But it is not so with the army of foreign servant-girls among us. They choose the finest and most expensive articles, loaded as they are with a heavy duty. There are millions of American women who purchase in the same way. This craving after foreign luxuries seems to be unconquerable by anything short of absolute inability to indulge in it. But I suppose there must always be somebody to purchase and consume these imported goods. And perhaps, after all, it is well that there should be; for if the nation is to pay a great sum every year for interest out of its import duties, it could hardly raise the means, unless there were an army of thoughtless American women and Irish servant-girls to help it do so. If they are willing to undertake the task, I am sure they have my consent.
If the reader should be surprised at the idea of the interest on the public debt being paid from the extravagance of one class of women, he will be more so at the assertion made by a speaker in the highest deliberative body in the country, that another class would be able to pay the debt itself. He said our dairy-women alone were able to do it,—that in ten years they would churn it out,—because within that short period they would produce butter enough to discharge the whole amount. This may be all true; for how should I know the number of cows in this country, or the disposition of the dairy-maids? But I presume he had not consulted them as to whether they were willing to milk cows and churn butter for a term of ten years for the sole benefit of the nation. I am inclined to think they would make no such patriotic sacrifice, except on compulsion. But with tawdry servant-girls and equally tawdry ladies, the case is widely different; the latter pursue their great task voluntarily; indeed, it would seem that they rather enjoy it; so that the more one reflects on the idea, the less absurd does it appear.
It is very certain that the Irish who come among us have for many years been sending home millions of dollars to pay the passage hither of friends whom they had left behind. When these friends arrive here, and have earned money enough, they repeat the process of sending for others whom they in turn have left. The most limited inquiry will show how universal this system of thus helping one another has become. Thus the stream of remittances swells annually. The millions of money so transmitted proves the ability of this class to achieve great pecuniary results in a certain direction. That they thus exert themselves is strong evidence of the intense affection existing among them. There are innumerable instances of the father of a large family of children coming out as a pioneer, then sending for the most useful child, and their joint savings being devoted to sending for others, until finally the amount becomes large enough to bring the mother with the younger children,—the latter being meanwhile generally supported at home from savings remitted with affectionate punctuality from this country, until the happy day when they, too, receive the order for a passage. Many times the entire family of a widowed mother, with the mother herself, has been thus transferred to our shores from the savings of the son or daughter who first ventured over. I refer to this remarkable trait in the Irish character, not to censure, but to praise.
But they remit only a fraction of their total earnings, yet that fraction constitutes a very large sum. The remainder, which so many of them spend principally in dress, must be enormous. I have neither the taste nor the talent for reducing it to figures; but the more one looks at this question, the more reasonable does the idea seem that the Irish servant-girls, together with the flash women of this country, have deliberately undertaken to pay the interest on our great national debt.
How much it costs to clothe one of these gaudy creatures I cannot say; but the silks and finery worn by them are known to every shopkeeper as expensive articles. As I have never been able to indulge in such, I have been content to admire them as they flirted by me in the street, or swept up the aisles of our church on Sunday. It is so natural for a woman to admire ornament in dress, that I could not avoid being struck with the finish of an exquisite bonnet, the shape of a fashionable cloak, or the pattern of an elegant collar. All these were paraded through the streets and in the church, as much to my gratification as to that of the wearers. They felt a pride in making the display, and a pleasure in beholding it. I was like the poor lodger in the upper story of an old house, the windows of which overlooked a magnificent garden. The wealthy proprietor had lavished on his domain all that taste and art and money could command to make it gorgeous with shrubbery and flowers. The poor lodger, equally fond of floral beauties, beheld their glories, and inhaled their soft perfumes, as fully and as appreciatively as the owner. No emotion of envy disturbed her,—no longing to possess that of which she enjoyed gratuitously so abundant a share. Her mere oversight was all the possession she desired.
It was ever thus with me when the fine dresses of others swept by me over the pavement. I confess that I admired, but no repining thought ever came to disturb the perfect contentment with which I regarded my plainer costume. It was no grief to me to be unable to indulge in these luxuries. I saw them all, which was more than even the wearers could say. They wore them for the gratification of the crowd of lookers-on; and if the crowd were gratified, their mission was fulfilled. But I did sometimes think upon the cost of these expensive outfits,—how some girls equally poor with me must toil and struggle to obtain means for an indulgence so unbecoming their position,—how others, the wealthy ones, who, having never earned a dollar, knew nothing of its value, clothed themselves with all the lavish finery that money could command, while the meek sewing-girl who passed them on her way to the tailor's might perhaps be kept from starving by the sums expended on the rich silks which hung round them in superfluous flounces, or the costly brilliants which depended from their ears.
