who appeared to be a younger sister of her companion, "but you two do wear me out! Year in and year out you slop around, complaining that you never have anything and never go anywhere, making your beds just before you crawl into them, and looking out of the front windows at the horses going by! Don't you ever think? Haven't you anything at all inside your heads?»

She waited for an answer, but received none. "Don't you even know enough to quarrel?» Silence still.

"Who do you expect to pay your rent for you? »

No answer.

"Are you going to wait till the sheriff gets at your door and then send for me as you did last time?»

The languid one preserved her comfortable silence.

"Do you expect me to find winter clothes for both of you into the bargain?»

No remarks.

"You know you do! You keep still and look like a Christian martyr, but I know very well that you will be coming round with a pathetic expression soon and that I will buy the stuff and send up a dressmaker and fix the two of you out.

Then you'll weep because you have

to 'eat the bread of charity,' and mother will weep. But you'll both sit in comfortable chairs while you do the weeping, and I'll go down town every morning in the slush and snow and do the work!»

Still the silence of the desert.

"My soul!" sighed the other with exhaustion, "it wouldn't matter how I insulted you, you wouldn't have the spirit to answer back. I know you call it a Christian grace, but I call it the worst form of heathen perversity."

One

She had evidently reached the climax of her protest, for an ominous silence fell between the two. The women got off the train before I did, and as they passed me I looked at them. was young, neatly dressed, with an alert nervous manner and a worried, intelligent face. From the flush on her cheeks I knew her for the exasperated member of the duet. The other was lank, untidy, and frowsy, and she dragged a beruffled skirt along the car. Her eyes were half-veiled by heavy lids, her mouth was selfish-looking and weak, and she moved with an insolent, slow swagger. She was, it was easy to see, of the vampire family,- that ever-increasing breed of animals that ravage society with their insatiate greed and who contribute nothing to their generation-neither merchandise nor domestic order, nor fruits of the field, nor joy, nor ideas. They simply convert good oxygen into poison by the act of inhaling and exhaling it.

ating. While she was not industrious, she was nevertheless an ornament to society. It was a pleasure to look at her and to listen to her. She had a trained and educated mind, and while she stood for nothing in particular and did nothing worth mentioning, her thoughts were large and kind, her manners an example, and her company a delight to her friends. And yet, as I thought of all that needed doing in the world-of the important tasks left undone for lack of someone to perform them - this charming woman seemed almost like a criminal to me. At best she was a selfish egotist. As for the other woman -the vampire-there was no question about her criminality. She was consciously, perhaps deliberately, consuming the nerve force, the money, and the happiness of her young sister. Had she administered slow poison to her she would have been no more vicious.

To a great extent it seems as if the inability to find an occupation of some sort must be the result of careless training in youth. The deep. slothful indifference of women of the type whose conversation I overheard on the elevated train must have been inculated in childhood. Perhaps the child was not made the companion of the mother, was given no responsibility, was not confided in, nor solicited for help. It was not taught to give to others, nor made to feel that idleness was a waste. The kitchen-garden, which is operated much in cities. is a practical effort on the part of the benevolent to overcome this supine acquiescence among the poor; it endeavors to give lessons in the laws of resistance, the things to be resisted being disorder, dirt, idleness, sickness, and the other discomforts of life, many of which can be successfully

overcome.

same.

All women may not have time to attend classes in psychology at the clubs, and to acquire a knowledge of the technical divisions of force and the will; but it does seem as if all women could, if they would, live each day with vigor, and inspire their children to do the Ennui would vanish if this were done; meanness would disappear from households that are now cursed with it; and many of the sins of which men and women and boys and girls are guilty would never be committed. For it is the idle who gossip, who are suspicious, who impute wrong motives, and who invent disagreeable hypotheses about their neighbors' unexplained actions. There is much talk about the rest-cure, but I have far more confidence in the work-cure, and am of the opinion that a good part of the ills to which women are subject would disappear if the mind and body were happily occupied, if early rising were a necessity, and if night found the body and the spirit so wholesomely fatigued that sleep was inevitable. Enthusiasms are inevitable when the blood gets to circulating fast enough.

