Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/55

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THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT
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made to their humanity, and the first demand upon their patriotism. They became indefatigable workers, many of them losing their lives in the work. They organised clubs which they called 'Dare to die' clubs. They smuggled ammunition into the country for the use of the rebels. They fought by the side of the men in many an encounter, and mounted the scaffold with them when taken prisoners. They organised the hospital work and nursed the sick and the wounded.

Their revolutionary clubs they have since converted into woman suffrage clubs, of which there are several with more than two hundred members each. The popular vote has not been given to the women by the successful Republicans, but the women of the Canton Province voted for their Provisional Assembly, and the Assembly itself, a law-making body, contained nine women members. Of their deliberations, Mrs Chapman Catt was on one occasion an interested and delighted spectator.

The wealthier women in China fill in their time making garments for their families, and in working at all kinds of beautiful embroideries. The women who must earn their living are employed much as are the women of Western lands, though, in Great Britain, one never sees women dock labourers, a common occupation for women in China. Their wages are anything from a half to two-thirds of the