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HERE we have a trio of occupations in which women have shown themselves experts. The first two are, when well managed, very remunerative. The third will probably become more remunerative when the silk manufactories of the United States are increased.

W. L. Hutchinson, in an article published a few months ago in the Washington (D. C.) Home Magazine, says:

"Of the minor rural industries none appeal more strongly to women than that of bee-keeping. In one sense bees may be made pets in something the same way as in maybe done with fowls; in fact, they need the constant care and attention that a woman can give with such deftness to any object in whose welfare she is interested, be it a house-plant, a chicken, a baby or a colony of bees. Then, too, bee-keeping has its aesthetical side. It has very appropriately been called the poetry of agriculture. The busy little workers leaving their hives to gather nectar from the beautiful flowers, the dainty white combs that they build, the exhilaration of swarming, all appeal to woman's poetical nature. Not only this, but bees take their owner out into the sunshine where heaven's own breezes put color in faded cheeks. Of course a woman cannot care for so large a number of colonies as can be taken care of by a man, but for what she can do the remuneration is fully as great as that which could be secured by the same strength put into some other industry. There is one branch of the industry that is particularly adapted to

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women--that is, the rearing and sale of queen bees. This requires almost constant attention to a great many details, but none of the work is laborious. Quite a number of women have been wonderfully successful in this line of bee keeping.

"Fear of stings probably keeps a great many women out of bee-keeping; but this fear is almost wholly groundless, as a thorough knowledge of the disposition of bees, and of methods of protecting the person, will almost wholly prevent the getting of stings. If sufficient care is exercised the operator need never be stung. In the first place, bees sting only in defence of their lives. There may be an occasional exception to this, but it is the rule. Bees out in the field gathering honey are as harmless as so many bluebirds. It is only near the hive that an attack is ever volunteered, and need not be expected there if the bees are pure Italians of a peaceable strain.

"The first step is to procure some literature upon the subject and 'read up.' I will give the addresses of the leading periodicals in this country devoted to bee culture. Gleanings in Bee Culture, Medina, Ohio; America Bee Journal, Chicago, Ill.; American Bee Keeper, Jamestown, N. Y.; Bee Keeper's Review, Flint, Mich.; and The Progressive Bee Keeper, Higginsville, Mo. The editors of any of these publications will gladly send sample copies, and in the columns of these journals will be found the advertisements of text-books upon bee-keeping. After having read one or two books devoted to bees and their care, it is an excellent thing to visit the apiary of some successful bee-keeper, and to subscribe to one or more of the magazines devoted to bee culture. It is difficult for a beginner to understand much that is in the magazines until he has read some of the text-books. After getting a fair theoretical knowledge of bee- keeping from reading and visiting bee-keepers, a few colonies of bees should be purchased; just how many is difficult to say. Probably a dozen colonies would be as large a number as a beginner ought to commence with, and it is possible to begin with only one colony. The point is just here; it is likely that some mistake will be made at first, and it is better that the mistake be made with only a few colonies, letting bees and the knowledge increase hand in hand.

"Buy Italian bees in movable comb hives of the nearest reliable bee- keeper, unless the bees would have to be sent a long distance by express, when if bees in box hives can be bought near at home and at low prices, it may be better to get them and to transfer them than to pay enormous express charges. All in all, Italian bees are the most desirable, at least for a beginner. They are the most gentle, the best of workers, and a beautiful golden color, while with the modern methods and fixtures most excellent results can be obtained from them."

A woman in Santa Ana, California, who sells thousands of jars of honey every season, gave the following statement to the author of "Women in the Business

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World": "Neatness and order are essential, and energy is necessary. There should be no human drones about an apiary. Any of the standard works on bees can be relied upon. Much can be learned from the bee journals.

"Five hundred dollars will start any one with fifty colonies of bees and all necessary appurtenances to operate the business. An income can be expected within a year, or less time. It is a business which gives quicker returns for the capital invested than any I know of. Should a woman have a liking for this occupation, and not the capital, she can begin with a few swarms and soon build up and increase her colonies, and in a few years have a large apiary. As the bees would only require a small portion of her time, she could be employed in some other employment besides. The average yield of a colony in California is one hundred pounds of honey, besides the increase."

A Maine woman declares that when the price of box honey is good that she averages fifty dollars from each swarm of bees.

Bee-keeping in cities has been tried in recent years with surprising success. Roofs have been found to be good places for the hives. Bees range a long distance for their food, and parks and gardens furnish the city bee with fine banquets and his owner with much honey.

"Poultry raising," declares Samuel Cushman, for seven years president of the Rhode Island Agricultural College, "is one of the best paying occupations in which anybody can engage. Women, as a general thing, do better with poultry than men, their tendency to look after small details being much to the advantage of the business. The most successful poultry raisers I have known have been women. One should read up well before he engages in this pursuit, and although the business can be started on small capital, it is better if the one who engages in it has considerable money to put into it at the start."

Land which is too barren and sterile for anything else serves every purpose of poultry raising.

In a comprehensive article in the Cosmopolitan John B. Walker, Jr., says:

"As the problem of living becomes more complicated from the competition resulting from increasing population, attention is being given to many industries which in former times were held as of little consequence. How to live comfortably off the product of twenty acres is an interesting question to the man or woman who seeks escape from the confinement of the town or city; and one direction, which is attracting not a few, is poultry farming. The incubators on the market to-day do not require the care of an expert of long standing. There are two classes of apparatus--one heated by hot water, the other by hot air. Some are regulated by thermostatic bars made of brass, iron, rubber and aluminum; others by alcohol, ether, electricity and the expansion of water. The eggs are placed in trays and the trays put in the incubators directly under the tank that supplies the

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heat to the egg-chamber--the incubators being built double-walled and the air space packed with asbestos to prevent sudden changes of temperature from affecting the egg-chamber. In size the smaller incubators range from twenty-five to six hundred eggs capacity, and can be operated the year round, although the results are less successful during the hot summer months than in the spring or fall, or even in the winter.

"On the larger poultry farms the incubators have an underground room specially constructed to secure the eggs from sudden changes of temperature.

"There are poultry plants that, if kept steadily at work, and every egg put in the incubators were hatched, would be able to turn out three hundred thousand chickens each year, and there have recently been built some large incubators with a capacity of sixty thousand hen eggs, which would give a capacity of more than half a million a year.

"The chickens are easily hatched; but it requires the closest watching and much experience to bring them to marketable age. The incubator does not merely do away with the hen as a hatcher, but supplies a demand for broilers at a time of the year when it would be impossible to persuade the hen to set, and is of unlimited capacity, economically considered. Where formerly we were able to hatch one chicken we can now hatch a thousand.

"In order to give some idea of the profit to be derived from chicken farming, a computation has been made which supposes that each hen averages two hundred eggs per year, and that she is kept for two years and then sold. The estimate regards her as laying thirty-three dozen eggs, for which a fair price would be twenty-five cents per dozen--rather low for fresh eggs. This would amount to eight dollars and eighty-five cents. If it cost two dollars to raise and feed the chicken for two years, there would remain a net profit of three dollars and forty-two cents a year; and the profit derived from ducks and broilers is estimated to be even larger. In New York City and vicinity the poultry and eggs consumed in one year amount to forty-five million dollars--while that of the entire United States probably does not fall below seven hundred million dollars. An estimate published in a leading poultry journal puts the number used in this country last year by calico print works, wine clarifiers and photographic establishments at fifty-four million dozens, and many additional millions by book-binders, kid- glove manufacturers and for finishers of fine leather.