When the digestion is perfect, it is impossible to avoid happiness in some degree. For even if one has suffered the loss of one's best beloved, yet one must find other friends, if one is well in mind and body; and though a shameful sorrow may have come, yet one can attain philosophy. One can say: "Was I to blame? Then I will retrieve myself. I will build anew the structure of my life. What is past is past -my sins among othe things. Was another to blame? Then, though he be my own child, yet the sin is his and not mine. It is my life that I am living. He must live his. I do my part when I give him my loyal love in spite of his sins." If one has merely lost fortune, that can be regained, and in any event it is a superfluity. All one needs is enough to eat and wear; and there are occasions on which it is a

To sum up, what the world needs for its happiness is more work, more achievement. Nature, which is never at rest, sets a superb example, not only of unceasing industry, but of exquisite workmanship. For not a beetle crawls along the ground but has a burnished back of ebony or jeweled green; not a weed by the roadside goes to seed but hides its promise of next year's blossom in a pod of fairy delicacy; not a spider-web glitters in the sun that is not marvellous in its structure. If only the world could be more conscious of "the Master of all Good Workmen » there would be less heartache than there is.

"T

No live and let live" is an old adage which is growing more difficult of application every day. At this time, nearly the end of the nineteenth century, the labor question is one of absorbing interest, not only to the economist but to all classes of society,in the case of the capitalists, how to obtain the greatest amount of labor for the smallest wage; in the case of the laborer, how to obtain the greatest wage for the work performed.

Year by year there have been factors entering into the various fields of labor which have nearly revolutionized old-time conditions. Machinery has played an important part by reducing the requirements for physical labor, but it has also opened up other avenues, and, as a whole, elevated physical labor to the realm of mental. The fact that one machine does the work of many men has congested the ranks of mental labor.

Another factor which is rarely taken note of is the fact that with higher mental cultivation comes also a higher appreciation of the luxuries of life. American people are no longer content to live as their ancestors did. The young man just entering upon the arena of life seeks to obtain for himself all the luxuries which were formerly the prerogative of the privileged class. The young woman keeps pace with her brother, and her requirements are largely in excess of those of her grandmother's or even her mother's girlhood.

Within the last few years luxuries have become so commonplace that they appear to be necessities. While all men are not to blame for this state of affairs, still, in an indirect way, the most of them are. Mr. Ridley states that "in order to arrive at conclusions" of value to both men and women "it will be necessary accurately

2. The treating habit and the club have largely taken the place of domestic life among men and "practically deranged and disturbed social conditions.»

3. The plainly expressed admiration of men for expensively dressed women has encouraged extravagance in dress, being the incentive to many young women to enter the ranks of wage-earners.

4. "Such inroads and inversions » upon domestic life "have proven disastrous to the home, calamitous to the nation, and utterly subversive of natural laws and relations.»

Our interest in the matter is not so much the presence of women in the industrial field as the undercurrent which forces them into it. The "new woman" is but the old woman under different environment, the outgrowth of the present social conditions. In earlier days she was the proud helpmate of an energetic, ambitious husband, a co-worker with the man of her choice, who rewarded her affection by considering her "the crowning blessing of his life." To-day she must share her supremacy with the club or saloon, with politics and her husband's business (which frequently consumes an incredible amount of his time), and frequently she attains the distinction of being mistress of

his establishment rather than, as formerly, being mistress of his heart.

It is manifest error to suppose that the majority of women wage-earners take up the work from vanity or desire for notoriety. Many of them not only are dependent upon their own exertions, but have others depending upon them; in numberless instances having to take up the work of the father, who by age or infirmity has become incapable of supporting the family, or that of a deceased husband. Woman (at least the working woman) is not usually a grumbler, and often, although she feels the load a heavy one, she assumes it with a cheerful face if not with a cheerful heart, realizing that the "ideal" existence is not for her,

at least for a few years, but she usually believes that somehow, somewhere, the future will provide a home which will compensate her for the ills she is now called upon to endure.

