Punch (37.1859)

YOUNG NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.

; Master Harry {loq.). “Quick thing, that! Did you Fellows see it? I got bounded?

\____

; A WOMAN’S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMAN’S WORK.

] “ Dead. Mr. Punch,

“ Really, I can't think what Miss Bessie Parkes and the
j gentlemen of the Social Science Association who patronise her, mean,
when they talk about the narrow field of employment for women. I’m a
' woman, and I have always found plenty to do, I ’m sure; and looking
I round me, I think I may say the same thing of all the women of my
acquaintance.

“ I must tell you, first, that I’m just twenty-one—I won’t say any-
'• thing about looks—because my friends—X don’t mean my lady friends,
you know—say I’m so very like one of Mr. Leech’s illustrations. 11
! suppose by the way they say it, they mean this for a compliment; but IJ
' don’t mention it to you, on that account, but because it will save me
^ from any attempt at describing myself; and I don’t think any girl ever
! succeeded in doing that—I meant to try, but after sitting three-quarters
\ of an hour before my dressing-glass, I gave it up in despair.

“ Well—so much for my appearance. As to my position in life, I’m
j exactly one of the girls Miss Parkes seems to allude to in her paper.
Papa can’t give me any fortune, he says; and I suppose I must look to
being married some day as the best thing that can happen to me. I’m
I sure I’ve no objection to take my chance—and I had far rather be
: employed in fitting myself for a wife than as articled clerk to a solicitor
like my brother Charley, or as an apprentice to a surgeon, like my
cousin Bor, or in a telegraph office, or as a book-keeper, or a wood-
■ engraver, or. anything of that kind. Of course after I’m married I
shall have plenty to do.

“But just now, only think how much there is! First, there’s
; dressing,—that’s two hours a-day hard work, merely for putting on
| one’s things, to say nothing of all the hard work beforehand,—of
j making up one’s mind what one will look best in ; of buying it—and
! I’m sure you’ll admit that shopping is dreadfully hard work (at least, 1
know all the gentlemen of my acquaintance complain dreadfully of it,
i and say it’s worse than the treadmill). And then there’s the making
\ up,—and I hardly know, 1 ’m sure, whether that’s harder work when
1 one does it at home or when one employs a dress-maker,—and the
j altering, and the trimming, and a hundred things besides. I’m sure, if j

a* woman had nothing to do but dress, she could find plenty of employ-
ment all the year round. But dressing’s only one item in woman’s
work. There’s calling,—now only think what hard work that is; and
chatting over one’s acquaintance; and then there’s going out to balls,
and dinners, and picnics, and dancing, and driving, and making one’s
self generally agreeable. Indeed, for six months of the year, at least, a
poor girl’s life, if she does what other people do, is downright hard
labour, with hardly time for eating and sleeping. And all this time
I’ve said nothing about improving one’s mind. What with music, and
drawing, and French and German, and crochet and worsted-work,—
even if one don’t do anything like leather-work, or icood-carving, or
embroidering altar-cloths, or illuminating,-—and keeping up with
Mudie’s and the Reviews, I wonder how any girl can find time for
anything but improving her mind.

“ Now only just think, Mr. Punch, what a number of serious female
occupations I’ve put down, just as they came into my head, and then
say if the field of woman’s employment isn’t quite wide enough. I don’t
know whether Miss Bessie Parkes lias a husband in her eye. I sup- j
pose she despises such things ; but if ever she sets herself to try for one,
she’d find it hard enough, I can tell her, let her work ever so diligently. 1

“ I say, for my part, that so long as girls have husbands to get they
want no other field of employment. That’s quite as much as any ordi-
nary young woman can get through. Indeed ordinary young women
seldom can manage it at all, the young men of the present day are so
dreadfully hard to please.

“ No, Mr. Punch, don’t you believe Miss Bessie Parkes. _ Poor
women are quite hard-ivorkecl enough as it is—at least such is the
opinion founded on four seasons' experience of

“ Your constant reader

“ Fanny Hooker.”

The largest Harbour of Refuge in the World.

Old England ! It can be entered at all times with safety, and m
the stormiest weather. Louis Napoleon once took refuge in this
Harbour, and it is open to him again, providing he comes alone, and
does not bring any of his French craft with him.