hour. Woburn—Keeps its women at work from 11 to 13 hours, and pays them two-thirds the wages of men.
On the better side of the question, Fall River testifies that women, in competition, earn nearly as much as men.
Lawrence—From the Pacific Mills, that the women are liberally paid. We should like to see the figures. The Washington Mills pays from $1 to $2 a day. Stoneham—Gives them $1.50 per week. Waltham—Reports the wages of the watch factory as very remunerative. In 1860 I reported this factory as paying from $2.50 to $4 a week. Here, also, we should prefer figures to a general statement. Boston—Has now many manufactories of paper collars. Each girl is expected to turn out 1,800 daily. The wages are $7 a week. In the paper-box factory, more than 200 girls are employed, but I can not ascertain their wages, and therefore suppose them to be low. I know individuals who earn here $6 a week, but that must be above the average.
The best looking body of factory operatives that I have ever seen are those employed in the silk and ribbon mills on Boston Neck, lately under the charge of Mr. J. H. Stephenson, and those at the Florence Silk Mills in Northampton, owned by Mr. S. L. Hill. The classes, libraries, and privileges appertaining to these mills, make them the best examples I know, and this is shown in the faces and bearing of the women. We are always referred to political economy, when we speak of the low wages of women, but a little investigation will show that other causes co-operate with those, which can be but gradually reached, to determine their rates.
1. The willfulness of women themselves, which when I see them in positions I have helped to open to them, fills me with shame and indignation.