The women who are working at the present time for "pocket-money » constitute but a very small percentage of the employed. Even the giddy girl, to whose mind business at first seemed a fascinating pastime for which she would receive a salary, soon discovers that the infraction of nature's law brings a swift penalty of failing health; that the daily round grows monotonous; and that something is lacking in her life. She has also learned that her wants are many, and, if she has been an observing girl (as she usually is), that man, too, has wants far in excess of the average salary received by young men; that in married life it is frequently the wife who makes all the sacrifices; the husband must keep his social position and treat his friends to cigars, dinners, and drinks, even though the grocer and landlord are becoming disagreeably attentive. Then, too, she discovers that men are attracted to well-dressed women, and that modest worth, plainly attired, must give way to the representative of fashion, even though the plainly appareled woman is his wife. Not that he is untrue to her, but he is so constituted that he cannot help admiring, at least with his eyes, the woman whose charms are augmented by luxurious and tasteful dress. All women like admiration, and it is particularly grateful from those they love; therefore it is not at all surprising that a woman determines to obtain that which shall make her charming, even if she has to work for it.

Of course the men who do me the honor to read these pages are not considered in the above category. If their income is not large enough properly to support the family and to obtain beautiful plumage for the wife, they recognize that a loving, gentle woman is more attractive than the frail adornments which last only for a season, and the plain gown of the wife is more fitting and beautiful in their eyes than the most charming creations of ideal artists.

But you

all know men who are otherwise; you meet them

every day; they are your neighbors and friends. As to the women, I am sure they will acknowledge they prefer silk to cotton, but would rather have their husband's admiration than anything else.

Now, as to how woman shall earn her living. Why is it that men always expect more of women than they do of men? They would never suggest that a farmer should suddenly plunge into Wall Street; that a clerk in a store should work in a blacksmith shop; that a merchant should command a vessel. If a man takes up something with which he has not been familiar, or for which he has not been specially trained, and makes a success of it, he is considered a genius. Yet Mr. Ridley coolly selects a dozen from the hundreds of avocations of man and demands that women shall enter into competition, not only with the former occupants of those fields, but with every other working woman, and, no matter whether the work is congenial, attractive, or within the limit of her ability, she must do it so well as to receive a salary equal to that obtained by a man for the same work. As a rule women are more adaptable than men, but when men propose that a woman shall neglect those avenues in which she is fitted to succeed and do work selected for her by those who do not know anything whatever about her, it is about as reasonable as to expect a western cowboy, who has never been in the city before, to lead a German at the WaldorfAstoria. It must be borne in mind that women are not all cast in the same kind of mould, some larger than others, but all being adapted to certain lines of labor. They have as different tastes and inclinations as men. When they realize that it is necessary for them to seek employment, they do just as a man would do,turn to that which can be made useful to them at the earliest opportunity; and they usually decide quickly, as in most cases wants are pressing before they realize the necessity of providing for themselves.

Then, too, every avocation is already full, and nothing is open where her work will not conflict with man. The bookkeeper, clerk, stenographer, and newspaper man are fully satisfied that woman's province lies in work radically different from theirs. The doctor is sure that the woman whose sign hangs in close proximity to his own is out of her sphere. The florist, whose roses and violets must come into competition with those of his gentle neighbor, fully realizes that she has mistaken her vocation. The male school-teacher, who has already been pushed far into the background, cannot view with equanimity the presence of women in high schools and colleges. True, she may perhaps be better fitted for primary grades and early grammar-school studies than men, but in the higher education she is plainly an intruder.

