In Waltham, a watch factory has been established, whose statistics I shall use elsewhere.
In Winchester, Va., a father has lately taken a daughter into partnership: and the firm is "J. Wysong and Daughter." [Applause]. Is it not a shame it should happen first in a slave State?
Then conic registers of deeds and postmistresses. We all know that the rural post-office is chiefly in the hands of irresponsible women. Petty politicans obtain the office, take the money, and leave wives and sisters to do the work.
[Here Mrs. Ball read an interesting letter from a female machinist in Delaware; but, as it will be published in another connection, it is here withheld].
Is it easy for women to break the way into new avenues You know it is not,
[Here Mrs. Ball referred to the opposition shown to the employment of women in watch-making, by Mr. Bennett, in London; to the school at Marlborough House; to the employment of women in printing-offices substantiating her statements by dates and names].
When I first heard that women were employed in Staffordshire to paint pottery and china which they do with far more taste than men I heard, also, that the jealousy of the men refused to allow them the customary hand-rest, and so kept down their wages. I refused to believe anything so contemptible. [Applause]. Now the Edinburgh Review confirms the story. Thank God! that could never happen in this country. With us, Labor can not dictate to Capital.
But the great evils which lie at the foundation of depressed ages are: 1st. That want of respect for labor which prevents ladies from engaging in it,
2d. That want of respect for women which prevents men from valuing properly the work they do.
Women themselves must change these facts.
[Mrs. Dall here read some letters to show that wages were at a starving-point in the cities of America as well as in Europe].
I am tired of the folly of the political economist, constantly crying that wages can never rise till the laborers are fewer. You have heard of the old law in hydraulics, that water will always rise to the level of its source; but, if by a forcing-pump, you raise it a thousand feet above, or by some huge syphon drop it a thousand feet below, does that law hold? Very well, the artificial restrictions of society are such a forcing-pump are such a syphon. Make woman equal before the law with man, and wages will adjust themselves.
Hut what is the present remedy? A very easy one for employers to adopt the cash system, and be content with rational profits. In my correspondence during the past year, master-tailors tell me that they pay from eight cents to fifty cents a day for the making of pantaloons, including the heaviest doeskins. Do you suppose they would dare to tell me how they charge that work on their slowly-paying customer's bills? Not th'. The eight cents swells to thirty, the fifty to a dollar or a dollar twenty-five. Put an end to this, and master-tailors would no longer