THE DEBASEMENT OF WOMEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1916, 30 October 1890, Page 32

THE DEBASEMENT OF WOMEN.

To complete the ecstasy of those who believe in the degradation of human labour, need I say that at Stockholm the debasement of woman is perhaps more thorough and complete than in any city of northern Europe ? She here practically supplants the beasts of burden. And lam not altogether unfamiliar with woman's work in Europe. I have seen her round the pit mouth, at the forge, and bare-footed in the brickyards of " merry England," filling blast furnaces and tending coke ovens in " sunny France." I have daily watched her bearing the heat and burden of the day in the fields of the 11 Fatherland," and in Austria- Hungary doing the work of man and beast on the farm and in the mine.

I have seen women emerge from the coalpita of "busy Belgium," where little girls and young women graduate underground as hewers of coal and drawers of carts, for it is no uncommon thing in Europe to hitch women and dogs together, that manufacturing may be done cheaply.

Aged, bent, and sunburned, I have seen woman, with rope over shoulders, toiling on the banks of canals and dykes in picturesque Holland. Having witnessed all this, I was yet surprised to find in a city so beautiful and seemingly so rich and prosperous as Stockholm, women still more debased.

In Stockholm she ?s almost exclusively employed as hod-carrier and bricklayer's assistant. She carries bricks, mixes mortar, and, in short, does all the beary work about the building. At the dinner hour you see group 3of women sitting on the piles of wood and stones eating their frugal repast. They wear a short gown, coming a trifle below the knee, with home-knitted woollen stockings and wooden shoes. Over the head a hand kerchief is tightly tied. Those engaged in mixing mortar and tending plasterers wear aprons.

They are paid for a day of hard work of this toil, lasting 12 hours, the magnificent sum of one kroner (equivalent to Is Id).

Women sweep the streets, haul the rubbish, drag hand carts up the hills and over the cobble stones, unload bricks at the quays, attend to parks, do the gardening, and row the numerous ferries which abound at Stockholm. The entire dairy business of the city is in their hands, and here they take the place of horses and dogs, carrying on their shoulders the heavy cans of milk from door to door.