Taking up Mr. Ridley's list of employments open to women, it must be granted that there

are many requisites for a nurse which the majority of women do not possess. The ranks of literature are already crowded, and unless one has unusual talent and originality women cannot hope to obtain remunerative employment. A successful introduction into art-life requires many years' preparation, which the average woman is not financially able to procure, even if she possesses the necessary talent. As for the stage, all women may be charming, but the demands of the stage do not end there, and the dragons who guard the entrance do not always recognize the talent which so many women would gladly exchange for lucre. It may also be stated that, in America, guides and chaperones are not much in demand outside of New York, and all working women do not live in New York.

Perhaps the largest and most accessible opening for women is that of cook. This line of work requires as special talent as music, poetry, or art, and offers abundant work and good salaries. But the families who enjoy the product of her labor consider the service menial, no matter how ladylike or refined the cook may be; and owing to this feeling, which prevails in all grades of society, she is debarred from all association with cultivated people. But few men or women care to be seen in the society of a cook, no matter how much they may enjoy her art. It is not a question as to whether this distinction is a proper one or not. It prevails, and no woman has power to make it otherwise.

The plan which is sometimes suggested to clear certain channels of women wage-earners and confine them to a few special lines (for which the masculine mind considers them specially adapted) takes no note of the rights of florists, musicians, authors, physicians, artists, teachers, cooks, or men and women of the stage. Of course these people have no rights which other professions feel called upon to respect.

Just imagine the chaos which would result in these occupations by the influx of all the women at present employed in earning a living, to say nothing of the failures which would result from women essaying to work in vocations for which they were not adapted.

Then as to the "conjugal province.» Strange to say, the men who so glibly, in writing and conversation, advocate marriage for women, are usually bachelors. They can idealize the state for their neighbors, but as for themselves prefer "single-blessedness," so there will be no necessity of sharing their income with a family; and if, in addition to reserving their salaries for their own special gratification, they could prevent women from entering their special province, thus preventing competition and permitting them to receive all the advantages arising therefrom,- it would be "a consummation devoutly to be wished."

As to salaries, the distinction lies not in sex, as has been claimed so many times, but is simply between experience and inexperience.

Skilled labor commands the highest prices, and many women are drawing salaries as large as men. But it is impossible for the masses of women to prepare themselves, in the short time usually available, to compete in point of salary with men who have been trained to certain lines from boyhood. If she demands with her inexperience the salaries to which they have risen, many times by slow stages, there could be no question as to the result. Their salaries were not large at first, and woman cannot stop to question, when the opportunity to earn her living comes, but must try and do as well as as she can on the best salary she can obtain.

But the great factor in reducing salaries is that of supply and demand. When the supply exceeds the demand, wages go down. The future prospect under conditions now existing is certainly discouraging both to men and women workers, for mothers, seeing the trend of masculine ideas, are now beginning to prepare their daughters to take care of themselves, because they fear for their future, even though there are no present indications that they will need such training. In a few years, when these girls who have had the training of men appear in the arena, there will be a more difficult problem to solve. The man who is now paid a large salary receives the greater portion of it for experience, consequently he can obtain more than an unskilled woman; but when experienced women enter the wage-workers' field in great numbers, as they will in a few years unless there is a change in present sentiment, the question of wages will be a more serious one than now.

The home life is certainly the proper sphere for most women, but it is hard for women who are adapted to such life to fill vacancies which do not exist. It might not be amiss for mothers to spend a part of the time which the masculine mind has allotted for the domestic training of girls, in the domestic training of their sons. There are numberless men who are willing to be married, but few home-makers, and the women of the present decade have too often seen Cupid's taper burn low where home was but a name. The true mother has ambition as well as love for her children, and the mother heart of every reflecting woman desires to be assured of a considerate, loving father for her children, whose affection for her is not likely to be shared by an unworthy object, and who is financially able and willing to support them.

Of the subject of women in business men are the arbiters of their own fate-the future is entirely in their hands. When they become anxious to secure homes for themselves and are willing to admit the woman of their choice to an equal partnership in all their pleasures cares, affection, and income, then the business woman will disappear like snow upon a sunkissed mountain top, and America will be a land of homes and happiness.

DENVER.

EMMA F. SMITH.