"Year by year the agriculturist sees more clearly the advantage of the small, well-cultivated farm, and to this class poultry raising offers special inducements. The season when most farmers are idle is that during which the poultry man is busiest.

"Plum or pear trees can be made to bear wonderfully well when planted in the chicken-yard. They not only afford the birds a desirable and efficient shade,

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but the chickens keep the trees free of insects. In fact, on some of the large poultry-farms, the fruit obtained from the trees in the chicken- yard, when placed on the market, amounts to a very large item every season.

"A traveler," says the writer of "Women in the business World," tells of a farmer's daughter in California, who, on her return from college, gave her attention to raising chickens, and netted a thousand dollars a year from her work. She had a number of small enclosures, each with capacity for forty chickens, with a little house in the centre. The cost of all the enclosures and tiny houses was less than two hundred dollars."

The same author is authority for the following:

"A chicken farm in New Jersey which has buildings that cost $5000 all made out of the business, was started three years ago with only $25.00 in money. The proprietor is a man who has been engaged in business in New York all the time, and could only give it his personal attention nights and mornings. His only farm is devoted exclusively to the production of eggs. As he has 1000 laying hens, which he manages to keep laying almost the year round, it is easy to see that his income is very respectable. "Some start with a capital of $100, and others have put as high as $40,000 into the business in the beginning."

Eternal vigilance, and very deft and delicate vigilance, is the price of successful silk culture. The want of near markets and the coldness of the American climate render it difficult to derive any large benefits from this fascinating employment. The business should have a special building or room to meet the requirements for hatching the eggs. Artificial heat must always be employed during hatching time. The process of hatching is facilitated by washing the eggs in clear water, thus removing a kind of gumminess which adheres to them when they are laid. As the eggs are about the size of a pinhead this washing is a decidedly delicate affair.

The natural food of the worm is the white mulberry leaf. It will also eat the leaf of the black mulberry, and lettuce leaves, but the black mulberry leaves so late in the season it is practically useless as food for the insects. To keep the worms from crowding together, the food must be carefully distributed on their trays. Many cultivators chop the leaves fine and strew them about.

Great care must be taken not to allow the worms of one hatch to mix with those of the other hatches unless exactly of the same age, as the stronger insects deprive the weaker of food.

The eggs are laid at the beginning of one summer, and hatched at the beginning of the next. The caterpillar changes his skin four or five times during his growth, and when near one of these changes is apt to die. The eggs cost about $5.00 an ounce. The green cocoons are sold from fifty to seventy-five cents a pound. The price of the reeled silk varies from $5.00 to $8.00 a pound.

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An experienced worker in this field, who is quoted in "Women in the Business World," says:

"It is very hard work, and no let up. During the season of six weeks the food must be always fresh, and the worms breakfast between five and six in the morning, and want a full meal about ten at night. Perfect cleanliness is essential, and that means constant attention. They must have plenty of fresh air, but no direct current, with a uniform temperature of seventy- five degrees.

"Other leaves mixed with mulberry may prove fatal--peach leaf, for instance. Tobacco in any shape is poison. Their enemies are legion. Birds, ants, insects, rats, mice, are all anxious to get at them. And so on, to say nothing of a dozen different diseases. Besides all this, the cocoons are to be 'gathered,' 'stifled' and 'reeled,' and the mulberry to be cultivated."

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THERE is one field for women's work that is not yet crowded. The woman, young or old, who lives near a city, may easily support herself by keeping a boarding-house for domestic pets.

There is one little woman in Boston who makes a good living, simply by taking in canaries and other birds, that are the pets of rich women who go traveling in Europe, or who do not want the care of them at their summer homes. In one little room she has twenty-five or thirty cages, and she personally sees that they are kept warm and well fed and that they have plenty of water for drinking and bathing. Another old lady in South Boston keeps a boarding-house for pet cats. "A boarding-house for cats! What next?" I hear some one say.

Well, why not? Nothing is more heartless or unchristian than the way some rich women have of keeping pet cats on delicacies all winter, letting them sleep on silk cushions and in cosy corners, and then in time spring, when the time comes for migrating to the country or to Europe, to turn out these pets on the deserted streets to starve. They would not do it, if along in March or April they were to receive a neat little circular, or a personal letter to the effect that Miss Mary Smith, of some near suburb, was prepared to board pet cats at $1.50 or $2.00 a week, and would guarantee excellent care; for rich women are not heartless women.

You would need to have a comfortable yard, which could be enclosed in wire netting, so the pets could not run away; one with a tree or two would be best, as

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cats love to climb trees. Then, opening into this yard there should be a warm out-building, or perhaps a back room in the house, where comfortable beds could be provided and the pets could have their meals. Plenty of oatmeal and milk should be given them, with one meal a day of cooked meat; or sonic of the reliable prepared cat foods may be substituted for meat. Spinach, string beans, asparagus, any cooked vegetable, also, should be given now and then to keep them in health. And don't forget, as an occasional treat, a bunch of catnip!

Up at Newburgh, on the Hudson River, Mrs. E. A. Barker started such a place a few years ago. She advertised, not in the papers, but by private circulars, among New York women. To-day her "Sparrow' s Roost " is famous every where among cat lovers, not only as a care-taker for city pets, but as having the finest cat kennels in the country. She imported two or three very fine Persian cats and began to breed them! Her " King Humbert " and ''Jasper '' are cats whose money value runs into the hundreds, and she sells kittens for large sums every season.

Of course one must understand this business, but it is easily learned if one starts with a real love for cats and a real purpose to build up a successful business. Says Mrs. Barker:

"My knowledge of the special traits of my Persians has been, perforce, self-gained, as there are comparatively few in America who have these cats, while all the books upon the subject are English. I fear the long- haired cat has been grossly slandered in regard to amiability and disposition. I find they are not unlike ourselves and our children--they will follow a good example or the reverse. With an affectionate, well-bred mistress, pussy's manners are confidence, self-control and a devotion personified. Such animals will never need to he handled with a pair of leather gloves.' A well-bred cat requiring to be thus managed cries 'shame!' upon its master or mistress. In my large kennel of long-haired cats, I have never had one a stranger might not pick up with impunity; meeting with politeness from the most reserved, while from a few there would be no end of insinuating advances, not to say downright love-making, from two or three distracting little flirts I have in the kennel. 'King Humbert,' 'the head of the herd,' will, if allowed, put his plushy paws quite around one's neck, rubbing his head up and down one's face and purring one the most fascinating Persian compliments in the most courtly manner. And 'Prince Charming,' son of the famous champion 'Abdul Zaphir,' will flutter his silver brush, fix his golden eyes upon a stranger, study the physiognomy like a Lavater, when, if the result be satisfying, he will make one bound upon the visitors shoulder and forthwith express his opinion in the most enjoyable, if slightly personal manner. As a rule, cats are more subtle judges or character than the dog, and infinitely more reticent and exclusive.

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"If a cat loves a Place more than a person, that person does not deserve that cat's devotion. My cats delight to take strolls with me, and I often wander over the fields and far away with thirty or more of them, and we do enjoy it so. If the grass is high or the underbrush rough, and if they fancy themselves tired they come to be taken up. I carry them a little while, when off they go again, as brisk as ever. Cats are not gregarious animals, which makes a difficulty in rearing many together. They often form friendships for each other, which are very close, and when broken, are seldom replaced by another."

