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Show WOMAN'S WORLD IN PARAGRAPHS. Virginia Penny, to whom all women owe a debt. Forty years ago the occupations open to women were three - housework, sewing and teaching. They did not do much at teaching except in primary schools. About this time Virginia Penny, a gentlewoman born and bred, became interested in the industrial advancement of her sex. She became convinced that the glorious world of achievement held a future for ambitious girls as well as boys. She believed that the time had come for opening to women new avenues of self support. With this belief came the resolve that she herself would do what she could toward opening these new paths. Then she threw herself into the task with all the enthusiasm of a gifted woman. At her own expense she traveled throughout the Union, visiting factories, schools and commercial establishments. There were not many railroads in the country then, and no elevators at all in business ??? to shoot you up ten stories in half a minute. Miss Penny journeyed by stage and wagon and climbed the staircases afoot. She met and braved insult, snub and sneer in getting information. Of these she took no note, but she did make careful note everywhere of wages, facts and possibilities - all that could bear on the question of woman's work. The information was written out in forceful, elegant English and published. It was issued once, I remember, under the title, "Five Hundred Occupations for Women." It opened the eyes of thousands to the opportunities that lay before working women and all around them. But this fine, strong book profited its author scarcely a dollar. She spent all her money in preparing it and lost her health besides. Happy working women are following in the paths she pointed out, some of them earning $3,000, $5,000 and $10,000 a year. Miss Penny is destitute. I found her the other day living on bread and coffee, and even that had given out, and she had tried to borrow twenty-five cents to buy more. She is sixty-five years old. We women must raise a fund to make Virginia Penny's last days comfortable, and we must do it at once. I will take charge of it unless some better way can be found. Any sums sent to me I promise to see faithfully turned over for her use. Address Eliza Archard Conner, 32 and 34 Vesey street, New York city. When men go to dressmaking it is time for women to go into law and gospel. I have heard of a society woman who studied law in order to make herself more brilliant and accomplished in conversation. It is better to know something, even from such a motive as this, than not to know anything at all. When I see a girl stenographer going to her work about half past 9 in the morning, wearing white gloves, a bunch of artificial violets in her buttonhole, her hair curled all over her head in a ?? that indicates an jour's use of a hot iron, and wearing little toothpick pointed, peg heeled shoes, so tight that she cannot walk at all - only totter - I know that that girl will never be a successful business woman. Mrs. Emma Beckwith lately gave a lively lecture before the Brooklyn Philosophical association on "Woman in Politics." Mrs. Beckwith is a strict Republican, but she says when she considers what man's "protection' has done for women it is almost enough to make a free trader of her. The Roman Catholic college of St. Francis Xavier, in New York city, has made what really seems to me the most advanced step on the woman question that church has yet taken. This is nothing less than admitting women to its free post graduate course in moral philosophy. Father Halpin, vice president of the college and lecturer on moral philosophy, was the first to give his assent to the petition that women might attend. "I have no personal objection," Archbishop Corrigan was consulted. He laid the matter before the superior of the Jesuit order and in due time sent an autograph letter to the brave young woman who had applied to him informing her that her request had been granted. A graduate of the Harvard annex is among the ladies availing themselves of this opportunity to obtain instruction from the accomplished scholar who lectures on moral philosophy. Bachelors of arts who take the course and pass examination successfully receive the degree of master of arts. A girl sometimes fancies she is dying of a broken heart when it is simply a case of anaemia. Girls with plenty of rich blood never die of a broken heart. When we fancy ourselves passing through a profound emotional experience of any kind it is a good plan always to ascertain whether we are not merely anaemic. The voting women of Boston are not falling off in numbers as much as they were. This year 10,000 of them registered, a gain of almost 4,000 over last year. I always like to recall an extract from Mrs. Potter Palmer's strong and graceful little speech at the Columbian celebration in Chicago: "Even more important than the discovery of Columbus is the fact that the general government has just discovered women. It has sent out a flash light from its heights so inaccessible to us, which we shall answer by a return signal when the exposition is opened. What will be its next message to us?" It is reported that a woman has been elected road overseer in Clay county, Kan.[Kansas]. If she is one of the many women who are kept closely at home on the farm for six months of the year because of almost impassable roads, she will make good use of the opportunities afforded by her office. Woman's Journal. It is better to teach a woman how to earn money enough to buy a new dress than to tell her how to make over an old one. Eliza Archard Conner. |