Mr. Speaker, when a young woman graduates from college and starts looking for a job, she is likely to have a frustrating and even demeaning experience ahead of her. If she walks into an office for an interview, the first question she will be asked is, “Do you type?”

There is a calculated system of prejudice that lies unspoken behind that question. Why is it acceptable for women to be secretaries, librarians, and teachers, but totally unacceptable for them to be managers, administrators, doctors, lawyers, and Members of Congress?

The unspoken assumption is that women are different. They do not have executive ability, orderly minds, stability, leadership skills, and they are too emotional.

It has been observed before, that society for a long time discriminated against another minority, the blacks, on the same basis – that they were different and inferior. The happy little homemaker and the contented “old darkey” on the plantation were both produced by prejudice.

As a black person, I am no stranger to race prejudice. But the truth is that in the political world I have been far oftener discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am black.

Prejudice against blacks is becoming unacceptable although it will take years to eliminate it. But it is doomed because, slowly, white America is beginning to admit that it exists. Prejudice against women is still acceptable. There is very little understanding yet of the immorality involved in double pay scales and the classification of most of the better jobs as “for men only.”

More than half of the population of the United States is female. But women occupy only 2 percent of the managerial positions. They have not even reached the level of tokenism yet. No women sit on the AFL-CIO council¹ or Supreme Court. There have been only two women who have held Cabinet rank, and at present there are none. Only two women now hold ambassadorial rank in the diplomatic corps. In Congress, we are down to one Senator and 10 Representatives.

Considering that there are about 3 1/2 million more women in the United States than men, this situation is outrageous.

It is true that part of the problem has been that women have not been aggressive in demanding their rights. This was also true of the black population for many years. They submitted to oppression and even cooperated with it. Women have done the same thing. But now there is an awareness of this situation particularly among the younger segment of the population.

As in the field of equal rights for blacks, Spanish-Americans, the Indians, and other groups, laws will not change such deep-seated problems overnight. But they can be used to provide protection for those who are most abused, and to begin the process of evolutionary change by compelling the insensitive majority to reexamine its unconscious attitudes.

It is for this reason that I wish to introduce today a proposal that has been before every Congress for the last forty years and that sooner or later must become part of the basic law of the land – the equal rights amendment.

Let me note and try to refute two of the commonest arguments that are offered against this amendment. One is that women are already protected under the law and do not need legislation. Existing laws are not adequate to secure equal rights for women. Sufficient proof of this is the concentration of women in lower paying, menial, unrewarding jobs and their incredible scarcity in the upper level jobs. If women are already equal, why is it such an event whenever one happens to be elected to Congress?

It is obvious that discrimination exists. Women do not have the opportunities that men do. And women that do not conform to the system, who try to break with the accepted patterns, are stigmatized as “odd” and “unfeminine.” The fact is that a woman who aspires to be chairman of the board, or a Member of the House, does so for exactly the same reasons as any man. Basically, these are that she thinks she can do the job and she wants to try.

A second argument often heard against the equal rights amendment is that it would eliminate legislation that many States and the Federal Government have enacted giving special protection to women and that it would throw the marriage and divorce laws into chaos.

As for the marriage laws, they are due for a sweeping reform, and an excellent beginning would be to wipe the existing ones off the books. Regarding special protection for working women, I cannot understand why it should be needed. Women need no protection that men do not need. What we need are laws to protect working people, to guarantee them fair pay, safe working conditions, protection against sickness and layoffs, and provision for dignified, comfortable retirement. Men and women need these things equally. That one sex needs protection more than the other is a male supremacist myth as ridiculous and unworthy of respect as the white supremacist myths that society is trying to cure itself of at this time.

The post Speech Introducing the Equal Rights Amendment appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.

The notion that men and women stand as equals before the law was not the original understanding, nor was it the understanding of the Congress that framed the Civil War amendments. . . .

Mid-nineteenth century feminists, many of them diligent workers in the cause of abolition, looked to Congress after the Civil War for an express guarantee of equal rights for men and women.¹ But the text of the Fourteenth Amendment appalled the proponents of a sex equality guarantee. Their concern centered on the abortive second section of the amendment, which placed in the Constitution for the first time, the word “male.” Threefold use of the word “male,” always in conjunction with the term “citizen,” caused concern that the grand phrases of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment – due process and equal protection of the laws – would have, at best, qualified application to women.

After close to a century’s effort, the suffrage amendment was ratified, according to female citizens the right to vote. The most vigorous proponents of that amendment saw it as a beginning, not as a terminal point. Three years after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the National Women’s Party succeeded in putting before Congress the equal rights amendment that has been reintroduced in every Congress since 1923. . . .

Persons unacquainted with the history of the amendment deplore its generality and the absence of investigation concerning its impact. The models of the due process and equal protection clauses should suffice to indicate that the wording of the amendment is a thoroughly responsible way of embodying fundamental principle in the Constitution. Before the amendment was proposed, the National Women’s Party, with the aid of a staff of lawyers and expert consultants, tabulated state and federal legislation and court decisions relating to the status of women. Advisory councils were formed, composed of different economic and professional groups of women – industrial workers, homemakers, teachers and students, federal employees. Each council conducted studies of the desirability of equal rights and responsibilities for men and women. Reading debates on the amendment in the law journals of the 1920s is enlightening. The objections still voiced in 1973 were solidly answered then.

Opponents of the amendment suggest the pursuit of alternate routes: particularized statutes through the regular legislative process in Congress and in the states, and test case litigation under the Fourteenth Amendment. Only those who have failed to learn the lessons of the past can accept that counsel. . . .

. . . A recent government computer search, the solicitor general told the Supreme Court this term, revealed that 876 sections in the United States Code contain sex-based references. Similar searches in some of the states have turned up hundreds of state statutes in need of revision.

Will major legislative revision occur without the impetus of the equal rights amendment? Probably not if past experience is an accurate barometer. . . .

A preview of the kind of revision that can be expected under the stimulus of the amendment has been provided by legislative analyses in some of the states. These analyses should reassure those who fear intolerable change in the wake of the amendment. They propose extension of desirable protection to both sexes; for example, state minimum wage laws would be extended to men; in no case do they propose depriving either sex of a genuine benefit now enjoyed.

As a sample of laws destined for the scrap heap if the amendment is ratified, consider these: Arizona law stipulates that the governor, secretary of state, and treasurer must be male. In Ohio only men may serve as arbitrators in county court proceedings. In Wisconsin barbers are licensed to cut men’s hair and women’s hair, but cosmeticians may attend to women only. Georgia law, still faithful to Blackstone, provides:

The husband is head of the family and the wife is subject to him; her legal civil existence is merged in the husband’s, except so far as the law recognizes her separately, either for her own protection, or for her benefit, or for the preservation of public order.

Another embarrassment from the same state reads: “Any charge or intimation against a white female of having sexual intercourse with a person of color is slanderous without proof of special damages.” Legislative inertia keeps laws of this kind on the books. Prof. Thomas Emerson summarized the situation this way: “It is not a weakness but a strength of the amendment that it will force prompt consideration of changes that are long overdue.” . . .

