Show Occupations of Women Fortythree or fortyfour years ago Miss Harriet Martineau is reported to have said that in Massachusetts Mas-sachusetts one of the most highly civilized add advanced communities in the world there were but seven industries open to women who wanted to work They might keep boarders or set type or teach needlework needle-work or tend looms in cotton mills or fold and stitch in bookbinderies This statement was rather too definite because there were other forms of labor open to them especially especi-ally those of the needle But there I is no doubt that the opportunities of selfsupport for women by honest industry in some other way than that of domestic service were very few and very limited The tendency ten-dency of society under the exclusive control of men has been to restrict unmarried women to the lowest kinds of drudgery or to the highest forms of luxurious idleness There has been extreme impatience of all efforts for the emancipation of women But tho most resolutely contemptnous sneerer at strong minded women and the most doughty foe of the cry of womans right as if it were the slogan of tho destruction of the essential feminine charma kind of war upon nature itselfmust < admit thatwhether the discussion be regarded tin a cause or a mere unhandsome phenomenon of progress due to other causes it is during this discussion that the opportunities op-portunities have greatly enlarged and tho general view of the relation of women to society has greatly changed In the state of Massachusetts which was the scene of Miss Mar tmeaus s reputed observation it is now announced that there are 284 occupations open to women instead of seven and that 251158 women are earning their own living in these occupations receiving from SloO toe to-e 000 each every year This computation does not include amateurs or mothers ana daughters in the household and of course excludes domestic service Such figures show the most Insidious approaches ap-proaches of the sex toward that terrible ter-rible equality which Is the bug bear of some sensitive souls whoring who-ring their hands with apprehension lest the resistless development of society should deprive it to change Charles Lambs word of women that are women Harpers Maga inc |