The College, the Market, and the Court: or, Woman's relation to education, labor and lawDall, Caroline Wells Healey
History
The College, the Market, and the Court: or, Woman's relation to education, labor and law
Dall, Caroline Wells Healey
Women -- Education; Women -- Employment; Women -- Legal status, laws, etc.
There recently died, at Portsea, in England, a woman, ninety years of
age, named Nelly Giles. She was one of the few surviving witnesses of
the battle of the Nile; having been on board His Majesty's ship
"Bellerophon," in the command of Captain Darby, and in all subsequent
engagements under Nelson. During the action of the Nile, she was
surrounded by heaps of slain and wounded; and she nursed the latter
tenderly, undismayed by the horrors of the scene. Three days after the
battle, she gave birth to a son.
The government, in consideration of her great attention to the sick and
wounded, and of the assistance she gave the surgeons, awarded her a
gratuity of seventeen pounds a year for her life.
A young patriot, named Francisco Riso, was killed on April 4, 1862, at
Palermo, during a popular demonstration which took place before
Garibaldi's arrival. On April 20, his father, Giovanni Riso, sixty years
old, was shot by the Bourbon soldiers, without so much as the form of a
trial. On the very day that Garibaldi entered Palermo, a young and
beautiful nun, Ignacia Riso, the sister and daughter of the two Risos
named above, left the convent, and, amidst a shower of balls and
grape-shot,--a cross in one hand, and a poignard in the other,--placed
herself at the head of Garibaldi's column, crying, "Down with the
Bourbons! Death to the tyrant! Vengeance!" She kept her place as long as
the fighting lasted; and her courageous attitude electrified the
volunteers. Ever since that day, the name of Ignacia Riso has been held
sacred. When she passes in the street, the soldiers bow low, and bless
her with the most profound respect. Garibaldi himself pays her great
attention, and loves her as if she were his own daughter.
From instances like these, refreshing because they tell of self-imposed
labor and eccentric character, we turn with less pleasure to the
statistics of the factories. Here men have left to women not only the
worst paid but the most unwholesome work of the respective mills.
Women, in France, are employed in the manufacture of cotton, silk, and
wool. The cotton manufacture compels two processes which are very
injurious,--the beating of the cotton, which brings on a distressing
phthisis; and the preparation, or dressing, which needs a degree of heat
not to be endured after mature age. Both these departments are filled by
women paid at half-prices.
The woollen manufacture compels only one unwholesome process,--that of
carding; but all the carders are women at half-wages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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