back! For shame! this unmanly intrusion into the women's apartments. Vast numbers, in the guise of clerks and small shopkeepers, have so long played at the spinning Achilles and Hercules that they have quite forgotten their natural vocation, and have degenerated, in too many instances, into downright Sardanapali. To make their imitation of the self-degradation of the Oriental monarch complete, nothing is wanting but the chignon, crinoline, and train,—which by law they should be compelled to wear,—as they stand measuring ribbons and tapes so daintily to their women customers. If the tailor who made clothes for his own sex were correctly valued by the doughty old standard, as only "the ninth part of a man," what a mere shred must he be who busies himself about the clothes of women! And, in truth, the excessive smallness, meanness, and cunning of many of the faces among the men in the dry-goods stores must be admitted by everybody who gives them a moment's attention. How can our sturdy farmers allow their young sons to go into such a contemptible business! When modern manhood falls so utterly below its proper level, why should modern womanhood be blamed? Mrs. Jameson said well concerning the thirty thousand man-milliners of London, "Where are their thirty thousand sisters?" Where indeed? Let the women do women's work. Give us the yard-stick, heroes, and let us relieve you behind the counter, that you may go behind the plough and be off to those fields where truest glory is to be won in wresting from Dame Nature her treasures of golden grain and sweet-smelling hay. Thus, each in a fitting sphere, shall we make a good fight for the world.
As for the large dealers, many of them have wholesale departments in their establishments already, and they would keep them; but it is very evident that if women combine to purchase their own stuffs, and in every co-operative association employ two or three of their own number at high salaries to choose them, the importers and manufacturers will no longer find it for their interest, if, indeed, they find it possible, to manufacture so much worthless