In the 1971 term, a new direction was signaled when the Supreme Court responded affirmatively to two complaints of unconstitutional sex discrimination. In Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971), the Court . . . relied on the due process clause to hold that an unwed father who wished to retain custody of his children had to be given a hearing of the kind that would be accorded to any mother or any married father. The opinions in both cases were laconic; they provided an uncertain basis for predicting the Court’s future course.

On May 14, 1973, in Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, the Court moved forward more swiftly than many had anticipated; in effect, it served notice that sex discrimination by law would no longer escape rigorous constitutional review. . . .

. . . If the equal rights amendment is adopted, the hard task of revision will be undertaken in earnest; absent ratification, comprehensive revision may continue to be regarded as “premature and unnecessary.”

Reasoned appraisal of the amendment requires consideration of the realities of life for an increasing population of women in the latter half of the twentieth century. . . . [O]ver the last fifty years the percentage of working women in the population has approximately doubled, and the projection is that this trend will accelerate. . . .

With the disappearance of home-centered economic activity, and the possibility now open to women to determine whether and when to bear children, perceptive persons of both sexes recognize that there is no justification for confining women to a role of their own.

Some aspects of the traditional arrangement disfavor men, and some exact a toll from both sexes. Women who have paid serious attention to laws that appear to disfavor men agree with the position stated by Sarah Grimke, noted abolitionist and advocate of equal rights for men and women. She said in 1837: “I ask no favors for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” Favors rarely come without an accompanying detriment. Too often men of the law fail to grasp this basic point.

A number of “horribles” have been raised in opposition to the amendment. Four of them dominate the literature of amendment opponents.

First horrible. Women will lose the benefit of protective labor laws. Today, challenges to these laws rarely emanate from male employers who wish to overwork women. Since the passage of Title VII,² they have come overwhelmingly from blue-collar working women to overcome what they regard as a system that protects them against higher paying jobs and promotions. In the vast majority of Title VII employment discriminations cases, courts have understood these challenges. Legislatures are beginning to abandon disingenuous protection for women and to extend genuine protection to all workers. Models are ample. In Norway, for example, where opposition to “special protection for women only” came predominantly from women’s organizations, a 1956 workers protective act assures safe and healthy conditions for employees of both sexes. Moreover, extension rather than invalidation of laws that benefit only one sex is a route recently traveled by the Supreme Court. In Frontiers v. Richardson, fringe benefits for married male members of the military were extended to married female members. The National Women’s Party put it this way decades ago in 1926: protective legislation that is desirable

Should be enacted for all workers. . . . Legislation that in-cludes women but exempts men . . . limits the woman worker’s scope of activity . . . by barring her from econ-omic opportunity. Moreover, restrictive conditions [for women but not for men] fortifies the harmful assump-tions that labor for pay is primarily the prerogative of the male.

Second horrible. Wives will lose the right to support. Only if our legislatures or courts act capriciously, spitefully, without regard for the public welfare, and in flagrant disregard of the intent of the Amendment’s proponents. In a growing number of states the equal rights amendment will occasion no change whatever in current support law. In these states, and under the amendment in all states, either husband or wife can be awarded support depending on the couple’s circumstances. Who pays in any particular family will depend upon the division of responsibilities within that family unit. If one spouse is the breadwinner and the other performs uncompensated services at home, the breadwinning spouse will be required to support the spouse who works at home.

Underlying the amendment is the premise that a person who works at home should do so because she, or he, wants to, not because of an unarticulated belief that there is no choice. The essential point, sadly ignored by the amendment’s detractors, is this: the equal rights amendment does not force anyone happy as a housewife to relinquish that role. On the contrary, it enhances that role by making it plain that it was chosen, not thrust on her without regard to preference.

Third horrible. Women will be forced to serve in the military. Only if men are, and assignments would be made on the basis of the individual capacity rather than sex. With the draft terminated, it is high time for consideration of the other side of that coin. Women who wish to enlist must meet considerably higher standards than men; women in service are denied fringe benefits granted men and do not receive equal vocational training opportunities. The reason for higher standards for women was given by an Air Force colonel in a deposition taken in December, 1972. He explained: “We have had and we continue to have roughly twice as many women apply[ing] as we are able to . . . take. . . . We don’t have an excess of men over what we can take.”

Young women’s groups uniformly testified during congressional hearings on the amendment that they did not wish exemption from responsibility for service. Conspicuous among these groups was the 200,000 member Intercollegiate Association of Women Students, a group appropriately characterized as “middle American.”

In 1948, long before women and the military became an emotion-charged issue in connection with the equal rights amendment, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower observed:

Like most old soldiers I was violently against women sol-diers. I thought a tremendous number of difficulties would occur, not only of an administrative nature . . . but others of a more personal type that would get us into trouble. None of that occurred. . . . In the disciplinary field, they were . . . a model for the Army. More than this their influence throughout the whole command was good. I am convinced that in another war they have got to be drafted just like the men.

Final horrible. Rest rooms in public places could not be sex separated. Emphatically not so, according to the amendment’s proponents in Congress, who were amused at the focus on the “potty problem.” Apart from referring to the constitutional regard for personal privacy, they expressed curiosity about the quarter from which objections to current arrangements would come. Did the people who voiced concern suppose that men would want to use women’s rest rooms or that women would want to use men’s? In any event, the clever solution devised by the airlines suggests one way out of the problem.

Some people have expressed fear of a “flood of litigation” in the wake of the equal rights amendment. But the dramatic increase in sex discrimination litigation under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments in the 1970s is indicative that, if anything, ratification of the amendment will stem the tide. The amendment will impel the comprehensive legislative revision that neither Congress nor the states have undertaken to date. The absence of long overdue statutory revision is generating cases by the hundreds across the country. Legislatures remain quiescent despite the mounting judicial challenges, challenges given further impetus by the Supreme Court’s decision in Frontiero v. Richardson. Ratification of the amendment, however, would plainly mark as irresponsible any legislature that did not undertake the necessary repairs during the two-year period between ratification and effective date.

To date, three fifths of the states have ratified the amendment; these thirty states represent a clear majority of the country’s population. One state, Nebraska, has attempted to withdraw its ratification. But New Jersey and Ohio took the same action with respect to the Fourteenth Amendment, and New York ratified and then withdrew its ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Congress at that time evidently concluded that ratification, once accomplished, could not be undone. New Jersey and Ohio counted to constitute the requisite three fourths for promulgation of the Fourteenth Amendment. New York was counted among the states that ratified the Fifteenth Amendment.

The equal rights amendment, in sum, would dedicate the nation to a new view of the rights and responsibilities of men and women. It firmly rejects sharp legislative lines between the sexes as constitutionally tolerable. Instead, it looks toward a legal system in which each person will be judged on the basis of individual merit and not on the basis of an unalterable trait of birth that bears no necessary relationship to need or ability. As the Federal Legislation Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York explained:

[T]he Amendment would eliminate patent discrim-ination, including all laws which prohibit or discourage women from making full use of their political and economic capabilities on the strength of notions about the proper “role” for women in society. Any special exemptions or other favorable treatment required by some women because of their physical stature or family roles could be preserved by statutes which utilize those factors – rather than sex – as the basis for distinction.

The post The Need for the Equal Rights Amendment appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.

