GIRLS AS USURPERS.

Press, Volume XLVII, Issue 7528, 18 April 1890, Page 2

GIRLS AS USURPERS.

M. Quad in Detroit Free Press.

The great obstacle in the path of tho boy of to-day who starts out to seek an opening to learn a trade is the rules made and rigidly enforced by the men who should nave their welfare nearest at heart —the Knights of Labour and the trade unions. These bodies, every member of which had a better show than the boy of to-day has, have by-laws which forbid an employer from taking more than one apprentice to several journeymen. Shops which fifteen years ago had fifteen boys on the way towards learning a trade and being able to earn good wages now run only three or five. While such action on the part of these bodies prevents a ** duke," or half-finished apprentice, from oomiug in competition with them in the matter of, wages, it canuot fail to prove a pernicious one in the end. The boy who has no chance to learn a trade cannot become a producer. He must be supported by those who work. The chances are against his becoming a taxpayer. They are iv favour of his becoming a bad man. While a few journeymen profit by this rule to the extent of a few dollars, the community and country at large are heavy losers. There are plenty of cases in Detroit and every other city where fathers, bound by this rule and believing it to be a good thing, are making loafers of their sons, who are barred out.

The question, is not, therefore, " How much can I earn and how long must Iserve as a machinist, cabinet-maker, stovemoulder, etc .' but rather, " How can I manage to secure a place as an apprentice.' The second obstruction did not exist, either, fifteen years ago. If any one had i predicted twenty years ago that the time would soon come when the girls of the country would usurp the places rightfully belonging to the boys, and thereby become a menace to their future, he would have been called crazy. And yet that time is here, and from Maine to Texas the girl I has crowded the boy out and is keeping I him out. It began _rst with the stores. ! There wasatime when everyclerk behind a dry goods counter was a boy or a man. To-day, in the north more especially, the boy and man have been cast adrift and the girl has come in to hit their places at half the wages. It is so in postoffices, banks. Insurance, offices, lumber offices, railroad headquarters and many other places, and it is still spreading. Jtven the grocery clerk and the hardware salesman are losing their places. It was a move for economy's sake, and. there can be no question but what it has been a great saving. The average girl at Sdois per week will sell just as many gooasasthe average young man at LOdol. ~he makes just as good a stenographer or typewriter at half or two*thirds of a man's salary. But the question goes farther than that of the salary—of the saving of a few dollars. Every girl takes a place which should by right go to some boy. The busi-uessofthis-ount-y or any other.ountry Can never be turned over to the female sex to be conducted, and yet what is to be the result if this movement is continued: Fifty thousand females will have held places, and drawn wages and kept fifty thousand boys from learning the avocation and learning it so thoroughly that they canconductlt. They will not only have deprived the boys ot their wages meanwhile, but will have made idlers and vagabonds of a good share of them. There -wiU be just that much loss of business energy and talent to the country, saying nothing of the wages. I do not say that a girl or woman has no moral right to go out and earn her own living; but adyohe who will investigate the matter will find that such action on their par bis most, commonly not a-matter of stern necessity one time out of ten. They Want better clothes than what the family income gives them— they are through with school or hate lt--they desire to' throw off parental restraint and the monotony of home life. Also, in nine 'Cases pub of ten, if you will follow them up, you will find the girl working for three or four years, or just long enough to have kept a boy from learning the business, and then "steppingoff" as a wife. She has .imply earned herself some fine clothes, got through with her work as easily as poastble,ahdeverybody butherself has been the' loser.