THE PELORUS GUARDIAN. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1892. Woman's Social and Political Elevation.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 3, Issue 15, 23 February 1892, Page 2

THE PELORUS GUARDIAN. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1892. Woman's Social and Political Elevation.

In place of making any remarks of our own on the aoove subject we will give a few quotations from different writers and speakers who have given the matter their serious consideration. Francis Newman says:— " Men hitherto have striven to degrade women into ill-paid posts. Voluntary work, like that of Miss Nightingale and her coadjutors, they may condescend to accept. Women may be housekeepers or subordinate matrons, but nover at the head. They may be nurses but not physicians; they may be midwives, provided it be either under physicians who take the large fee, or only to those women who cannot pay well. The Queen herself has a • Lord' Chamberlain ; could not a ' Lady' preside as successfully over her chamber ? No; because it is too lucrative an office to throw away on a woman. Such is the selfishness of the male sex, which political inequality suggests and upholds." What Emily Faithful says is still more to the purpose. She observes:—" The fact is that to us ' fools of habit,' what is new is dangerous; what we have been accustomed to is proper and becoming. Fathers who would shake their heads at the idea of allowing their daughters to undertake any branch of foreign correspondence or book-keeping of their business, who object to professional life of woman, see no impropriety in their leading off at country balls, or standing behind stalls at fancy bazaars—far more public places, and where indeed publicity is necessary to success. People who exclaim against ladies who read their own papers at British Associations and Social Science Congress, see no reason why yqung ladies should not entrance dr.iwh'g-rooms full of strangers by singing and taking part in charades and theatricals. Publicity appears to become objectionable when a woman ceases to come forward simply to amuse. Indignation is sure to overtake her if her object is really grave or earnest. The remarks made on such occasions often remind one of the old lady who, being told how Mary Paton, after her husband's death, carried h ; s ship in sife'y round Cape Horn, indignantly exclaimed—' more shame for her; better that every soul had gone to the bottom than that one woman should have stepped out of her sphere.' " No position which is useful and honorable ought to be out of a woman's sphere, As was to be ex* pected De Tcciueville has some admirable remarks:—"Frequently I have seen the domestic influence gradually transforming a man, naturally noble and generous; into a cowardly, com-mon-place, selfish office-seeker, thinking of public affairs merely of making himself comfortable; and this simply by daily contact with a well conducted woman, a faithful wife, and excellent mother, from whose mind the grand notion of public duty was entirely absent." And the true remedy for this state of things is thus stated by that liberal churchman the Rev F. D. Maurice:—" If the Legislature frankly admits women to the exercise of the suffrage, it will, I believe, gradually raise the tone of the whole land, by raising the tone of those who, often to their injury, govern its governors." The late Lord Beaconsfield expressed himself thus:—" I say, that in a country governed by a woman—where you allow woman to form part of the realm—peeresses in their own right, for example; where you allow a woman not only to hold land, but to be a lady of the manor and hold legal courts; where a woman by law may a churchwarden and overseer of the poor; Ido np-t see, where she has so much to do with the State and Church, on what reasons—if you come t) right | -she has not a right to vote." Mr I Gladstone bases his opinion on the firm foundation of eternal right and justice:—" As the law of force is the law of brute creation, so, in proportion j as he is under the yoke of that Jaw, does man approximate to the brute; and in proportion, on the other hand, as he has escaped from its dominion, is he ascending into the higher sphere of being, and claiming relationship with Deity. But the emancipation and due ascendancy of women are not a mere fact; they are the emphatic assertion of a principle, and that principle is the dethronement of other and higher laws in its place."