Mrs. Barker speaks from experience and gives advice which other women may well lay to heart in saying: "Don't attempt to make cat-raising a business without true love for the beautiful animals, and courage and capacity for plenty of work; as of all the fancies this is the most intricate. They should be well-bred drawing-room pets you are rearing, so the kennel must be such that their education can begin there. It must be comfortably large for winter, and must be well warmed and immaculately clean, and for long- haired cats, what is still more important--their daily toilet. Ailments must be attended to and studied, manners must be first taught and unceasingly enforced, and kittens trained. Lines of breeding are to be followed, types determined and persevered with, color blending and experiments therewith, lending a constant fresh interest and making an entrancing occupation, and more than worth all expended care and devotion. The mere winning of prizes in the show pen should be looked upon as a secondary consideration, and only as means of showing others the perfected results of skill, care and love, that we may all enjoy the fruits of labor and combine to give Pussy her proper place and raise her to her just station as one of the most perfect household pets."

Her remarks are of value because there is a rapidly growing demand in this country for fancy cats, and this gives women a fine opportunity to establish a profitable and congenial business.

Another woman who has established such a business is Mrs. Percy West, of Geauga Lake, Ohio. Being obliged to undertake some form of livelihood, and having always been a lover of cats, she decided to start a cat farm not for their fur, as some more heartless people have been known to do, but for the production of thoroughbreds for cat lovers.

On the borders of this Ohio lake she has built a number of neat, well- kept, Queen Anne houses, in which cat families are born, reared and allowed to grow up into stately and beautiful animals. At this place the owner spends most of her time, at certain seasons of the year, giving her personal supervision to the work.

Mrs. West says, "My venture was the result of a bequest of two fine Angoras from a friend going abroad. As I became greatly attached to them, and as I

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found that kittens of this species were often in demand, I resolved to go into the business. When my husband was living he was greatly interested in dogs, and as I only had to add my cat kennels the labor was a light one, and profitable as a means of subsistence for my family.

"But with all my knowledge of animals I soon learned that although cats are not troublesome creatures, yet in the rearing of Angoras for the first eight months great care should be taken not to expose them to wet or chill. They cannot live without fresh air or exercise. Each mother is provided with a clean, cosy kennel, and cannot be let out only on the days that are sunny and warm. But the main point is clear weather, exercise, and plenty of liberty until they grow to be fine large cats. Cats of high degree, such as these, are not expected to have the nine lives allotted to the ordinary feline, and therefore must be guarded. They are clean, dainty and loving, and when once their affections are given it is hard to part with them at any price."

When Mrs. West turns her steps eastward she is pretty sure to bring with her from two to six Angoras or Maltese to replace those which are sold when vacancies occur. She affirms that, "Take them all in all, they are charming companions, and in many respects are as human as men and women, and that the Maltese sell as well as the Angoras, often better."

Mrs. West declares that cat raising is a healthful occupation, and for delicate women who are dependent upon themselves, if a method is persisted in, it will surely prove a success. Now, surely, some enterprising young woman will take a hint from the experience of these two, and start a business for herself.

Dogs, too, may be made the specialty, in the same way. But I still believe that the boarding-house for pets is a much needed institution, and that the woman who opens one is sure of a comfortable income from it.

Love of dogs is an almost inherent element in the human make-up, and there is certainly money to be made in supplying special breeds, and catering to fashionable fancies. One brave woman, at least, has turned the fact to good account. and has established large kennels at Germantown, Pa. Like most enterprises of the sort, it had its beginning in a small way, and one St. Bernard puppy was the whole stock in trade. That, however, netted a profit of fifty dollars, and so became a nucleus of a more extended business. To-day the kennels are known far and wide, and their owner has won prizes and medals without end. "You must watch the market closely," she says, "but if you are at all careful there is really little risk. The greatest danger comes from within; for one is apt to grow so fond of the creatures it is a wrench to part with them even when a good sale is to be made."

And so with animals, as with inanimate things, it is the fitness that tells-- the special adaptability that means success. If one has no business, so to speak,

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general business affords many opportunities, provided there is quickness to learn and mental grasp. But in the sphere of bread-winning, as elsewhere in this world of many tastes and much freedom, it is always the novelty that attracts, and it is wiser by far to search diligently, and to consider well if there be not something peculiarly one's own to be found.

Then, whether it be slightly eccentric or not, it is almost certain to succeed, if only originality, enthusiasm and fidelity be called into play.

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IF I were to lose my position or in any way become incapacitated for continuing professional work, I should open a tea room," said one of Boston's brightest newspaper writers.

A group of women had been discussing the chances of occupation. lamenting that the fields had become so overcrowded that it was difficult to gain entrance to most of those already occupied, when the women who had kept silent through the discussion made the above announcement. It was a sensible thought and one that might be undertaken by some woman or girl in any community and carried to successful results. There are plenty of restaurants, such as there are in every place, but a daintily appointed room in the quieter part of the town and yet--not so far from the shopping portion as to be inaccessible--where women might drop in and find a dainty lunch served in a quiet apartment which had the atmosphere of home, is too infrequent.

There are one or two in New York, and one has recently been opened in Boston which was a success from its very beginning. The young woman who undertook it was educated and refined, and knew by experience just what the better class of women wanted and needed to refresh themselves in the hours after shopping or on returning from the matinee. So she took parlors on one of the best streets just on the edge of the shopping district, fitted them up prettily and artistically, and opened them as afternoon tea rooms. At first she only served afternoon tea from 4 until 6 o'clock, but she has since undertaken to give French

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breakfasts from 8 until 10, and delicate luncheons from 12 until 3. In connection with her tea room she opened what she quaintly calls "a gift shop," and this name defines itself. She keeps on sale all sorts of dainty, pretty novelties, suitable for birthday, wedding and holiday presents, many of them things that one cannot buy at the regular shops. These she sells at fair prices and adds largely to the revenue of her rooms.

It is quite the thing for Boston women of society to drop in at Miss Stearns' for luncheon or tea, and they rarely leave without either purchasing some exquisite bit which they see temptingly displayed, or marking it for future purchase. Every thing is served in the most exquisite fashion on the daintiest of dishes and with all the accessories of the most finished home table. Her tea is delicately brewed, her chocolate and coffee are perfection. Everything that she serves is of the very best and is made as attractive as possible.

This woman knew her public and ministered to it exactly. Any other clever woman with a talent for managing could do just the same in any city of size. Indeed, the afternoon tea room could be made the popular rendezvous for the society women, where they could meet friends by appointment and have even a quieter hour than they would be able to command in their own homes where they are so constantly liable to interruption of all kinds. It should be a lady's resort exclusively, no men being permitted to share its hospitality.

It requires both shrewd business management to start such an undertaking, and the most exquisite tact to carry it on successfully. But it nearly always happens that your successful business woman is a tactful woman as well. It is necessarily so, since tact is one of the first requirements for success in any line where one is brought into contact with either men or women.

