gent, affectionate girls, whom, even in their uncared-for state, it was impossible not to love. He taught them a little himself, and tried to teach them more; but between the comfortless irregularities and the actual troubles of home, and an entire want of support from his wife, who at times was moved even to deride what were praiseworthy efforts by the father, the domestic tutor was not very assiduous, or very successful. The girls grew on, and bloomed, and were loveable, but owed little to any outward or visible system of instruction. Was it ill or well for them, that when Laura, the third, was about twelve, their unhappy, petulant, negligent mother died? Emmeline Vernon was all that—and yet she was their mother, and the scale of frailties must be heavily weighted before it descends against that word. Well, or ill? Perhaps events may aid us in judging.
This, then, was the father of Mrs. Lygon. To complete his story, a few words will suffice. The death of Mrs. Vernon, after a trying illness, made more trying by privations and troubles, and by the unfortunate disposition of the sufferer, was scarcely felt as a blow by her husband, whose nature she had hardened, in no small degree, by her demonstrative unfitness to share the lot they had risked together. But before the mother was laid in the grave, two of her aunts, who had never forgiven her a marriage with an Atheist, Profligate, and Blasphemer (they were of Clapham, and Clapham has never been accused of inarticulateness, however little justice or charity may have to do with its utterances), saw that they could properly come forward to the rescue of their niece’s children. On the solemn condition that Mr. Vernon should not interfere with the education of the children, or give them any of his infidel books to read, the Misses Judson would make the family a regular allowance, and pay the bills at a day-school. This point, however, was attained only by more determined obstinacy than Archibald had been credited with. Nothing—not even the solemn assurance of both the old ladies that his daughters were certainly going, Clapham mentioned where, but I had rather not—would induce him to part with his children, and a compromise was at length effected. He was asked whether he objected to reside in the country, to which he replied in the negative, adding, convincingly, from a pious poet whom it was rather strange that he should know:
“God made the country and man made the town.”
The Misses Judson requested him not to be profane during the brief time they should be together, and were rather offended than not on its being shown to them that the line was by Mr. Cowper, who wrote so many Olney Hymns. However, being in the forgiving way, they forgave this and other matters, or said they did, and, at all events, Mr. Vernon and his daughters were soon afterwards settled at Lipthwaite, one of whose Evangelical ministers was a Christian friend of the old ladies, and Beatrice, Bertha, and Laura were sent to a tolerably good school.
“Now, of instruction as well as of ignorance,” says the heathen writer, “there are various kinds.”
THE NEEDLEWOMAN.
HER HEALTH.
If my readers were at this moment to tell their thoughts, we should find them ready to turn away from the disagreeable and well-worn subject of Distressed Needlewomen, that class which has been the grief and shame of society from the day when Hood published the “Song of the Shirt.” We all grow weary of any hopeless prospect; and we may well think that everything that can be said about the poor needlewomen has been said many times over, through many years. But perhaps I am not going to say much of poor sempstresses; and perhaps, also, their condition is not the desperate and hopeless thing it was. Perhaps the topic of the health of women who sew may have some interest of another kind than that which makes us miserable.
Who are the needlewomen of our country? I wish I could reply, all the women in the country. I should be heartily glad if there were no women, from the palace to the cottage, who were unable to cut out and make clothes, and to amuse their minds and gratify their taste by ornamental needlework. It is the unequal distribution of the art which causes so much misery in many ways among us, and which causes the art itself to deteriorate as it does.
Here it may be objected that the very reason of the depression of the needlewomen as a class is that sewing is a universal feminine employment, so that professional sempstresses are reduced to the very lowest rate of pay by the competition of the whole sex; whereas, in other occupations, the competition arises from some restricted rivalry in their own trade. This is partly true. It is true, no doubt, in regard to the shirts and petticoats, and the children’s clothes in ordinary domestic use. Middle-class families make these things at home, by the hands of mothers, daughters, and maids; and throughout that order of society it would be thought strange to spend money in paying sempstresses liberally for work which can be done at home. Thus, when plain-work is given out at all by household managers, it is at a rate so low that one wonders how it answers to the sempstress; but here again comes in the peculiarity of the case. The sempstress is, nine times in ten, a wife or mother engaged in a home of her own, and wishing to earn something in the hours when she can sew. In short, sewing both is and is not a professional occupation; and the consequence is that it is the worst paid, because every private needlewoman helps to reduce the pay of the professional sempstress. But it does not follow from this that all domestic women can sew.
If girls had fair play in education, I believe that all would be needlewomen, from natural liking. I have seen many bad needlewomen, and some who could hardly sew at all; but I never saw one who might not, I believe, have enjoyed the satisfactions of the art, if there had not been neglect and mismanagement. One would think that girls of the labouring class, whose lives are not overfull of pleasures, might be provided with this simple and pleasant occupation, which would be profitable to them in every way: yet how many are there of that very large class who are skilful in the art?