The home life of the Indian of to-day is essentially the same as the home life of the Indian of thirty years ago. Any progress he may have made is due to change of environment, produced by the coming of white people, and the consequent passing away of old customs.

The daily routine of home life is the same, the aforesaid change produced by environment being shown by the fact that in place of the tepee the Indian once occupied, he now lives in a frame house and can boast of a well, a stable, a few fruit trees and a vegetable garden. The fact that in place of hunting wild game over the prairies, he now farms and raises good crops of corn, wheat, and oats makes but little difference in the internal workings of the home.

Long ago the Indian had a removable house suited to his requirements, a tepee or tent which was made of buckskin or canvas stretched over a pyramid formed by means of poles tied together at the top with buckskin, a house easy to carry around with him in his nomadic journeyings.

When the tribe found a place where they could settle down and live eight months in the year they built mud lodges as their permanent residences. These are dome-shaped, the frame work consisting of poles, willow branches and rushes, and from base to apex it is covered with sod several inches thick. They have wide entranceways, several feet long and high enough to permit a tall person to stand upright. They are like tunnels leading into the lodge, which is circular in form. Light and air enter by means of a large circular opening in the top of the dome, this also serving as a means of exit for the smoke. The lodge is well ventilated – warm in winter and cool in summer. Several families live in them at a time, and the only two or three now left on this reservation are used for holding councils, public gatherings and dances, as they can accommodate over a hundred people.

How often as children we used to climb upon these lodges and pick the sunflowers and grasses growing on them. Near sunset the old men would sit up on these lodges where they could pursue their meditations undisturbed and alone, and I remember looking at them reverently as I played around with the other children, for I regarded them with a great deal of awe, for to me they seemed so wise.

Trodden by hundreds of feet the earthen floor is almost as hard as stone, and coming in from the hot dusty road how gratefully cool it felt to our little bare feet as we played in and out, riding our make-believe horse made of sunflower stalks. In the center is a little hollow where the fire is built and all the cooking is done. Around this place we used to gather to listen to thrilling stories of battles with the dreaded Sioux, buffalo hunts and ghost stories. When it came to the last I used to look up fearfully at the opening above, for fear I should see a dog looking down, for it is a superstition among the Indians that if a dog looks down through this opening into the lodge some one of the company is sure to die soon. If such a thing happened the dog was killed immediately. It was always a relief to see the blue sky and stars looking down.

After a while the Indians built log houses of only one room, the roof covered with turf.

Now, on this reservation we have almost every family living in a neat frame house, one story or one story and a half high, wainscoted, plastered or papered inside; very clean and neatly painted outside. The premises are clear of rubbish.

These houses are built by the Indians with their own money, but the desire to own such houses was started several years ago when the “Connecticut Home-Building Fund” started the Home-Building Department of the Women’s National Indian Association.¹ The seed then sown has borne fruit here and elsewhere. Whether you enter with me into a tent, a mud-lodge or log house, or one of these neat frame houses you would see the same home-life going on in every one of them.

There is little variation, one day of the week being almost the same as another.

The family usually arise early – in the summer about sunrise, but in winter the breakfast is usually considerably delayed, for they follow suntime. In most cases the hostess arises and builds the fire, gets the water and cooks the simple meal. Very few have had bread, but it is now getting to be the general rule in many families to make light bread. They have biscuit made with soda or baking powder, and sometimes “fried cakes,” light brown in color and very appetizing. Coffee, sometimes fresh beef, for, in this country where there are thousands of head of cattle it is hard to get beef; sometimes fruit, dried, and in the summer potatoes and beans. You can see that their diet is very simple. The food is divided and put on plates, the coffee is poured out into cups and then the food is handed around to each individual. Usually after the meal is over the dishes are put away in a little cupboard. If it is summer the husband and men in the family go out to their work and the wife cleans up the house and begins to get the noon-meal. It is the same as breakfast. They do not do very much sewing for their clothes are simply and quickly made. The houses on the reservation are far apart and the women cannot very well pass away the time by gossip with the neighbors, as some of our white friends have the privilege of doing. What a deprivation is this! Let us all be thankful for our privileges.

The evening meal is simple, and the time between that and the retiring hour is spent in talking over the events of the day or in telling news. We have no telegraph lines or telephones, but news has a wonderfully quick way of travelling from one house to another. Rumors on a reservation are the same as rumors anywhere else. When they reach the end (?)² of their journey they have received quite an addition, and a wise person will credit only one third of the story as truth.

There are no books, pictures or recreations save the dances, and no games except cards which are used for gambling. A narrow life in some respects. The Indians are passionately fond of their children; having no books, pictures or recreations in their home life, they lavish all attention on their children. There are some cases where the step-father or step-mother, as the case may be, makes no difference whatever between their children and the step-children. They show their affection for their children also.

Some ask the absurd question, “Do the Indians really love their wives?” The Indians are human beings just as the white people are, and there are Indian men who are just as careful, watchful and affectionate to their wives as anyone would wish to see anywhere. They do not make an outward show of their affection, but I know from personal observation that they are truly devoted to each other. One day I had to pull a young woman’s tooth, and as the husband was a strong muscular man I was in hopes he would support her head for me. He sent for his brother to do it and when he saw me take the forceps up he beat a hasty retreat. I heard him walking up and down in the other room, and when they told him I was through he appeared with such a happy relieved look on his face and thanked me so earnestly. I could not help but be glad for him that she was through with her suffering. There are many instances like this that I know of. Of course, there are some cases entirely different, and where there is no happiness. But so we find it wherever we go in this world.

Indian women no longer stand in the background. Few work in the fields or do heavy work. Where it used to be the lot of the women to provide the wood, now the men get it in almost all cases. Even in so small a thing as walking or riding where the woman had to walk behind or ride in the back of the wagon, now she walks beside her husband, and in vehicles you see the woman riding beside her husband on the seat.

The old customs are fast disappearing and in place of the Indian of twenty years ago, who lived in a tent and supported himself by hunting wild game, we have an independent man who is earning his bread by his own toil, living in a frame house and learning very fast how to transact business like white people. The wife standing beside her husband shows only his true advancement, and the home is happier for this progress.

The post 鈥淭he Home Life of the Indian鈥� appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.

This volume and its companion, which covers American history to 1865, are part of an ongoing series of document volumes produced by the 澳门六合彩开奖直播 at Ashland University.

The post Documents and Debates in American History and Government – Vol. 2, 1865-2009 appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.

It may be laid down as a general rule, with but few exceptions, that men are rewarded in an inverse ratio to the amount of actual service they perform. Under every government on earth the largest salaries are annexed to those offices, which demand of their incumbents the least amount of actual labor either mental or manual. And this is in perfect harmony with the whole system of repartition of the fruits of industry, which obtains in every department of society. Now here is the system which prevails, and here is its result. The whole class of simple laborers are poor, and in general unable to procure anything beyond the bare necessaries of life.