The mistress of the lunch room may add to her revenue by taking orders for the tea, chocolate, cocoa and coffee which she serves, and supplying them to her customers. She may also take orders for bon-bons, for confections, and for special kinds of biscuit or fancy cakes to be served at madame's 5 o'clock tea at home. She may also arrange with the large importing houses to sell special novelties on commission, and also take orders for embroideries and art work. There is almost no end to the limit of possibilities which occur naturally to one engaged in this enterprise.

Quite apart from this is the lunch room in the busy part of the city, where both men and women are served. This lunch room should be made totally distinct from the large restaurant which keeps open all day. It should be a well-appointed, quiet place, where specialty is made of certain home dishes to be served between the hours of 12 and 3. There is no need of a large variety, but what there is should be of the best quality, beautifully cooked and temptingly served. It always helps a place of this sort very much to make a specialty of one or two

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dishes, and always serving these, but giving variety by changing other articles on the bill of fare daily.

There is in one of the large cities a lunch room of this kind, which has made itself famous by its coffee jelly. This is made in pretty moulds and served on delicate ornamented plates and piled high with whipped cream. Hundreds of people go there daily just for the sake of this jelly. This is not exaggeration, for I was curious enough to ask how many moulds were served daily, and I was told that the average number was six hundred.

In another city, away down in the business part of the wholesale district, where few women penetrate, is a lunch room kept by a country-bred woman whose custard and squash pies have made the place famous. There is no ambitious attempt at display in this little room; it is rather dingy, although scrupulously clean; there are no tables, but the patrons sit on stools at the counter, and are served with little ceremony; but the making of good custard and squash pies has also been the making of that woman's fortune. Various attempts have been made to induce her to go up town into the more fashionable district and open a restaurant there; but she is a wise woman who lets well enough alone; she knows her own limitations and is perfectly well aware that while she is successful in this lunch room, where little style is required, and cleanliness and good cooking are respected, she would only challenge failure if she attempted anything run on more elaborate lines.

There is a restaurant in New York, one of the very most prosperous, whose beginnings were so small that the result reads almost like a fairy tale. I wonder if Miss Avary will pardon me if I quote from her story in the New York Independent? This story is so simply and directly told and is in itself such a helpful suggestion and encouragement to many another woman, that I wish to reproduce it just as it was told for fear I might spoil it should I try to clothe it in new language:

"On the top floor of one of New York's great downtown buildings lived a janitor and his family. His wife--we will call her Mother Smith, as she came to be called by a very large family living all over Manhattan Island, Long Island, Staten Island and Jersey--was just a wholesome, simple body, with a generous heart and a thrifty hand. Her daughter--Mary Smith, we will say--had like wise the generous heart and thrifty hand. It may be observed, by the way, that the generous heart and thrifty hand work to much better profit when they work together than when either works alone.

"Mary was a telegraph operator in another great downtown building. One day Mary brought a sick companion to her mother. Mother Smith did not fret and say, 'Look at all this extra trouble on my hands. It is none of my affair. What have I to do with it?' Not even saying it in her heart, her look did not

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show it to the sick girl, whom we will call Laura. She simply mothered Laura; made her lie down on the sofa wrapped her up, cuddled her, and brought her a cup of delicious tea.

"Several days later Laura's mother, who lived in Jersey, called on Mother Smith. She said Laura was delicate. Would Mother Smith take her under her wing, and give her a lunch every day on business principles? Because of that good masonry which exists between mothers, Mother Smith consented. And that was the beginning of Mother Smith's restaurant, one of the most to-day in New York City.

"Mary and Laura would bring a friend to lunch now and then. The friend invariably asked to be admitted to the charmed lunch circle on business principles. And the restaurant grew--grew until Mother Smith's room could not contain it, and until the elevator man complained that Mother Smith's girls crowded regular occupants of the building out of the elevator during midday hours. Mother Smith's girls declared that they could not give Mother Smith up, she that she could not give them up; neither were she nor they willing to inconvenience the business men who were tenants of the building. Accordingly, Mother Smith looked about her and did a great deal of planning and thinking, the result of which was that her full-fledged restaurant was quickly established in a home of its own. This home was chosen on the second floor of a decent but very plain house--downtown, of course, not too far from Broadway, and yet not near enough to involve high rent. It was also close enough to Fulton Market for that to be a great advantage to one who meant to keep her prices down by paying low rent and being a close shopper.

"At her room in the house where her husband was janitor, she had managed to do all the work herself. Her girls coming at different hours made this possible; but with her increased space and custom, Mother Smith began to employ outside help; thus her enterprise took on another form of usefulness.

"Last year 150 girls sat down to her lunch tables six days in every week; sometimes there might be a few more, sometimes a few less, but this was the average. One dollar for six meals was the price charged; and the luncheons are substantial--a soup, a meat, a vegetable, tea, coffee or milk, all the bread and butter you want, and a dessert. Mother Smith has made money at it. Within the last few months she installed one of her trained assistants as manager at this place and went out herself to establish a branch institution for the benefit of gentlemen--this in response to demand for it. The restaurant whose history we have given is west of Broadway; it has been suggested to Mrs. Smith that she start a similar one east and further down-town.

"During this period of increasing success in business, Mother Smith has not left off her habit of mothering sick girls. The little sofa, the cup of tea, the

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timely medicine, are all within their reach. And if for any girlish pleasure an out-of-town boarder wishes to stay in town over night, Mother Smith has ever been ready with any accommodation which it was in her power to render. It is not easy to estimate the good she has done to her charges apart from the very valuable one of feeding their bodies well for what they could afford to pay."

Could anything be more helpful or more interesting than this true story of the evolution of a cup of tea into a thriving business enterprise? Indeed, is it not a happy illustration of what this book is always insisting upon-- that the improvement of small opportunities opens the door to large ones? You may, my dear girls, get tired of having this fact so constantly pressed in upon you, but it is such a valuable one, one upon which so much depends, that it cannot be too often repeated nor too well remembered. This story is also happy in showing what a thousand unwritten things in life show every moment that simple goodness and kindness unselfishly shown, pay; and that not only in the higher sense in which we delight to exercise it for its own sake, but in the lesser of bringing material recompense. One doesn't "be good" expecting to be paid for it, but when one is paid, the pleasure of doing is greatly enhanced.

There is another thing to be learned from the result of Mother Smith's experiment as well as from that of Miss Stearns--each catering to the wants of women, but at quite different ends of the social scale--and also from the woman who makes good custard and squash pies: whoever furnishes food at reasonable prices and of unexceptionable quality to men and women in any station of life, is conferring a public benefit and doing humanity a better service than any charity can possibly bestow. Here is the chance for some woman with a talent for catering. She must not rely alone upon the fact that she is a good woman, or that she is a good cook; she must combine both qualities. She must also possess judgment in making her purchases, and a knowledge of how much of each article will be required for daily use. None of the detail can be left to other If she wishes to he successful and to make money, she must give her personal attention to even the smallest detail.

With the qualities mentioned and courage to work, she may undertake a business of this kind, feeling reasonably certain that in it she will find her way to self-support.

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NO ONE has a better right to speak for the girls who are making careers for themselves than Mrs. J. C. Croly (Jennie June), the pioneer newspaper woman of New York. In a recent article she says:

"No finer answer could have been made to the objections raised in the beginning--that is to say, a few years ago--against young women taking positions as typewriters and stenographers in the offices of men than the rapid multiplication of them and the universal satisfaction expressed at the admirable character of the girls and their work. Any one who has occasion to visit a lawyer's office, or the counting room of a business man downtown in New York City--or, indeed, in any other large city--must be struck with the number and quality of young women employed as corresponding clerks, as department bookkeepers, as cashiers, and in other capacities demanding trustworthiness as well as trained capacity. And this is particularly what has made them desirable--the quality of faithfulness, of freedom from temptation to speculate and peculate, a certain single- mindedness and devotion to the employer's business and interest which the hardest headed of them appreciate.

