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540 THE LEADER, l^fo^g^JJATUKDAY,
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.v /iy ?( dDflttt (lUfltltin ? ^ ?
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? riw THIS DEPARTMENT, AS ALL OPINIONS, ...
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There is no learned man but will confess...
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THE LAWS RELATING TO THE PROPERTY OF MAR...
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THE INCOME-TAX OF A TOWN DOUBLED, (2b th...
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Starving Condition of tub Woolwich Ann-8...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
540 The Leader, L^Fo^G^Jjatukday,
540 THE LEADER , l ^ fo ^ g ^ JJATUKDAY ,
.V /Iy ?( Ddflttt (Lufltltin ? ^ ?
&) $ tn CntmriL
? Riw This Department, As All Opinions, ...
? riw THIS DEPARTMENT , AS ALL OPINIONS , HOWKVBK KXIRBUE , AKB ALLOWED AN BXPBKSSION , TUB BD 1 XOK NECESSARILY HOLDS HIMSBLF RESPONSIBLE FOB NONE . ]
There Is No Learned Man But Will Confess...
There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . Tf , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at ¦ least , betolerablefor his adversary to write 7— Mijctow
The Laws Relating To The Property Of Mar...
THE LAWS RELATING TO THE PROPERTY OF MARRIED WOMEN . ( To the Editor of the Leader . ) Sir , —The 5 th and 6 th clauses of the Petition which formed the subject of my previous letters run thus : — " That if these laws often bear heavily upon women protected by the forethought of their relatives , the social training of their husbands , and the refined customs of the rank to which they belong , how much more unequivocal is the injury sustained by women in the lower classes , for whom no such provision can be made by their parents , who possess no means of appeal to expensive legal protection , and in regard to whom the education of the husband and the habits of his associates offer no moral guarantee for tender consideration of a wife . " " That , whereas it is customary in manufacturing districts to employ women largely in the processes of trade , and as women are also engaged as sempstresses , laundresses , charwomen , and in other multifarious occupations which cannot here be enumerated , the question must be recognised by all as of practical importance . " . I have put these clauses together because of their inherent connexion , and prefer taking the latter first , as it forms the basis of my argument . In my last letter I remarked on the large and increasing number of educated women who had entered into such branches of art and literature as were within their reachafcd upon the fact that the majority of these
, were married , whereas , fifty years ago , the most prominent and sterling examples of female intellect were unmarried . I would now draw attention to the enormous development of the female element in the processes of trade—a development which may well escape the attention of Londoners , but which , in the northern and midland counties , is one of the most patent facts in the condition of the population . I have not , under present circumstances , any power of putting before your readers the exact statistics of the cotton and iron trades , of the Birmingham manufacture of papier inache , or the great silk and crape ¦ w orks chiefly carried on by women ; but the number of female mill hands are known to all residents in Lancashire , where girls and married women alike
axe rung in and out of the long hours of factory work . Nay , the famous " Ten Hours Bill , " right or wrong in its political economy , brought the immense amount of labour carried on by " women and children" before the public . Mrs . Gaskell ' s novels deal largely in the social condition of this particular element of modern manufacturing industry . Any one walking in the black lanes and roads of the Staffordshire " nailing districts" sees the rough , begrimed women finishing one nail after another with admirable dexterity ; wretched enough are these specimens of the softer sex , but infinitely happier and nobler in their coarse and dirty existence than women , whoin Europe , barter themselves for means of support , or those who , in Asia and Africa , are kept like domestic animals , in stalls .
In Birmingham what numbers of women are omployed in making trays , screens , boxes , tables , every article made of papier muchd , and also in the pin trade . At Hoisted , in Essex , a thousand women are engaged in one silk factory alone , the establishment requiring , I believe , about fifty men to attend to the ateam engine and other rougher work . Thus , on till hands , we see whole branches of trade carried on by the female sex , while there remain all the various domestic avocations undertaken for hire , such as that of sempstresses , charwomen , washer women , and house servants .
Now I do not mean to say that this constantly increasing habit of working for money in large factories away from the homo is without its grave disadvantages . While no form of association secures a thorough and wholesale attendance to domestic necessities , while the cooking , the sowing , and the care of the young children , lull exclusively on the individual mother of each household , her absence during ten hours of each week-day must bo attended with aueh disorder and discomfort as nre calculated
to flU thinking mm , clergymen , doctors , and philanthropists with dismay . They may well bo inclined to wish all extra-domestic employment for women swept from the face of the earth , and ouch wife and mother restored to her own hearth to see that the pot bolls and that the children do not for ever fall into the tire . To which it must first lie answered that such a return is simply impossible , and that tho remedy must be looked for oleowhoro—lu domestic arrangements fitted to the existing change and which
shall restore comfort to the home by permitting the expenditure of the wife ' s earnings upon some efficient plan of general surveillance . The laws under which our expanding population develops require female labour , and we cannot go against them unless we give up all our English theories of free trade and begin to regulate every minutiie of factory life by arbitrary regulation , in which case we should find we had only entailed upon ourselves worse evils than we sought to avoid , and that the last state of that house would be worse than the first .