In regard to labor two systems obtain; one that of slave labor, the other that of free labor. Of the two, the first is, in our judgment, except so far as the feelings are concerned, decidedly the least oppressive. If the slave has never been a free man, we think, as a general rule, his sufferings are less than those of the free laborer at wages. As to actual freedom one has just about as much as the other. The laborer at wages has all the disadvantages of freedom and none of its blessings, while the slave, if denied the blessings, is freed from the disadvantages. We are no advocates of slavery, we are as heartily opposed to it as any modern abolitionist can be; but we say frankly that, if there must always be a laboring population distinct from proprietors and employers, we regard the slave system as decidedly preferable to the system at wages. It is no pleasant thing to go days without food, to lie idle for weeks, seeking work and finding none, to rise in the morning with a wife and children you love, and know not where to procure them a breakfast, and to see constantly before you no brighter prospect than the almshouse. . . .

We pass through our manufacturing villages; most of them appear neat and flourishing. The operatives are well dressed, and we are told, well paid. They are said to be healthy, contented, and happy. This is the fair side of the picture; the side exhibited to distinguished visitors. There is a dark side, moral as well as physical. Of the common operatives, few, if any, by their wages, acquire a competence. . . . [T]he great mass wear out their health, spirits, and morals, without becoming one whit better off than when they commenced labor. The bills of mortality in these factory villages are not striking, we admit, for the poor girls when they can toil no longer go home to die. The average life, working life we mean, of the girls that come to Lowell, for instance, from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, we have been assured, is only about three years. What becomes of them then? Few of them ever marry; fewer still ever return to their native places with reputations unimpaired. 鈥淪he has worked in a Factory,鈥� is almost enough to damn to infamy the most worthy and virtuous girl. We know no sadder sight on earth than one of our factory villages presents, when the bell at break of day, or at the hour of breakfast, or dinner, calls out its hundreds or thousands of operatives. We stand and look at these hard-working men and women hurrying in all directions, and ask ourselves, where go the proceeds of their labors? The man who employs them, and for whom they are toiling as so many slaves, is one of our city nabobs, reveling in luxury; or he is a member of our legislature, enacting laws to put money in his own pocket; or he is a member of Congress, contending for a high Tariff to tax the poor for the benefit of the rich; or in these times, he is shedding crocodile tears over the deplorable condition of the poor laborer, while he docks his wages twenty-five per cent building miniature log cabins, shouting Harrison and 鈥渉ard cider.鈥� And this man too would fain pass for a Christian and a republican. He shouts for liberty, stickles for equality, and is horrified at a Southern planter who keeps slaves. . . .

The slave system . . . in name and form, is gradually disappearing from Christendom. It will not subsist much longer. But its place is taken by the system of labor at wages, and this system, we hold, is no improvement upon the one it supplants. Nevertheless the system of wages will triumph. It is the system which in name sounds honester [sic] than slavery, and in substance is more profitable to the master. It yields the wages of iniquity, without its opprobrium. It will therefore supplant slavery, and be sustained for a time.

Now, what is the prospect of those who fall under the operation of this system? We ask, is there a reasonable chance that any considerable portion of the present generation of laborers, shall ever become owners of a sufficient portion of the funds of production, to be able to sustain themselves by laboring on their own capital, that is, as independent laborers? We need not ask this question, for everybody knows there is not. Well, is the condition of a laborer at wages the best that the great mass of the working people ought to be able to aspire to? Is it a condition, nay can it be made a condition, with which a man should be satisfied, in which he should be contented to live and die? . . .

Let us not be misinterpreted. We deny not the power of Christianity. Should all men become good Christians, we deny not that all social evils would be cured. But we deny in the outset that a man, who seeks merely to save his own soul, merely to perfect his own individual nature, can be a good Christian. The Christian forgets himself, buckles on his armor, and goes forth to war against principalities and powers, and against spiritual wickedness in high places. No man can be a Christian who does not begin his career by making war on the mischievous social arrangements from which his brethren suffer. He who thinks he can be a Christian and save his soul, without seeking their radical change, has no reason to applaud himself for his proficiency in Christian science, nor for his progress towards the kingdom of God. Understand Christianity, and we will admit, that should all men become good Christians, there would be nothing to complain of. But one might as well undertake to dip the ocean dry with a clam-shell, as to undertake to cure the evils of the social state by converting men to the Christianity of the Church.

The evil we have pointed out, we have said, is not of individual creation, and it is not to be removed by individual effort, saving so far as individual effort induces the combined effort of the mass. . . .

Now the evils of which we have complained are of a social nature. That is, they have their root in the constitution of society as it is . . . the action of government, of laws, and of systems and institutions upheld by society, and of which individuals are the slaves. This being the case, it is evident that they are to be removed only by the action of society, that is, by government, for the action of society is government.

But what shall government do? Its first doing must be an undoing.

There has been thus far quite too much government, as well as government of the wrong kind. The first act of government we want, is a still further limitation of itself. It must begin by circumscribing within narrower limits its powers. And then it must proceed to repeal all laws which bear against the laboring classes, and then to enact such laws as are necessary to enable them to maintain their equality. We have no faith in those systems of elevating the working classes, which propose to elevate them without calling in the aid of government. We must have government, and legislation expressly directed to this end.

But again what legislation do we want so far as this country is concerned? We want first the legislation which shall free the government, whether State or Federal, from the control of the Banks. The Banks represent the interest of the employer, and therefore of necessity interests adverse to those of the employed; that is, they represent the interests of the business community in opposition to the laboring community. So long as the government remains under the control of the Banks, so long it must be in the hands of the natural enemies of the laboring classes, and may be made, nay, will be made, an instrument of depressing them yet lower. It is obvious then that, if our object be the elevation of the laboring classes, we must destroy the power of the Banks over the government, and place the government in the hands of the laboring classes themselves, or in the hands of those, if such there be, who have an identity of interest with them.

The post The Laboring Classes appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.

The Special Committee to which was referred sundry petitions relating to the hours of labor, have considered the same and submit the following Report:

The first petition which was referred to your committee, came from the city of Lowell, and was signed by Mr. John Quincy Adams Thayer, and eight hundred and fifty others, “peaceable, industrious, hard working men and women of Lowell.” The petitioners declare that they are confined “from thirteen to fourteen hours per day in unhealthy apartments,” and are thereby “hastening through pain, disease and privation, down to a premature grave.” They therefore ask the Legislature “to pass a law providing that ten hours shall constitute a day’s work,” and that no corporation or private citizen “shall be allowed except in cases of emergency, to employ one set of hands more than ten hours per day.”

The second petition came from the town of Fall River, and is signed by John Gregory and four hundred and eighty-eight others. These petitioners ask for the passage of a law to constitute “ten hours a day’s work in all corporations created by the Legislature.”

The third petition signed by Samuel W. Clark and five hundred others, citizens of Andover, is in precisely the same words as the one from Fall River.

The fourth petition is from Lowell, and is signed by James Carle and three hundred others. The petitioners ask for the enactment of a law making ten hours a day’s work, where no specific agreement is entered into between the parties.

The whole number of names on the several petitions is 2,139, of which 1,151 are from Lowell. A very large proportion of the Lowell petitioners are females. Nearly one half of the Andover petitioners are females. The petition from Fall River is signed exclusively by males.

In view of the number and respectability of the petitioners who had brought their grievances before the Legislature, the Committee asked for and obtained leave of the House to send for “persons and papers,” in order that they might enter into an examination of the matter, and report the result of their examination to the Legislature as a basis for legislative action, should any be deemed necessary.

