s the rarity of the American domestic. A pity?
Yes; but what else can you expect? The Americans are a dominant race.
Free education has made all classes too nearly equal for one woman to
bend her neck willingly and accept the yoke of servitude offered by
another woman.

And even this is spared to the actress, since her directions are more
often received from the stage manager or manager than from a woman star.
True, her life is hard, she has no home comforts; but, then, she has no
heavy duties to perform, no housework, bed-making, sweeping,
dish-washing, or clothes-washing, and when her work is done, she is her
own mistress. She goes and comes at her own will; she has time for
self-improvement, but best of all she has something to look forward to.
That is a great advantage over girls of other occupations, who have such
a small chance of advancement.

Some impetuous young reader who speaks first and thinks afterward may
cry out that I am not doing justice to the profession of acting, even
that I discredit it in thus comparing it with humble and somewhat
mechanical vocations; so before I go farther, little enthusiasts, let me
remind you of the wording of this present query. It does not ask what
advantage has acting over other professions, over other arts, but "What
advantage has it over other occupations for women?"

A very sweeping inquiry, you see; hence this necessary comparison with
shop, factory, and office work. As to the other professions, taking, for
instance, law or medicine, preparations for practice must be very
costly. A girl puts her family to a great strain to pay her college
expenses, or if some family friend advances funds, when she finally
passes all the dreaded examinations, and has the legal right to hang out
her shingle, she starts in the race of life handicapped with crushing
debts.

The theatre is, I think, the only place where a salary is paid to
students during all the time they are learning their profession; surely
a great, a wonderful advantage over other professions to be
self-sustaining from the first.

Then the arts, but ah! life is short and art, dear Lord, art is long,
almost unto eternity. And she who serves it needs help, much help, and
then must wait, long and wearily, for the world's response and
recognition, that, even if they come, are apt to be somewhat uncertain,
unless they can be cut on a marble tomb; then they are quite positive
and hearty. But in the art of acting the respo