" 'Yes,' said a lawyer not long since in reply to a question, 'I am free to say I have changed my opinion. I opposed the introduction of women into business offices because I believed it to be impossible in the nature of things. But it proved itself quite possible. The first thing I knew they were there. The results I feared did not follow; the girls fell naturally into line, proved themselves business like, asked for no special consideration, and kept to their hours as well, if not

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better than men. They are now as much a part of the accepted order as the desk they work upon; and, in fact, we should not know what to do without them. They make the most intelligent clerks, are quick to grasp an idea, and require few words to understand the special aspect of the case.'

[image: MRS. J. C. CROLY (JENNY JUNE)]

The census of 1870 reported only seven women stenographers in the United States. Now the number of persons earning their living by stenography and typewriting is estimated as more than 175,000, of whom two-thirds are women. In New York the 15,000 women out of the 25,000 stenographers employed is probably a low estimate.

This industrial com petition of women with men upon their own ground, and their successful achievement of equal place and opportunity, is not the result of agitation, but of courage and persistent energy working against every natural and conventional obstacle. The result is exactly what the teachers have accomplished before them--that is, accepted position and numerical strength. The generally received statement that women work for less than men (other things being equal) is not nearly so true as it seems or as is believed; and the difference, which was to a certain extent inevitable in the beginning, is lessening all the time.

In some fields--notably that of medicine--the charges of the average woman physician are higher than those of men. In all professional occupations there are

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individuals, both men and women, who receive both higher and lower rates than the average; not always as the measure of their professional worth, but of their own modest, or otherwise, estimate of their own service.

There is a considerable difference between the professional and industrial aspect of a career for girls. In the first instance she is usually helped; in the latter case she is almost always opposed by her family. It is common to speak as if all difficulties had been smoothed away from the path of girls who wish to earn an independent livelihood; and certainly they have been helped by the measure of success some have attained. But women who have had to fight their own battles unaided, and women who have to guide the destinies of daughters, know well the lions that still stand in the way, aud even hang round the doors that have been opened. The new opportunities do not come unattended. In their train are dangers that are a source of fear and anxiety, when they do not present an insurmountable obstacle. The reasons for this are twofold. One is, that a girl, to obtain a career or even a livelihood nowadays, must go out into the world and separate herself from her family. The other is, that the life of the child and its preparation for the future have rarely any relation to or correspondence with the past of the parent, and is, therefore, neither helped nor guarded by it.

In the old days of hand labor, artisans and craftsmen had their own shops-- generally a room in their house--and were their own masters. Sons and daughters grew up beneath the roof tree, and shared its occupations, and helped to make the record which was transmitted from father to son and from mother to daughter. It was a restricted life, but it had its beautiful side; and this was in the cultivation of home life, united family interests and the building up of personal character that became in itself an inheritance as well as an obligation. To-day the majority of working men are insignificant parts of a machine. Their occupations hold out no opportunities, no future--at least, none commensurate with their ambition--for their children; they do not want their sons or their daughters to be parts of a machine. They want to put them on the high road to distinction, to honor, at least, to those pursuits which offer no barrier to social or individual success.

Education is the keynote to this success--for girls particularly--and therefore the doors of the free college and the high school are besieged by ambitious mothers, who work like galley slaves at home to give their daughters the stepping stone to freedom and independence. When this, however, has been achieved at untold sacrifice, they find themselves confronted by the far more difficult problem, what use to make of it. Teaching? This is the one vocation for which competent schools are provided at the public expense, consequently it is crowded both by those who are fit and those who are unfit by nature to become teachers. The teacher is born. The schools furnish the weapons, the technical instrumentalities, but not time insight, the sympathy, the patience, the personality which makes the teacher.

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The girl of to-day choosing a career finds herself still between two fires: one, the traditions of her sex; the other, that which guards the door to desire and achievement. The majority of those women who are deemed successful, who have been the successes of the past half century, have made their own way, have cut their own road through untried paths and have thus opened the way for others. But all are not made to be pioneers.

That there is still a problem not solvable by the vocation of the teacher, of the stenographer, of the trained nurse, or of the decorative artist, is known to many; and one of the most natural solutions appears to me to lie in treating boys and girls more alike, and from the human rather than the sex point of view. We make too much of the difference in sex. The needs of both are the same. The best qualities of both are as necessary to one as the other, to make the well rounded human being.

Fathers should take their daughters into their own business, have them trained for business, and pay them or give them an interest in it as they do their sons. Girls have often a business capacity, and generally a degree of steadfastness and reliability in which boys are frequently lacking; but these qualities are left to fester and create discontent in the girl's heart, or she is reduced to a subordinate capacity in the service of a stranger simply because she is a girl. A year's training in a business college turns out practical bookkeepers and cashiers at good salaries. Many a man would have saved himself from failure if the bright daughter who was teaching or typewriting had been behind his own desk or counter. The puritan spirit has had much to do with the sex difficulties in this country. It put the iron heel upon the prostrate woman. It made her subjection a part of her religion. In removing the distinctions of class it created those of sex, and made the woman subject to the authority vested alone in the man. The man claimed this authority as a divine right, but tempered it with the theory of protection; and, like some other things, women have been almost protected to death.

When women arrived at this point they decided to look out and see how it was for themselves. They saw that the protection that was everybody's business was nobody's business. They saw that food and clothing and shelter and participation in the life about them were necessary to every human being, and that these did not come like manna in the wilderness, but had to be worked for and struggled for and held by persistent energy when once they were obtained.

This is what a career means. It means work, work, work--work with a purpose and without stopping; for if you leave the ranks the surging crowd fills up the gap, and you lose that which you have gained. The difference up to this time between the careers of men and women has been mainly that men seek a career for its own sake, as a law of their life, of their manhood. Women from

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necessity, from some failure or incompetency on the part of men. This is not surprising. Women have had no help, no stimulus, no inducements in this direction; instead of these, all sorts of obstacles--the opposition, above all, of public opinion. Motherhood and the care of the household were demanded of her. Whatever her special aptitudes, they must be set aside; she must be wife and mother, without recognizing the fact that motherhood is a career in itself, the most comprehensive, many-sided and exacting of all careers.

We read of the perfect motherhood of birds and animals. It is purely physical; it feeds and guards its young; but the human mother has always had to perform far higher duties and these also. In a primitive age she was the care taker of the interests of the family, she acquired the property, she transmitted her name, she represented wealth and social status. If we have passed the matriarchal age, so also have we passed the patriarchal. To-day the individual is king or queen; particularly the young man, the young woman. To-day it is almost a crime to be old: it is the young who are called to the front; it is the young blood that is wanted, the daring of inexperience that is most prized. Society, public opinion, releases sons and daughters from obedience, but it cannot release the mother from her responsibility. It only makes it more difficult of fulfillment. She must keep in touch with the activities of the universe. She must be an eternal reservoir never exhausted. She must know how to use nerves and vital forces without straining them; she must know what is good for the growing body and also for the growing soul. Finally, she must respect the newly-acknowledged individual kingship and queenship in the children she has reared, and be willing to wait till the buds blossom and the fruit ripens, for reward for her labors.