On the 13th of February, the Committee held a session to hear the petitioners from the city of Lowell. Six of the female and three of the male petitioners were present, and gave in their testimony.

The first petitioner who testified was Eliza R. Hemmingway. She had worked 2 years and 9 months in the Lowell Factories; 2 years in the Middlesex, and 9 months in the Hamilton Corporations. Her employment is weaving-works by the piece. The Hamilton Mill manufactures cotton fabrics. The Middlesex, woollen fabrics. She is now at work in the Middlesex Mills, and attends one loom. Her wages average from $16 to $23 a month exclusive of board. She complained of the hours for labor being too many, and the time for meals too limited. In the summer season, the work is commenced at 5 o’clock, a.m., and continued till 7 o’clock, p.m., with half an hour for breakfast and three quarters of an hour for dinner. During eight months of the year, but half an hour is allowed for dinner. The air in the room she considered not to be wholesome. There were 293 small lamps and 61 large lamps lighted in the room in which she worked, when evening work is required. These lamps are also lighted sometimes in the morning. 澳门六合彩开奖直播 130 females, 11 men, and 12 children (between the ages of 11 and 14) work in the room with her. She thought the children enjoyed about as good health as children generally do. The children work but 9 months out of 12. The other 3 months they must attend school. Thinks that there is no day when there are less than six of the females out of the mill from sickness. Has known as many as thirty. She, herself, is out quite often, on account of sickness. There was more sickness in the Summer than in the Winter months; though in the Summer, lamps are not lighted. She thought there was a general desire among the females to work but ten hours, regardless of pay. Most of the girls are from the country, who work in the Lowell Mills. The average time which they remain there is about three years. She knew one girl who had worked there 14 years. Her health was poor when she left. Miss Hemmingway said her health was better where she now worked, than it was when she worked on the Hamilton Corporation. She knew of one girl who last winter went into the mill at half past 4 o’clock, a.m., and worked till half past 7 o’clock, p.m. She did so to make more money. She earned from $25 to $30 per month. There is always a large number of girls at the gate wishing to get in before the bell rings. On the Middlesex Corporation one fourth part of the females go into the mill before they are obliged to. They do this to make more wages. A large number come to Lowell to make money to aid their parents who are poor. She knew of many cases where married women came to Lowell and worked in the mills to assist their husbands to pay for their farms. The moral character of the operatives is good. There was only one American female in the room with her who could not write her name.

Miss Sarah G. Bagley said she had worked in the Lowell Mills eight years and a half, six years and a half on the Hamilton Corporation, and two years on the Middlesex. She is a weaver, and works by the piece. She worked in the mills three years before her health began to fail. She is a native of New Hampshire, and went home six weeks during the summer. Last year she was out of the mill a third of the time. She thinks the health of the operatives is not so good as the health of females who do house-work or millinery business. The chief evil, so far as health is concerned, is the shortness of time allowed for meals. The next evil is the length of time employed – not giving them time to cultivate their minds. She spoke of the high moral and intellectual character of the girls. That many were engaged as teachers in the Sunday schools. That many attended the lectures of the Lowell Institute; and she thought, if more time was allowed, that more lectures would be given and more girls attend. She thought that the girls generally were favorable to the ten hour system. She had presented a petition, same as the one before the Committee, to 132 girls, most of whom said that they would prefer to work but ten hours. In a pecuniary point of view, it would be better, as their health would be improved. They would have more time for sewing. Their intellectual, moral and religious habits would also be benefited by the change. Miss Bagley said, in addition to her labor in the mills, she had kept evening school during the winter months, for four years, and thought that this extra labor must have injured her health. . . .

Miss Elizabeth Rowe has worked in Lowell 16 months, all the time on the Lawrence Corporation, came from Maine, she is a weaver, works by the piece, runs four looms. “My health,” she says, “has been very good indeed since I worked there, averaged three dollars a week since I have been there besides my board; have heard very little about the hours of labor being too long.” She consented to have her name put on the petition because Miss Phillips asked her to. She would prefer to work only ten hours. Between 50 and 60 work in the room with her. Her room is better ventilated and more healthy than most others. Girls who wish to attend lectures can go out before the bell rings; my overseer lets them go, also Saturdays they go out before the bell rings. It was her wish to attend four looms. She has a sister who has worked in the mill seven years. Her health is very good. Don’t know that she has ever been out on account of sickness. The general health of the operatives is good. Have never spoken to my employers about the work being too hard, or the hours too long. Don’t know any one who has been hastened to a premature grave by factory labor. . . .

Mr. Gilman Gale, a member of the city council, and who keeps a provision store, testified that the short time allowed for meals he thought the greatest evil. He spoke highly of the character of the operatives and of the agents; also of the boarding houses and the public schools. He had two children in the mills who enjoyed good health. The mills are kept as clean and as well ventilated as it is possible for them to be. . . .

The above testimony embraces all the important facts which were elicited from the persons who appeared before the Committee.

On Saturday the 1st of March, a portion of the Committee went to Lowell to examine the mills, and to observe the general appearance of the operatives therein employed. They arrived at Lowell after an hour’s ride upon the railroad. They first proceeded to the Merrimack Cotton Mills, in which are employed usually 1,200 females and 300 males. They were permitted to visit every part of the works and to make whatever inquiries they pleased of the persons employed. They found every apartment neat and clean, and the girls, so far as personal appearance went, healthy and robust, as girls are in our country towns.

The Committee also visited the Massachusetts and Boott Mills, both of which manufacture cotton goods. The same spirit of thrift and cleanliness, of personal comfort and contentment, prevailed there. The rooms are large and well lighted, the temperature comfortable, and in most of the window sills were numerous shrubs and plants, such as geraniums, roses, and numerous varieties of the cactus. These were the pets of the factory girls, and they were to the Committee convincing evidence of the elevated moral tone and refined taste of the operatives.

The Committee also visited the Lowell and the Middlesex mills; in the first of which carpets are manufactured, and in the second, broadcloths, cassimeres,¹ &c. These being woolen mills, the Committee did not expect to find that perfect cleanliness which can be and has been attained in cotton mills. It would, however, be difficult to institute a comparison between the mills on this point, or to suggest an improvement. Not only is the interior of the mills kept in the best order, but great regard has been paid by many of the agents to the arrangement of the enclosed grounds. Grass plats have been laid out, trees have been planted, and fine varieties of flowers in their season, are cultivated within the factory grounds. In short, everything in and about the mills, and the boarding houses appeared, to have for its end, health and comfort. The same remark would apply to the city generally. Your committee returned fully satisfied, that the order, decorum, and general appearance of things in and about the mills, could not be improved by any suggestion of theirs, or by any act of the Legislature.

During our short stay in Lowell, we gathered many facts, which we deem of sufficient importance to state in this report, and first, in relation to the Hours of Labor.

From Mr. Clark, the agent of the Merrimack Corporation, we obtained the following table of the time which the mills run during the year.

Begin work. From 1st May to 31st August, at 5 o’clock. From 1st September to 30th April, as soon as they can see.

Breakfast. From 1st November to 28th February, before going to work. From 1st March to 31st of March, at 7 1/2 o’clock. From 1st April to 19th September, at seven o’clock. From 20th September to 31st October, at 7 1/2 o’clock. Return in half an hour.

