The volumes of science, mathematics, general literature, &c., which women have given to the world, without sharing to the full the educational advantages of man, seem to promise that they shall outstrip him here, the moment they have a fair start. But I go farther, and state boldly, that women have, from the beginning, done the hardest and most unwholesome work of the world in all countries, whether civilized or uncivilized; and I am prepared to prove it. I do not mean that rocking the cradle and making bread is as hard work as any, but that women have always been doing man's work, and that all the outcry society makes against work for women is not to protect _women_, but a certain class called _ladies_. Now, I believe that work is good for ladies; so let us look at the truth. "Let it once be understood," says one of our English friends, "that the young business-woman is shielded by the social intercourse of those who are called ladies, and it would obviate many of those grave objections which deter parents from consenting that their children shall brave the world in shops and warehouses." Most certainly it would; and to this point we must frequently return. Meanwhile, says Sydney Smith, "so long as girls and boys run about in the dirt, and trundle hoop together, they are both precisely alike;" and I shall proceed to show that large numbers have not only played but worked in the dirt together, and trundled hoop, not merely through our own lives, but ever since work and play began. I shall speak first of Asiatic women; and I can afford to begin by quoting a Cochin-China proverb, to the effect that "a woman has nine lives, and bears a great deal of killing." I do not know anything else about the Cochin-China women; but this looks as if their lot were no exception to the general rule. The Chinese peasant-woman goes to the field with her male infant on her back, and ploughs, sows, and reaps, exposed to all the changes of the weather. When her husband is proved criminal, she must die as his accomplice; having, at least, strength enough to suffer. In Calcutta, women are the masons who keep the roof tight; and you may see them daily carrying their hods of cement, spreading it on the tops of houses, and flattening it with a wooden rammer like that with which our Irishmen pave the streets.