It is not, however, so necessary to- day that every woman should marry as it was two thousand years ago. Women are women, as men are men, whether they are wives or mothers or not. It is just as much their business to work out their own lives, to build character, as it is that of a man. Men and women are their own artists; they carve out of their own lives the man or the cur, the woman or the creature of instinct and appetite."

Another bright New York newspaper woman who masquerades in print under the nom de plume of "Bab," says a wise word which is worth quoting for the girls who, like her, are interested in studying conditions both from personal interest and from a desire to keep abreast with what is going on in the world. "Bab" says:

I have taken much interest in watching the women who succeed, and I have come to one conclusion--the woman who succeeds is the woman who does her work to the best of her ability, who is properly businesslike, but who never loses what might be called the arts of femininity. She never becomes chummy with men. She is polite to them, but when business forces her to talk with them, she never lets them forget that she is a woman. Not because she whimpers to them; not

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because she tries to fascinate them; but simply because she is herself. Some newspapers and public speakers have an unpleasant way of telling us of the disagreeable things that happen when a woman is introduced in a business way into an office where men are. They forget the other side of the story. A man, who is no better than any other, probably, from a moral standpoint, worse than some told me that he had never regretted taking a lady typewriter into his office. He said she had improved the whole tone of the place; that no man in his office ever used a profane word before her; that the men were more polite than before her arrival, and he believed it was entirely due--this change for the better--to the woman herself. And yet she had said nothing and done nothing. She had only taken it for granted that the men around her were gentlemen, and when she was not well posted about her work she hadn't hesitated to ask their help. And she had gotten it because she expected to. She wasn't young and she wasn't beautiful, but she was a woman who had a peculiarly womanly power for influencing men for good."

Miss Irene Hartt, talking to girls just entering the world of labor, says:

"A girl who sets out to earn her own living must bear two things in mind. The first is, that in every department of life, she requires a great deal of push. To succeed, she must be energetic and persevering; she musn't allow herself ever to be discouraged; she will be knocked down time and again, as she fights her way up in the world for fame and bread. That is to make no difference. She must rise up every time fresher and stronger for another battle. If she takes reverses in this way, she cannot help grow stronger at each one. She must never forget that no man or woman ever rose to the top without fighting every inch of the way up. Victory is always at the end for the determined fighter through life. Secondly, a girl must always remember that there's room at the top. When you choose a profession, make up your mind that you will rise to the very highest point in it. Down on the level it's jammed. The higher you go, the more breathing space you can have. In other words, the better skilled you are, the better price and position you can demand."

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IT IS such a usual sight--that of a young woman presiding over the telegraph in offices and railway stations--that one has ceased to have even a feeling of surprise at seeing them there. Among the occupations that properly come under the head of professional, no employment is probably within the reach of so many young women as telegraphy.

Miss Edith Symonds recently gave the New York Independent a capital résumé of women's work and its requirements in this profession, and, craving her indulgence, I am going to quote something of what she says on the subject. In regard to the requirements she says: "An ordinary common school education, with a special ability to spell well and write plainly, and more or less rapidly, either in common writing or on the typewriter, is all that is required in a pupil before she may begin to learn this business. It is an occupation attractive to women because it is office work with just enough bustle and activity about it to keep it from being dull, and with an occasional chance, in times of public excitement, of its being exceptionally interesting. Women can learn to become telegraph operators at any age; young girls at fifteen have successfully studied the art, and women as old as forty have mastered it; but the age recommended by expert teachers as being the best is between eighteen and twenty-five. The time which it takes to become an efficient operator depends, of course, on the brightness of the pupil, her general intelligence, and quickness of apprehension. Some young women take to the art very readily; others never become sufficiently proficient to take positions, no matter how long they may study. Telegraphy requires a certain knack, and

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demands that the student shall love the occupation if she expects to become skilled in it. The course of instruction in most institutions where telegraphy is taught covers a period of six months. Presuming that the student loves the art, if she gives her time to it for four or five hours a day for the period of six months she will master it; when it comes to attaining speed, however, that is a matter of practice. In this respect telegraphy is very much like stenography. A person may learn the principles of the latter science in comparatively a short space of time, but to avail herself really of its advantages, a great deal of practice is required. The principles of telegraphy are far simpler than those of stenography, but the necessity for practice is equally important."

Telegraphy is taught as a special branch in about fifty colleges in different parts of the union and in special schools to be found in every city. The Western Union Telegraph Company instructs some of its help, but they exercise considerable care in selecting their pupils. They will encourage dull or inactive young women to learn the art. Quick, active- minded young women generally turn out to be the best telegraphers.

In the general operating department of the Western Union Telegraph Company in New York, the company educates its own operators. Young girls are first employed as office messengers; the office consists of a large room, with a branch department in an adjoining building. These rooms are filled with operators sitting in a row, at long desks stretched across the apartment. The business is such that the operators are continually in need of messengers to send their despatches from one department to the other. Thirty young misses are employed in this service. They begin at this work with the idea of becoming telegraphers, and the company allows them a certain number of hours during the day to study and practice the art under the direction of competent instructors. For this messenger service, combined sometimes with clerical work, they receive from $3.50 to $6.00 a week.

The salaries of women telegraphers vary according to their ability. In the Western Union office in New York they range from $8.00 to $15.00 a week. The hours in the general operating department are from 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. In this department over 100,000 messages are received every day.

Brokers' offices supply the positions most sought after by telegraph operators. There are very few of these positions, however. They call for special ability, but the salaries paid vary from $75.00 to $90.00 a month. The hours of work are light, being from 9.30 a.m., to 3 p.m. A woman employed in such an office must not only be rapid, but accurate in her work. She must be a woman in whom the utmost confidence can be placed, and possessed of that rare womanly gift--the ability to keep a secret, for she is, in reality, a sort of confidential clerk.

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Still more responsible positions are those of chief operators in the main telegraph office of a large city; there they are paid as high as $23.00 a week.

What is called a good position may be either in a city or in the country. In fact, the word "good" used in this connection is purely a relative term. For instance: the salary paid may be larger in a city, but the expense of living will be greater and the work more arduous than it will be in some country town, where the wages will be lower. During the summer months positions at the various watering-places are particularly sought after, the pay of the operator being $30.00 a month and her board. In the large city hotels, where the business is quite brisk and important, the salary is from $40.00 to $50.00 a month.

One authority states that if there is any reason why women are not as successful as men in this profession, it is the same old argument that is constantly used about nearly all the vocations they enter--that they do not make it a life profession; they look forward to marriage, and give more or less thought and attention to the stages which are preliminary to this important event. This being the case, women do not have the incentive or the opportunity to advance as men do. The few who are in receipt of high salaries are women who have taken up the profession as a life work and have been employed many years--some of them as long as twenty-five years--before they were in receipt of such salaries.

Though women often make excellent operators and receive very good pay for this kind of work, they do not obtain the enviable positions that exist in the service. They do not seem to possess the ability, in the majority of cases, of grasping the various details of a large business and conducting it with system and regularity. In one large metropolitan telegraph office there are women who have been employed for the last twenty years; but they are receiving no more pay than they received ten years ago, and ten years from now their salary will be no higher than it is at the present time.

