Show THE SKIRTS SWEEP One of the most noticeable sounds accompanying ac-companying the business march of the day and generation is the rustle of the feminine skirt This rustle is daily becoming be-coming more pronounced It is asserting itself loudly and effectually The skirt has conquered a business place It is a recognized necessity in the working of the business system It has come to stay Only a few years ago and the i sight of a woman at the desk behind a retail goods counter or at the copying table would have been an anomaly anom-aly This is an outcome of the civilization civiliza-tion of the day on which the general public can congratulate itself Every honest man is gladthat woman dependant depend-ant and helpless womanhas found her way to a condition of semiindependence And yet it cannot be denied that the sweep of womans skirt in the crowded avenues of business has forced aside tho other sex The boys and young men of the present generation find that many of tho paths of life are closed to them which belonged to their fathers by natural right A well known writer says on this subject Where have these boys gone You will then find them running errands acting as telegraph and district messengers making themselves generally useful In due coarse of time they will become men too old to learn any really useful calling too old to serve in boys places and set adrift on lifes difficult sea without any equipment for the voyage In passing 1st us say that the employment of lads as telegraph and district messengers has been in onr opinion opin-ion most unfortunate for the wellbeing of American boys The temptation of earning four or five dollars a week doubtless is very great and it is probably true that many a poor mother has been helped by these handsome hand-some gains of her boy Bat in the end the boy is the worst for the training The apprentice ap-prentice is most unprofitable and when at the end of his service he is ready to begin lifes battle in earnest he is only one more recruit for the vast and increasing army of those who have no visible means of support no trade no vseful calling Thus many of the lighter branches of business once preparatory pre-paratory to larger duties are filled by women the learned professions are choked off by the overflow from other roads to remunerative re-munerative employment now closed or greatly restricted It is so much easier however to define a grievance than to suggest a method of re dress that it is not surprising that many lament the closing of avenues of suitable employment for boys and few propose a remedy for this condition of affaire Pet haps bo waver a glance at a few of the causes of the difficulty may bring to mind some correcttTO The o aUea learned pro fesuions are luUOYetwowd perhaps There IB always room at the top to be I euro but the bottom rungs of the ladder are I I so thronged that the beginners can scarce find a foothold Forty or fifty years ago a family of boys some of welltodo and substantial people was usually divided around among the activities of life In a group of four now in my mind the sons 0f a master builder one was sent into a merchants mer-chants countingroom the second was apprenticed ap-prenticed to a house carpenter a third went to sea at the ago of sixteen and the youngest was sent to college In like manner man-ner were many families of boys distributed in those golden days Nor was he who swung the mallet or drove the saw jealous of the lighter labors of the merchants apprentice ap-prentice nor did the sailorboy think it a hard thing that ho should be put before the mast when his younger brotherwas educated for a life of lettered activity It never entered en-tered into the head of any one of that group to envy the lot of either of the others or to disparage his own In fact probably each boy chose his own vocation assisted In the right direction by a little judioidus parental guidance Nowadays does the brother of collegian go to learn a trade If he does his choice is regarded as eccentric Ocean steam navigating machines have displaced the sailing fleets that were formerly the pride and boast of the nation The typical sailor has disappeared In former years a bright smart boy graduating from the public pub-lic school and sent to sea was expected to make his way from the forecastle to the quarter deck of a ship of ability industry and ambition The commander who thus advanced himself was said to have reached tho quarter deck through the hawsehole and those who climbed in at the cabin windows win-dows owing their preferment to tho favoritism favor-itism of owners were few American boys no longer go to sea however The race of American sailors has gone forever The man who can suggest a remedy for this general condition con-dition of things will bo a benefactor to the race |