Dinner. Through the year at 12 1/2 o’clock. From 1st May to 31st August, return in 45 minutes. From 1st September to 30th April, return in 30 minutes.

Quit work. From 1st May to 31st August, at 7 o’clock. From 1st September to 19th September, at dark. From 20th September to 19th March, at 7 1/2 o’clock. From 20th March to 30th April, at dark.

Lamps are never lighted on Saturday evenings. The above is the time which is kept in all the mills in Lowell, with a slight difference in the machine shop; and it makes the average daily time throughout the year, of running the mills, to be twelve hours and ten minutes.

There are four days in the year which are observed as holidays, and on which the mills are never put in motion. These are Fast Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. These make one day more than is usually devoted to pastime in any other place in New England. The following table shows the average hours of work per day, throughout the year, in the Lowell Mills:

. . .

In Lowell, but very few (in some mills none at all) enter into the factories under the age of fifteen. None under that age can be admitted, unless they bring a certificate from the school teacher, that he or she has attended school at least three months during the preceding twelve. Nine-tenths of the factory population in Lowell come from the country. They are farmers’ daughters. Many of them come over a hundred miles to enter the mills. Their education has been attended to in the district schools, which are dotted like diamonds over every square mile of New England. Their moral and religious characters have been formed by pious parents, under the paternal roof. Their bodies have been developed, and their constitutions made strong by pure air, wholesome food, and youthful exercise.

After an absence of a few years, having laid by a few hundred dollars, they depart for their homes, get married, settle down in life, and become the heads of families. Such, we believe, in truth, to be a correct statement of the Lowell operatives, and the hours of labor.

THE GENERAL HEALTH OF THE OPERATIVES. In regard to the health of the operatives employed in the mills, your Committee believe it to be good. The testimony of the female petitioners does not controvert this position, in general, though it does in particular instances. The population of the city of Lowell is now rising 26,000, of which number, about 7,000 are females employed in the mills. It is the opinion of Dr. Kirnball, an eminent physician of Lowell, with whom the Committee had an interview, that there is less sickness among the persons at work in the mills, than there is among those who do not work in the mills; and that there is less sickness now than there was several years ago, when the number was much less than at present. This we understood to be also the opinion of the city physician, Dr. Wells, from whose published report for the present year, we learn that the whole number of deaths in Lowell, during the year 1844, was 362, of which number, 200 were children under ten years of age.

*Totals of enumerated diseases are: 1840, 137; 1841, 190: 1842, 221: 1843, 147; 1844.161 – ED.

The preceding table shows the comparative mortality in Lowell during the past five years, enumerating some of the principal diseases.

The population of Lowell, in May, 1840, was 7,341 males and 13,740 females; total, 20,981. The population in May, 1844, was 9,432 males, 15,637 females; total, 25,163; increase of population in four years, 4,182. Notwithstanding this increase of population, the number of deaths has decreased. There being fewer the past year than in any of the four preceding years, and 64 less in 1844 than in 1840. Yet, during the past year, the mills have been in more active operation than during either of the four years preceding. The decrease in the mortality of Lowell, Dr. Wells attributes, in part, to “the enlightened policy of the city government, in directing the construction of common sewers, and the enterprise of individuals, in multiplying comfortable habitations, the establishment of a hospital, supported by the liberality of the corporations, for the accommodation of the sick in their employ. The more general diffusion of a knowledge of the laws of health, is also conducive to the same end.”

The petitioners thought that the statements made by our city physician, as to the number of deaths, were delusive, inasmuch as many of the females when taken sick in Lowell do not stay there, but return to their homes in the country and die. Dr. Kimball thought that the number who return home when seized with sickness was small. Mr. Cooper, whose testimony we have given, and who is a gentleman of great experience, says that he has known but one girl who, during the last eight years, went home from Lowell and died. We have no doubt, however, that many of the operatives do leave Lowell and return to their homes when their health is feeble, but the proportion is not large. Certainly it has created no alarm, for the sisters and acquaintances of those who have gone home return to Lowell to supply the vacancies which their absence had created.

In the year 1841, Mr. French, the agent of the Boott Mills, adopted a mode of ascertaining from the females employed in that mill the effect which factory labor had upon their health. The questions which he put were: “What is your age?” “How long have you worked in a cotton mill?” “Is your health as good as before?”

These questions were addressed to every female in “No. 2, Boott Mill.” The committee have the names of the females interrogated, and the answers which they returned, and the result is as follows:

LIST OF GIRLS IN BOOTT MILL, NO. 2 – May 1st, 1841

*The [overall] averages above computed [in the line labeled “Whole No.”] are incorrect. “Average Age” should be 24 years, 330 days; “Average time employed” should be 4 years, 310 days. – ED.

To these questions, several of the girls appended remarks. One girl, named S. Middleton, had worked in a mill nine years. She says, “health quite as good; has not been sick in the time.” Miss Proctor says, “have worked fourteen years; health a great deal better; sick when out of the mill.” A Miss Lawrence says, “have been five years in a mill; health quite as good; not a day’s sickness in the time.” A Miss Clark says, “have been seventeen years in the mill; health quite as good; hasn’t hurt her a mite.” The Boott Mill employs about nine hundred girls, not half a dozen of whom are under fifteen years of age. . . .

There are many interesting facts connected with this inquiry which your Committee have not included in the foregoing remarks, and which we could not include without making our report of too voluminous a character.

We will state, however, in this connection, that the evidence which we obtained from gentlemen connected with the Lowell Mills all goes to prove that the more intelligent and moral the operatives are, the more valuable they are to the employers, and the greater will be the amount of their earnings.

Your Committee have not been able to give the petitions from the other towns in this State a hearing. We believed that the whole case was covered by the petition from Lowell, and to the consideration of that petition we have given our undivided attention, and we have come to the conclusion unanimously, that legislation is not necessary at the present time, and for the following reasons:

1st. That a law limiting the hours of labor, if enacted at all, should be of a general nature. That it should apply to individuals or co-partnerships as well as to corporations. Because, if it is wrong to labor more than ten hours in a corporation, it is also wrong when applied to individual employers, and your Committee are not aware that more complaint can justly be made against incorporated companies in regard to the hours of labor, than can be against individuals or co-partnerships. But it will be said in reply to this, that corporations are the creatures of the Legislature, and therefore the Legislature can control them in this, as in other matters. This to a certain extent is true, but your Committee go farther than this, and say, that not only are corporations subject to the control of the Legislature but individuals are also, and if it should ever appear that the public morals, the physical condition, or the social well-being of society were endangered, from this cause or from any cause, then it would be in the power and it would be the duty of the Legislature to interpose its prerogative to avert the evil.

2d. Your Committee believe that the factory system, as it is called, is not more injurious to health than other kinds of indoor labor. That a law which would compel all of the factories in Massachusetts to run their machinery but ten hours out of the 24, while those in Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and other States in the Union, were not restricted at all, the effect would be to close the gate of every mill in the State. It would be the same as closing our mills one day in every week, and although Massachusetts capital, enterprise and industry are willing to compete on fair terms with the same of other States, and, if needs be, with European nations, yet it is easy to perceive that we could not compete with our sister States, much less with foreign countries, if a restriction of this nature was put upon our manufactories.