A prominent telegraph official says that telegraphy is a good occupation for a young woman. Provided she has no talent to do anything better, it will furnish her a reasonably pleasant, profitable and sure means of employment. Of course, this occupation, like every other, is affected by good or bad times.

Another reason why it is a good profession for women is because, after having left it, they can return to it, and if competent, be reasonably sure of obtaining work. Many women having married, have been made widows, or having left the service for some reason or other, have met with misfortune. They need the financial help that the work once gave them. When such women have been employed by the large telegraph companies, an effort is always made to reinstate them; in fact, other things being equal, they have the preference over the new-comers.

Of late the typewriter has played a very important part in telegraph work, and it is doing so more and more every day. Young women who are correct and

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rapid typewriters have better chance of securing positions with the large telegraph companies than those who have no knowledge of these things. When the young woman learns how to receive messages over the wires, she finds her knowledge of typewriting to be of great advantage; she can take down a message on the machine as fast as it is received. In this way this branch of the work is made much easier, and many young women telegraphers have voluntarily learned how to use this instrument simply as a means of lightening their labors. A considerable number of women telegraphers can take down messages as they are received at the rate of seventy or eighty words a minute. No one, of course, could begin to write as fast as that in common writing, and, if such a feat could be performed the writing would not be legible. All telegraphic matter must at least be legible, and the typewriter style of copy is being favored more and more on this account alone.

The girl who seriously considers undertaking telegraphy as a profession, should be extremely careful in selecting the institution where she will be taught. Before entering any one of them she should obtain the advice of some honest and disinterested man or woman already in the profession, who knows something of the character of the various institutions. It is hardly safe to trust to the advertisements which she will find in the various newspapers throughout the country of the firms who engage to teach telegraphy in a surprisingly short time, and at equally surprising high rates for tuition. Some of these may be good, but many cannot be recommended. Therefore she should take counsel before trusting her self in the hands of any teacher.

The Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston has rendered invaluable service to the young girls in New England by finding out and exposing the concerns who are not honest in their dealings with students. To the shame of men be it spoken, there are in various cities a number who make a living by preying upon young girls, promising them work if they will become students and pay them a certain amount of money. The training amounts to nothing at all, they are in no position to secure positions even if they could prepare the girl for them, but they unblushingly pocket the fee and leave the girl to do the best she can for herself. Thanks to the Union, this number of men, in Boston, at least, has been largely decreased because, knowing the close espionage which is kept of all their movements, they have found it more profitable to seek other fields where there is no Union to expose them and protect their victim.

Of course, this does not refer to the standard schools, those in the accredited business colleges and those conducted by teachers of reputation. There are plenty of these where the girl may get the best possible training for a small sum, and to which she may be directed by any person conversant with the profession.

Since the perfection of the telephone and its almost universal use, there have been opportunities offered for a large number of women. This number is

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constantly increasing, for not only are they employed in private offices and on the day force in public offices, but recently there has been in one city at least--Boston--the substitution of women for men in the night force. This almost doubles the number of employes in the general office.

The duties of the telephone girl are not hard and the hours are about the same as the telegraph operator. The salaries paid vary according to the duties performed. The girls who attend the long distance telephones receive from $12.00 to $15.00 a week, while the girl in the local office averages about $7.00, except the more expert, who command $9.00 or $10.00 a week. The girl who becomes a successful telephone operator must be quick and bright intellectually, keen to grasp an idea, and with command of language to enable her to carry on a conversation intelligently, a clear voice, and an utter absence of nerves. Indeed, this latter qualification is perhaps the most necessary of all: for the girl who is easily rattled, who gets a headache at the slightest provocation and flies to pieces under a pressure a little above the ordinary is worse than useless in the telephone office.

It is, perhaps, needless to say that one of the main requisites is patience: probably more exasperating things happen over the telephone than under any other conditions, but the well-poised girl can meet all these successfully. Even personal dignity may make itself felt over a telephone wire, and the person at the other end very quickly learns whether it is safe, in masculine phrase, to attempt "to jolly the hello girl."/p>

It does not take time to learn, as does the telegraph, and it is more a question of fitness than of special preparation. A girl who undertakes it very soon finds out whether she is in her proper place, and if she has the slightest doubt on the matter, she would better give up the position at once rather than wait for her employers to discover the unfitness which she already suspects. This applies more particularly to the work in general offices. The girl who gains a position as telephone operator in some hotel, railroad office, or exchange, finds the duties less arduous and nerve-trying than she who has to stay at the switchboard fur hours at a time, doing nothing but connecting different lines and attending to the wants of the subscribers. But, unfortunately, the places in the outside offices are much less in number than those in the general office, and consequently are more eagerly sought. In nearly every office, except the special ones just mentioned, the telephone call is answered by any employe who chances to be nearest to it, and the need of a special attendant is not felt.

The girl with sound nerves, dignity of character, pleasant temper and calm temperament, will find pleasant occupation in this comparatively new field of labor.

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ONE of the more recent avocations to be taken up by women is stenography, and incidental to this, type writing. The latter is also adopted by some young women who do not make a profession of the first: but these are usually copyists who transcribe from manuscript, but do not undertake work from dictation. But by far the most successful typewriters are those who are stenographers as well. Of course the work of preparation for the latter branch is much more arduous and takes a longer time, besides being more expensive. A young woman who is ranked among the successful workers in her own profession and yet who knows by observation the other side of the story, gives a very good résumé of the situation as it now appears.

"Tell you about the typewriter? Yes. What do you want to know? Oh, I see. Is it a good business for girls? That depends. It must be a good girl for the business in order to be a good business for the girl. What do I mean? Simply this: there must be natural qualifications, else the girl will not succeed. You can't expect every man to make a good minister or lawyer or newspaper man or merchant, can you? He must have the something in himself that compels the success. Every man cannot succeed as a stenographer or typewriter, neither can every woman. It requires a good memory, an ability to spell, a generally good education and by that, I mean understanding of affairs and knowledge of events, a quick eye and hand, and no nerves. You see the list of requirements is a long one, and the trouble is, each one is equally imperative. Many girls are attracted to do this

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work because they think it a pleasant way of earning bread and butter and it seems a step in advance of so many other things; a girl would rather say she was a type writer than that she sewed in a shop. It is one of the class of intelligent professions that presupposes a certain amount of education. Not all who begin it carry it through--this refers especially to the study of stenography--and many who do get to the end of the course some way or other cannot make it available after they finish. The fault is not in the method by which they were taught, but in them selves; they haven't the requisites for success. When they come to be put to practical work they make dismal failures.

"Do I like it? Yes, very much. I get an insight into a great many things that wouldn't otherwise come to me; and let me say just here one thing that I neglected to mention when I was giving my list of requirements. A very important one is discretion. Naturally one hears a great deal about people and unavoidably learns much not only of their character, but of their private affairs, and an honorable girl understands that this knowledge is to be put out of mind as speedily as possible. Why, a stenographer could make no end of trouble for individuals if she wasn't guarded. Then some people have a way of regarding their confidential clerk as a sort of receptacle into which they may pour their real opinions about everybody with whom they are connected in a business way. I have had men stop in the midst of dictating a letter to tell me all about the person to whom I was writing, and before I finished I knew his family history, his financial standing and his immoral character, although I wouldn't know his face if he were to come before me. So you can easily see how necessary discretion is. I'm not sure but I ought to have put it down after the ability to spell, in degree of importance.