Moreover , the honourable members of the Lower House , whose fortunes are derived from the cotton trade , would by no means wish to see female labour abolished , and would be the first to put forth every argument by which political economy fortifies its employ ; at best , any legislation on the subject could only deal with married women , unmarried women above twenty-one must be left to sell their labour in whatever market pleases them best , so must widows and women afflicted with idle husbands who will not work ; and if they prefer ten shillings a week in a factory to less than half that sum in shirtmaking , he would be a bold , self-constituting protector of female interests who should say them nay .
To those who say that married women cannot and ought not to follow a trade , it is therefore enough to answer that hundreds of thousands of them do and must , and that so far from this tendency of modern society , showing the slightest symptom of decrease , it is extending on every side , that printing , watchmaking , and other kindred works requiring delicate manipulation arc year by year absorbing more women , and that the process is not even rapid enough for the needs of the time , witness the Bishops of London and Llandaff , Lord Shaftesburj ' , and Dr . Lunkester , all holding forth at Exeter Hall at " a meeting to express sympathy with the frightful overwork of milliners and dressmakers , and to call the attention of Englishwomen to tlieir oppressed
condition . " The Times , in a leading article a projws of this Exeter Hall meeting , very truly says that no amount'of sympathy from English men , or amended forethought and attention from English women , will relieve an evil springing from the pressure of our female population as the means of subsistence , and that our needlewomen must " go to Canada" — if they can get there . Mr . John Bennett is lecturing all over the kingdom upon women and watchmaking ; the wives and mothers who are working in factories " north and south" do so , each woman of them , because otherwise the children -would starve , and John Stuart Mill distinctly says that the greatest hope , in the long run , of an improvement in the condition of our lower " classes , lies in the opening of
new careers to women . Here , then , we have assertions which may be verified , by any one who in England cares to examine the cogent statistical arguments in their favour . We see that a very large proportion of English women earn weekly wages in all manner of trades and occupations , and that we might as well attempt to stoj > the earth from moving as to hinder this tendency of the Anglo-Saxon race ; while on the other hand , the law remains what it was in the time of Chaucer . All the earnings of all these women remain absolutely in tho power of the husband ; he can take them from his wife , or demand them from her employer : they are not hers , but his . Now , to say this
over and over again , in every newspaper , in every pamphlet , in every conversation held on the subject , seems a wearisome and somewhat foolish task . Tho facts of the case are ao simple , that once said it might seem sufficient , wore it not that every reform which the world hns seen carried has been carried 9 imply by certain people becoming convinced of its necessity and then having the patience to set it forth , heaping stono upon stone , lino upon line , till they conquered by dint of obstinate perseverance . To give the earnings of one person to another person , is against justice , against tho whole spirit of our English law , and to justify it , it must bo proved that something in the relation of husband and wife takes
such a proceeding out of the usual category of justice between individuals , and that it works well . Now tho only reason why husband « nd wife are supposed to be fused into one party holding proporty before the law , consists in thoir joint parentage , and Lord Campbell asks , in the short dobnto of the 13 th of February , was tho wife , for instance , to bo committed to prison in case she refused to contribute her proper share to tho expenses of tho mtfnayot ? ' Undoubtedly , If a woman having tho money , refuses to provide for tho well-being of her children , her preaenco in
the home cannot bo of so viiluablo a naturo us to render her being sent to prison nn intolerable outrage on tho sanctity of tho domestic hearth . There can be no doubts in tho mind of any thinking woman , that , as , the box are liable" to bo transported for theft , to bo hung for murder , it is a somewhat muudliu oentimentality which would Bhrlnk from seeing them legally compelled to provide for a certain share of tho domestic expenses of their own children ; but it may bo safoly assorted , for the comfort of legislators who ehrluk from laying tho
gentler sex under such a sword of Damocles ? iTl this is about the last offence for which women wf ] be actually sent to prison . At present the state < the case is somewhat reversed : we see the Zi . slaving away for her children , and under c ^' chance of robbery from men in a station of lif which the general « education of the husband J !! the habits of his associates , offer no moral ™ ., ' d for tender consideration of a wife . " feuar « tn tee Our legislators are on the horns of a dilemma ie women are to possess full control over their earnings , they must , in the name of all justice ° T associated with men in . the legal responsibility f «
the nurture of the children tlm < r i » .:. .- * . the nurture of the children they brin » into th world . Now , is it a worse offence against mu £ and legislative chivalry to place a woman under this legal responsibility , the very last she « m reasonably or morally be inclined to shirk , than to leave her and lier children both absolutely at t \ w mercy of an individual whose sense of . uentlenianlv honour and tenderness may not , especially if l ! e hp unable to read and write , be quite up to the stanchr . 1 enjoined by the domestic customs of the members nf the Upper House ? L I remain , sir , yours obediently , Bessie Rayner Parkes .