It was said by Solomon, that "every wise woman buildeth her house." It was averred by another wise man, that the mother of a family must furnish it with brains, and that he never knew a man or woman of large capacity who had a foolish mother. It is historically true that the great men of all ages have been the children of wise and careful mothers. Such women understand the art of skilfully managing the whole machinery of the family. Taste and manners come to such by nature. They cultivate the heart, the mind, and the conscience. They moderate the aspirations of their daughters, and purify and elevate those of their sons. It is from the influence which such mothers exercise over the household that respectability and happiness result. My mother taught us moderation in our views, and conformity to our position in life, especially to avoid overstepping it in the article of dress. She was at the very foundation of our house; it may be said that she built it. While, therefore, our appearance was uniformly neat and genteel, none of us were at any time dressed extravagantly. Thus educated from childhood, it became a fixed habit of the mind to feel no envious longings at the display which others made.
But curiosity could not be repressed. It was always interesting to know the cost of this or that fine article which others wore. There was little difficulty in obtaining this information as to the outfits of our neighbors. The fine lady invariably told her acquaintances how much her cloak or bonnet cost, and from these the information was communicated to the servants, whence it quickly radiated over the entire neighborhood. The pride seemed to be, not that the new bonnet was a superb affair, but that such a fashionable artist produced it, and that it cost so much money. Had it been equally beautiful at half the cost, or the handiwork of an obscure milliner, it would have been considered mean. Thus, instead of a necessity for being extravagant, it struck me there was a desire to be so, and principally in order that others, when they looked on the display, might be awed into deference, if not into admiration, by exact knowledge of the number of dollars which dangled from the shoulders of the fashionable butterfly. This boastful parade of information as to how much one expends in this or that article implies an undertone of vulgarity peculiar to those who have nothing but money to be proud of. The cultivated and truly genteel mind is never guilty of it. Yet it somehow prevails too extensively among American women. Display is a sort of mania with too many of them. A family in moderate circumstances marries off a daughter with a portion of only two or three thousand dollars, yet it is all laid out in furnishing a house which is twice as spacious as a first start in life can possibly require. Not a dollar is saved for the future. The wedding also has its shams. Costly silver plate is hired in large quantities from the manufacturer, and spread ostentatiously over tables, to which the wedding-guests are invited, that they may admire the pretended presents thus insincerely represented as having been made to the bride. When the feast is over, it is all returned to the maker. Truth is sacrificed to display. The latter must be had, no matter what may become of the former.
As I was animated by the common ambition of all properly educated girls in my position, to pay my own way, so I worked with my needle with the utmost assiduity. I worked constantly on such garments as my mother could obtain from the shops, going with her to secure them, as well as to deliver such as we had made up, each of us very frequently carrying a heavy bundle to and fro. Should the tailor sell the cheapest article in his shop, scarcely weighing a pound, he was all courtesy to the buyer, and his messenger would be despatched half over the city to deliver it. Not so, however, with the sewing-women. There was no messenger to wait on them; their heavy bundles they must carry for themselves.
The prices paid to us were always low. As the character of the work varied, so did the price. Sometimes we brought home shirts to make up at only twenty cents apiece, sometimes pantaloons at a trifle more, and sometimes vests at a shilling. No fine lady knows how many thousand stitches are required to make up one of these garments, because she has never thus employed her fingers. But I know, because I have often sat a whole day and far into the night, in making a single shirt. No matter how sick one might feel, or how sultry and relaxing the weather, the work must go on; for it must be delivered within a specified time. I have seen the most heartless advertisements in the newspapers, calling on some one, giving even her name and the place of her residence, to return to the tailor certain articles she had taken to make up, with a threat to prosecute her, if they were not returned immediately. But the poor sewing-girl thus publicly traduced as a thief may have been taken ill, and been thus disabled from completing her task; she may have lived a great distance from the shop, and had no one to send with notice of her illness, so as to account for the non-delivery of the work; yet in her helplessness the stigma of dishonesty has been cruelly cast upon her.