Our Female Employes

That niiiny women should bo obliged to curn their living at the expenso of health is one of the unfortunato faets of ! our incomplete civilization. Th.it this niet will exist vntil the majority of social problems are solved seems more probable tlian most hypotheses. Uut th"i-e l are conditions eriforeed upon soine forms of female labor which are not only unnecessary, but absolutoly criminal. PfOíttLnent among suoh is the practico of compellilig shop-girls to stand behind counters froiu seveu or eight o'olock in the morning to six, ciglit or ten o'elock at night. There is not a physiciau in the land who will not teil any employer of help that, as a rule, women, by anatomioal structure, aro unfít to stand all day long, partictilarly in this country, ■where nerves and falso living have made them inñiiitely moro delicate tlian Nature ever intended. There are establishmeuts wherein may be i'ouud printed regulations commanding employés " always to stand, to dress neatly and to be I ; only half an liour at diunor." It '. muy bc, as Milton says, that " they also i serve -vlio only stand and wait, " but why j must shop-girE " always stand" while l serving mammon ? That they should be " dressed neatly " is proper ; that they should be absent "only half an hour at l dinner" is thorouglily American and highly irniroper as conducive to ! si;i and fts attendant ills ; that they j should " always stand " ia brutal. Am(ricans, shopkeeping or otherwise, aro not in the habit of possessing stomachs ; aro they also without bowels i of compassion ? ïs there something ín-: the natpre of a high stool iniinical tol trado? Has total aeprnvity marked it for its oavii ? Is a sitting position, which womon tako as iustinctively as ducks take to water, ofl'ousivc in the sight of ! gods and men '. What is the meaningof , rules that wt physiological rules at defiance and slmvly dig the graves of countIes8 pale-faced girls ? As thero is a j oiety fot the Preveirtion of Cruelty to Animáis, there fihould be a Kociety for the l'reventiou of Oruelty to Fcmalo La; borers. AViU no chivahroua Bergb arise to iiglit the battles of the weak? Orhas chivalry so faded iuto the biiseless fabric of a dream that the might of capital will Í crush out the rights of humanity as persistently in the future as it did in the past ?-