The Income-Tax Of A Town Doubled, (2b Th...
THE INCOME-TAX OF A TOWN DOUBLED , ( 2 b the Editor of the Leader . ' ) Sir , —In . your article upon this subject , you comfort the people of North Shields , who have suffered a grievous wrong at the hands of the Income-tax Commissioners , by stating that ' exactly the same wronff was inflicted upon Greenwich , ' and that Greenwich in spite of warlike demonstrations agaiust their oppressor's ultiinatelv paid . . "¦ '
Allow me to say that , except as to psying twice over this is an error . In North Shields , the defaulters are not persons appointed by the town . Briggs , the defaulter , had 17 i ) 0 f- of public moneys in the local bank . This sum , which the bankers wished to pay over to the Commissioners , they most strangely , as it appears to me refused to receive . In our town , Lucas , the defaulter , was appointed by public vestry , and his two sureties accepted as , - sufficient by the same authority representing the town ; Lucas absconded , and has not been heard of since . Neither lie nor his sureties turned out worth . a
shilling-, and , of course , no 1700 / . was . offered to the Commissioners in part payment of their claim . It appears to me that , hard as it is to pay twice over , no act of-wrong was committed in making us do so . On the contrary , it would have been manifestly unjust to throw upon the rest of the community the loss incurred by our thinking proper to trust the collection of the tax to a rogue , and to accept paupers as his sureties . We should have conducted our business wiser . This case is very different with North Shields , if the statement quoted by you is correct . If we in Greenwich had had as good a one , we should have seen the Commissioners in Tophet before we would have paid again . As it was , we mot , found out it was our own fault , and , after a proper amount of vituperation on Lucas and the tax , ultimately submitted to be sheared , in spite of previously losing neurly all our wool . Some of us felt the scissors keenly .
The getting rid of the tax i . s no doubt very desirable ; but , while tho national expenses arc what they nre , it can only be got rid of , I am afraid , by taxing something else . I should be glad to know what that something is that would be a satisfactory substitute . The lucky discoverer would bu immortalised . I am , sir , yours , & c , A SUFKEBBIt .
Starving Condition Of Tub Woolwich Ann-8...
Starving Condition of tub Woolwich Ann-8 ANH . —Tho Kov . W . Ackworth , one of tho committee for relieving tli « Woolwich nrtisana who wore thrown out of employ by the cessation of tho war , writes to the 7 Y >«« r . —" Tho npponl we lately made through your columns for assistance to relievo the great distress here has been answered in tho House of Commons by the Chancellor of tho Exchequer , who not only domufi W tho duty of ( Jovornincnt to uasist its discharged opera fives , but denies thnt any great distress exists . I on wfch the right hon . gentleman , and those «; ho slm « to Mb incredulity , would give mo an opportunity of » lw « ing him a few of tho cnaes which meet our-eye . nc 0 tujn , and tempt us to a , lc if it bo indeed true tlw t W > ' ' , i ^ i ' A .. i ~ n . \ r . r f :,. ii ' I would introuuio that bo ordained of tJod I vroiau , nu « -
power * ore . him to houses where not a jug was left to tak > JJ ° ottered soup , and where children crouched at pronch of visitor * to hide their very ""'^ " ^ A 9 show him women and children lying sick on baw bo « asking only ' a penny roll ' -proatrnted , m > the j ° would tell him , simply by ' the want of J ™ nourishment . ' lie would hear men loll ^>™ t , iclr week , they had vnllwd the Hurrou . uling country U » HmbB ached and tho « hoo « were worn from tlw thinking themaolvoB happy to ( hid 0111 P lo ^ f u h perthe ordmary rate of wages . No Jew thai si * « "i ^ Hons have bee ., at my door tiliioo I begun thla ¦*«« r |) , ft | ld Arthur Murphy , one of our oommitioe , wa ^ m ^ at tho time of the famine , and he Boloinnly d « u « never saw oaaos of greater dblrow there thun Uaj o under hlfl notice In hln visits to thoao operatives .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 6, 1857, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06061857/page/12/
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