d to work for bread, and then go out
in search of occupation, knowing no more of one half the things we want
them to do than mere children."

"But when they become skilled," I again asked, "you do not pay them as
high wages as you pay the men, though they do as much and as well?"

"Women don't need as much," he replied. "They can live on less, they pay
less board, have fewer wants, and less occasion for money."

"But don't you think," I rejoined, "that, if you gave them the money,
they would find the wants, and that the scarcity of the former is the
true reason for the limitation of the latter? Do not working-women live
on the little they get only because they are compelled to?"

"It may be so," he answered. "Our wants are born with us,--and as one
set is supplied, another rises up to demand gratification. But they
offer to work for these wages, and why should we give them more than
they ask?"

"But how is it with the women with families, the widows?" I suggested.
"Have they no more wants than young girls? If the fewer necessities of
the girls be a reason for giving them low wages, why should not the more
numerous ones of the widows be as potent a reason for giving them better
wages?"

"Competition again, Miss," he responded. "The prices at which the girls
work govern the market."

There was no getting over facts like these. Let me look at the subject
in whatever aspect I might, it seemed impossible that female labor
should be adequately paid by any class of employers. But on the present
occasion this was an incidental question. The primary one, why so much
more sewing was required for the people now than formerly, was answered
measurably to my satisfaction. I thought a great deal on this subject,
because now, since the loss of our main family-dependence, I was more
interested in its solution. I think I settled down into accepting the
foregoing facts and opinions as embodying a satisfactory explanation;
and although not exactly set at ease, yet the conclusion then embraced
has not been changed by any subsequent discovery.

The gentleman referred to may have been altogether wrong in some parts
of his argument, but I was too little versed in matters of trade, and
the laws of supply and demands to show wherein he was so. It seemed to
me a strange argument, that the consumption of things was to be so
largely attributed to wastefulness. But I suppose this must be what
people call political economy, and how should I