3d. It would be impossible to legislate to restrict the hours of labor, without affecting very materially the question of wages; and that is a matter which experience has taught us can be much better regulated by the parties themselves than by the Legislature. Labor in Massachusetts is a very different commodity from what it is in foreign countries. Here labor is on an equality with capital, and indeed controls it, and so it ever will be while free education and free constitutions exist. And although we may find fault, and say, that labor works too many hours, and labor is too severely tasked, yet if we attempt by legislation to enter within its orbit and interfere with its plans, we will be told to keep clear and to mind our own business. Labor is intelligent enough to make its own bargains, and look out for its own interests without any interference from us; and your Committee want no better proof to convince them that Massachusetts men and Massachusetts women, are equal to this, and will take care of themselves better than we can take care of them, than we had from the intelligent and virtuous men and women who appeared in support of this petition, before the Committee.

4th. The Committee do not wish to be understood as conveying the impression, that there are no abuses in the present system of labor; we think there are abuses; we think that many improvements may be made, and we believe will be made, by which labor will not be so severely tasked as it now is. We think that it would be better if the hours for labor were less, if more time was allowed for meals, if more attention was paid to ventilation and pure air in our manufactories, and work-shops, and many other matters. We acknowledge all this, but we say, the remedy is not with us. We look for it in the progressive improvement in art and science, in a higher appreciation of man’s destiny, in a less love for money, and a more ardent love for social happiness and intellectual superiority. Your Committee, therefore, while they agree with the petitioners in their desire to lessen the burthens imposed upon labor, differ only as to the means by which these burthens are sought to be removed. . . .

WILLIAM SCHOULER, Chairman.

The post Massachusetts Lawmakers Investigate Working Conditions in Lowell appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.

The day is over, no longer will we toil and spin;

For evening鈥檚 hush withdraws from the daily din.

And how we sing with gladsome hearts,

The theme of the spinner鈥檚 song.

That labor to leisure a zest imparts,

Unknown to the idle throng.

We spin all day, and then, in the time for rest,

Sweet peace is found, A joyous and welcome guest.

Despite of toil we all agree, or out of the Mills or in,

Dependent on others we never will be,

So long as we are able to spin.

The post Song of the Spinners from the Lowell Offering appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.

Bound for New England.

Weymouth, 20^th of March 1635.

1 Joseph Hull, of Somerset, a Minister, aged 40 years

2 Agnes Hull, his wife, aged 25 years

3 Joane Hull, his daughter, aged 15 years

4 Joseph Hull, his son, aged 13 years

5 Tristram, his son, aged 11 years

6 Elizabeth Hull, his daughter, aged 7 years

7 Temperance, his daughter, aged 9 years

8 Grissell Hull, his daughter, aged 5 years

9 Dorothy Hull, his daughter, aged 3 years

10 Judith French, his servant, aged 20 years

11 John Wood, his servant, aged 20 years

12 Robert Dabyn, his servant aged, 28 years

13 Musachiell Bernard of Batcombe, clothier in the County of Somerset, 24 years

14 Mary Bernard, his wife, aged 28 years

15 John Bernard, his son, aged 3 years

16 Nathaniel, his son, aged 1 year

17 Rich. Persons, salter & his servant, 30 years

18 Francis Baber, chandler, aged 36 years

19 Jesope, joiner, aged 22 years

20 Walter Jesop, weaver, aged 21 years

21 Timothy Tabor, in Somerset of Batcombe, tailor, aged 35 years

22 Jane Tabor, his wife, aged 35 years

23 Jane Tabor, his daughter, aged 10 years

24 Anne Tabor, his daughter, aged 8 years

25 Sarah Tabor, his daughter, aged 5 years

26 Will[ia]m Fever, his servant, aged 20 years

27 Jn^o. Whitmarke, aged, 30 years

28 Alce Whitmarke, his wife, aged 35 years

29 Jm. Whitmarke, his son, aged 11 years

30 Jane, his daughter, aged 7 years

31 Oaseph Whitmarke, his son, aged 5 years

32 Rich: Whitemarke, his son, aged 2 years

33 Willm Read, of Batcombe, tailor in Somerset, aged 25 years

34 [no name entered]

35 Susan Read, his wife, aged 29 years

36 Hanna Read, his daughter, aged 3 years

37 Susan Read, his daughter, aged 1 years

38 Rich: Adams, his servant, 29 years

39 Mary, his wife, aged 26 years

40 Mary Cheanne, his daughter, aged 1 years

41 Zachary Bickewell, aged 45 years

42 Aguis Bickewell, his wife, aged 27 years

43 Jn^o Bickewell, his son, aged 11 years

44 Jn^o Kitchin, his servant, 23 years

46 George Allyn, his son, aged 21 years

47 Katherin Allyn, his wife, aged 30 years

48 George Allyn, his son, aged 10 years

49 Willm Allyn, his son, aged 8 years

50 Mathew Allyn, his son, aged 6 years

51 Edward Poole, his servant, aged 26 years

52 Henry Kingman, aged 40 years

53 Joane, his wife, being aged 39

54 Edward Kingman, his son, aged 16 years

55 Joane, his daughter, aged 11 years

56 Anne, his daughter, aged 9 years

57 Thomas Kingman, his son, aged 7 years

58 John Kingman, his son, aged 2 years

59 Jⁿ Ford, his servant, aged 30 years

60 William Kinge, aged 40 years

61 Dorothy, his wife, aged 34 years

62 Mary Kinge, his daughter, aged 12 years

63 Katheryn, his daughter, aged 10 years

64 Willm Kinge, his son, aged 8 years

65 Hanna Kinge, his daughter, aged 6 years

66 Thomas Holbrooke of Broadway, aged 34 years

67 Jane Hobrooke, his wife, aged 34 years

68 John Holbrooke, his son, aged 11 years

69 Homas Holbrooke, his son, aged 10 years

70 Anne Holbrooke, his daughter, aged 5 years

71 Elizabeth, his daughter, aged 1 years

72 Thomas Dible, husbandman, aged 22 years

73 Francis Dible, sawyer, aged 24 years

74 Robert Lovell, husbandmen, aged 40 years

75 Elizabeth Lovell, his wife, aged 35 years

76 Zacheus Lovell, his son, 15 years

78 Anne Lovell, his daughter, aged 16 years

79 John Lovell, his son, aged 8 years

Ellyn, his daughter, aged 1 year

80 James, his son, aged 1 year

81 Joseph Chickin, his servant, 16 years

82 Alice Kinham, aged 22 years

83 Angell Hollard, aged 21 years

84 Katheryn, his wife, 22 years

85 George Land, his servant, 22 years

86 Sarah Land, his Kinswoman, 18 years

87 Richard Joanes of Dinder

88 Robt Martyn of Badcombe, husbandman, 44

89 Humfrey Shepheard, husbandman, 32

90 John Upham, husbandman, 35

91 Joane Martyn, 44

92 Elizabeth Upham, 32

93 John Upham, Junior, 7

94 William Grane, 12

95 Sarah Upham, 26

96 Nathaniell Upham, 5

97 Eliazabeth Upham, 3

98 Dorset Richard Wade of Simstuly, cooper, aged 60

99 Elizabeth Wade, his wife, 6[?]

100 Dinah, his daughter, 22

101 Henry Luch, his servant, aged 17

102 Andrew Hallett, his servant, 28

103 John Hobble, husbandman, 13

104 Robt Huste, husbandman, 40

105 John Woodcooke, 2[?]

106 Rich: Porter husbandman, 3[?]

The post Passengers Bound for New England appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.

