whom woman is
degraded to the level of the brutes. The first settlers brought it with
them, and it has descended to us as an inheritance. While it is our
province to confront it, we should do so bravely.

But as yet, no woman here is compelled to engage in labor that involves
the necessity of dressing like a man. The law itself forbids such change
of dress; and when it was proposed, some years ago, to so alter our
costume as to make it half male and half female, not for working
purposes, but for mere personal convenience, the public sentiment of the
nation ridiculed and frowned it down. The other sex has been educated to
regard us with a respect and deference too sincere to permit these
foreign degradations to overtake us; while the spirit of independence
infused by the nature of our government, the unrestricted intercourse of
all classes with each other, and that robust training of thought which
it is impossible that any American woman should fail to receive, will
forever place us above the shocking contingencies to which the poor
laborious Englishwoman is exposed. If, in common with her, we are
compelled to work, our labor will keep us respectable, though it fail to
make us rich.

These are some of the compensations which fall to the lot of the
American working-woman. There are many others,--too many, indeed, to be
recited here. Chief among them is the respect and courtesy accorded to
us by all classes. A public insult to a well-behaved woman is never
heard of. We may travel unattended over the vast network of railroads
that traverse our country, and passenger and conductor will vie with
each other in paying us not only respect, but attention. The former
instinctively rises from his seat that we may be accommodated. It is the
same in all public places,--in the streets, in churches, and in places
of public entertainment. At table we are served first. In short, as we
respect ourselves, so will others respect us. The laws have been
modified in our favor. The property of a woman is her own, whether
married or single. It is subject to no invasion by her husband's
creditors, yet her dower in his estate remains good.

These are substantial concessions to our sex, and they are prime
essentials to personal comfort. For my part, I am content with them,
asking no other I have never slept uneasily because the law did not
permit me to vote or to become a candidate for office. The time was, as
I have heard, when women voted, al