May it please the Honourable Bench to indulge me a few Words: I am a poor unhappy Woman; who have no Money to Fee Lawyers to plead for me, being hard put to it to get a tolerable Living. I shall not trouble your Honours with long Speeches; for I have not the presumption to expect, that you may, by any Means, be prevailed on to deviate in your Sentence from the Law, in my Favour. All I humbly hope is, that your Honours would charitably move the Governor鈥檚 Goodness on my Behalf, that my Fine may be remitted. This is the Fifth Time, Gentlemen, that I have been dragg鈥檇 before your Courts on the same Account; twice I have paid heavy Fines, and twice have been brought to public Punishment, for want of Money to pay those Fines. This may have been agreeable to the Laws; I do not dispute it: But since Laws are sometimes unreasonable in themselves, and therefore repealed; and others bear too hard on the Subject in particular Circumstances; and therefore there is left a Power somewhere to dispense with the Execution of them; I take the Liberty to say, that I think this Law, by which I am punished, is both unreasonable in itself, and particularly severe with regard to me, who have always lived an inoffensive Life in the Neighbourhood where I was born, and defy my Enemies (if I have any) to say I ever wrong鈥檇 Man, Woman, or Child. Abstracted from the Law, I cannot conceive (may it please your Honours) what the Nature of my Offence is. I have brought Five fine Children into the World, at the Risque of my Life: I have maintained them well by my own Industry, without burthening the Township, and could have done it better, if it had not been for the heavy Charges and Fines I have paid. Can it be a Crime (in the Nature of Things I mean) to add to the Number of the King鈥檚 Subjects, in a new Country that really wants People? I own I should think it rather a Praise worthy, than a Punishable Action. I have debauch鈥檇 no other Woman鈥檚 Husband, nor inticed any innocent Youth: These Things I never was charged with; nor has any one the least cause of Complaint against me, unless, perhaps the Minister, or the Justice, because I have had Children without being Married, by which they have miss鈥檇 a Wedding Fee. But, can even this be a Fault of mine? I appeal to your Honours. You are pleased to allow I don鈥檛 want Sense; but I must be stupid to the last Degree, not to prefer the honourable State of Wedlock, to the Condition I have lived in. I always was, and still am, willing to enter into it; I doubt not my Behaving well in it, having all the Industry, Frugality, Fertility, and Skill in Oeconomy, appertaining to a good Wife鈥檚 Character. I defy any Person to say I ever Refused an Offer of that Sort: On the contrary, I readily Consented to the only Proposal of Marriage that ever was made me, which was when I was a Virgin; but too easily confiding in the Person鈥檚 Sincerity that made it, I unhappily lost my own Honour, by trusting to his; for he got me with Child, and then forsook me: That very Person you all know; he is now become a Magistrate of this County; and I had hopes he would have appeared this Day on the Bench, and have endeavoured to moderate the Court in my Favour; then I should have scorn鈥檇 to have mention鈥檇 it; but I must Complain of it as unjust and unequal, that my Betrayer and Undoer, the first Cause of all my Faults and Miscarriages (if they must be deemed such) should be advanced to Honour and Power, in the same Government that punishes my Misfortunes with Stripes and Infamy. I shall be told, 鈥檛is like, that were there no Act of Assembly in the Case, the Precepts of Religion are violated by my Transgressions. If mine, then, is a religious Offence, leave it, Gentlemen, to religious Punishments. You have already excluded me from all the Comforts of your Church Communion: Is not that sufficient? You believe I have offended Heaven, and must suffer eternal Fire: Will not that be sufficient? What need is there, then, of your additional Fines and Whippings? I own, I do not think as you do; for, if I thought, what you call a Sin, was really such, I would not presumptuously commit it. But how can it be believed, that Heaven is angry at my having Children, when, to the little done by me towards it, God has been pleased to add his divine Skill and admirable Workmanship in the Formation of their Bodies, and crown鈥檇 it by furnishing them with rational and immortal Souls? Forgive me Gentlemen, if I talk a little extravagantly on these Matters; I am no Divine: But if you, great Men, (*) must be making Laws, do not turn natural and useful Actions into Crimes, by your Prohibitions. Reflect a little on the horrid Consequences of this Law in particular: What Numbers of procur鈥檇 Abortions! and how many distress鈥檇 Mothers have been driven, by the Terror of Punishment and public Shame, to imbrue, contrary to Nature, their own trembling Hands in the Blood of their helpless Offspring! Nature would have induc鈥檇 them to nurse it up with a Parent鈥檚 Fondness. 鈥橳is the Law therefore, 鈥檛is the Law itself that is guilty of all these Barbarities and Murders. Repeal it then, Gentlemen; let it be expung鈥檇 for ever from your Books: And on the other hand, take into your wise Consideration, the great and growing Number of Batchelors in the Country, many of whom, from the mean Fear of the Expence of a Family, have never sincerely and honourably Courted a Woman in their Lives; and by their Manner of Living, leave unproduced (which I think is little better than Murder) Hundreds of their Posterity to the Thousandth Generation. Is not theirs a greater Offence against the Public Good, than mine? Compel them then, by a Law, either to Marry, or pay double the Fine of Fornication every Year. What must poor young Women do, whom Custom has forbid to sollicit the Men, and who cannot force themselves upon Husbands, when the Laws take no Care to provide them any, and yet severely punish if they do their Duty without them? Yes, Gentlemen, I venture to call it a Duty; 鈥檛is the Duty of the first and great Command of Nature, and of Nature鈥檚 God, Increase and multiply: A Duty, from the steady Performance of which nothing has ever been able to deter me; but for it鈥檚 Sake, I have hazarded the Loss of the public Esteem, and frequently incurr鈥檇 public Disgrace and Punishment; and therefore ought, in my humble Opinion, instead of a Whipping, to have a Statue erected to my Memory.

(*) Turning to some Gentlemen of the Assembly, then in Court.

The Maryland Gazette, August 11, 1747; first printed April 15, 1747

The post The Speech of Miss Polly Baker appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.

I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent natural Inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper Remedy. It is the most natural State of Man, and therefore the State in which you are most likely to find solid Happiness. Your Reasons against entring into it at present, appear to me not well-founded. The circumstantial Advantages you have in View by postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the Thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the Man and Woman united that make the compleat human Being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason; he, her Softness, Sensibility and acute Discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the World. A single Man has not nearly the Value he would have in that State of Union. He is an incomplete Animal. He resembles the odd Half of a Pair of Scissars. If you get a prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient.

But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:

1. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor鈥檇 with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.

2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.

3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc鈥檇 may be attended with much Inconvenience.

4. Because thro鈥� more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin鈥檇 to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.

5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.

6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.

7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.

8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!

Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely Your affectionate Friend.

The post Old Mistresses Apologue appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.