"You musn't infer from this that the habit of talking about one's correspondents is general--not at all; it is only one of many phases of character which the stenographer finds among employers. I never knew two men who dictated alike; some are of the communicative kind, as I have told you; others go to the other extreme; they give you what they desire you to write in the fewest words possible, with no side remarks by way of variety. They regard the amanuensis as a machine to grind out a setting for their ideas. Those are the people who pride themselves on their exactness, and who require everybody around them to keep up with their exactitude; I don't know but they are a trifle more exasperating than the other kind; they perpetually annoy us by their excess of all the virtues. It's wearing to flesh and depressing to spirit to be obliged constantly to regard such paragons. Other men shun dictation; they know what they want to say, but they don't want to be bothered with the detail of putting it into shape. They usually hand over to their amanuensis all correspondence, giving her the idea of replies to each one and these she is to make in her own language and submit them for approval."

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The great danger with this, as with so many other new avocations, is that it will become overcrowded, and as a consequence, salaries will be diminished. It is one of the laws of political as well as social economy, that if the supply is in excess of the demand the value of the work is lessened. You will all understand this without any difficulty, and you may feel that you know one of the under lying principles of political economy, the bugbear that you hear talked about so much.

Nothing indicates so plainly the number of women and girls who need to earn money because they must be bread-winners, or who want to earn it in order to be independent, as the rush to take up any new industry that is offered. There is no thought of fitness for the work. The idea is simply that of getting employment which will pay. The consideration of special preparation does not enter the mind of the majority of young women who undertake work of any kind, except, of course, a profession, in which one cannot get on without work beforehand and careful study. And here is found one of the reasons why women are so seldom advanced in their position. They do not take up the work with the earnestness that men do; it is, more often than not, a temporary make-shift, a something which must be done to bridge over a certain time of waiting, usually the time that elapses between leaving school and "getting married." It is not regarded as a permanent thing and the girl very openly says that she accepts a position of the kind only until such time as the coveted position of wife is open to her.

Now, in one way, that is all right and natural. There is no one in the list of employments in all that come to a woman's hand to do, so important and so beautiful as that of making a home. But the work, meanwhile, must be just as faithfully done, as much brain and endeavor put into it as if one expected to do it forever. It makes the way easier for other women who have to follow in some footpath of toil, and it adds to the self-respect of the worker as well as to her value to her employers. So, while I would not have you look lightly upon the most royal gift that can cone to your life, neither would I have you stand in an attitude of waiting expectancy, but go on in a dignified fashion, rounding out your life on every side until the great glory of perfected womanhood comes to you; then take it, feeling it is yours by divine right.

Stenography is, in truth, a profession. It requires hard study and long practice to make one proficient. Experienced stenographers say that two years is a reasonable time in which one may expect to work fairly well after beginning the study. To be sure, there will be work that one may do in less time, particularly the stereotyped work of an office, while on the other hand it will take more than two years to become what is known as "an expert. Some persons learn more readily than others, hut I am speaking now of the average learner. The cost for preparation varies according to the way in which one studies, whether with a

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private teacher or in a school, but it is safe to say that it will range from thirty-five to a hundred dollars.

Now typewriting, which is a purely mechanical labor, can be learned in a few days, and it is only a question of practice when one may become an expert. As I have said, not all typewriters are stenographers. I know one young woman who can write from dictation on the typewriter as rapidly as any one can give it to her and not once in a hundred times miss a word or make a mistake. She works entirely from dictation and commands a salary of fifteen dollars a week. She considers this good pay. There are times during the year when if she were not steadily employed, but worked by the piece, she could make much more money during the week, but when the unemployed weeks and the dull weeks are taken into consideration, she really would average no more a year than she does under the present arrangement, and possibly not so much. At any event, she is much better satisfied to know that she has a fixed sum upon which to depend than to feel the anxiety which one cannot help having whose employment and consequent income is more or less spasmodic; and really this salary is considered large.

A bright young woman who is an expert stenographer and typewriter says that the number of girls who get less than ten dollars a week in this profession is larger than those who get even that sum. Eight, nine and ten dollars a week are the most frequent salaries for this kind of work, while the girl who gets steady occupation at twelve, fourteen and fifteen, feels that she is fortunate. This young woman herself gets fifteen dollars a week, but she has a very important position as confidential clerk in a large newspaper office.

Still another who is the head of an office of her own says that apart from the independence which she feels in managing her own affairs, she would prefer a settled position. She says:

"There's nothing so satisfactory as knowing exactly what your income is; you can regulate your affairs and expenses to meet it, even if it is a smaller one than you would like. You may be able to understand something of the fluctuations of the independent earlier's income when I tell you that in my own experience my weekly receipts have varied from less than two dollars to over eighty, either extreme being an exception."

All the young women of whom I have spoken are more than ordinarily well educated; they are good French and German scholars, know something of the classics, and have a creditable knowledge of English literature and history. And, girls, those of you who have an idea of taking up either one or both of these branches as a means of livelihood, I wonder if you realize how necessary this knowledge of history and literature is to you? The better informed you are on these topics, the wider will be your opportunity. A gentleman who had been engaged on a special work of literature in which he employed a stenographer said

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that he had no idea of the difference in attainment of young women who did this work until he had this experience: he employed a young woman who had been recommended to him very highly; she was accurate in following him, but she was not a good speller and she never knew if her employer made a mistake in date or event, as will sometimes happen even to the most careful. Her work was subjected to the most careful revision; he was obliged to respell several of her words and to take out every allusion of which he was not altogether certain. During the progress of the work, she was taken ill and a substitute was sent him. He says the stenographer's illness was his salvation. The substitute went far ahead of her predecessor; she was quick and alert; not only did she write rapidly, but she was ready to challenge misstatements and she often made a suggestion that gave a needed point. "It was a delight to work with her," said the gentleman; "and when the work was done I paid her more than she asked, for I felt if the first one had earned that sum of money surely this one had earned much more."

The reason why so many women fail is, that they have not acquired as a rule the habit of practical thought as men have. The whole plan of woman's education has been insufficient and superficial, while men have been trained in harder schools and more thorough method. As a consequence, the masculine thought habit is better developed and the qualities most needed in special work are more common in man than in woman. This is not the fault of women so much as it has been the misfortune of their training. That all of them have not suffered from this wrong method is proved by the good work done by so many.

One stenographer tells me that a knowledge of bookkeeping is of great advantage to the girl seeking a position as stenographer at the present time. Indeed, in watching the advertisements of the daily papers you will often see a stenographer called for "with some knowledge of bookkeeping." The same person says that the qualities most needed to make a successful stenographer are calmness, self-poise, intelligence and confidence in one's ability.

The sensitive girl who possesses nerves and flies off at a tangent under the least stress of excitement need not waste her time in trying to become a stenographer. Even if she succeeds in mastering the mysteries of the profession, she would literally go to pieces under the first pressure. But the girl who has application, steadiness of purpose, and patience, who knows how to spell, can hold her tongue, keep her self-respect and command the respect of others, who is intelligent and well-mannered, has self- confidence but not conceit, may undertake this profession with a reasonable certainty of making at least a modest livelihood.

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"WHEN I was a girl," our noble lamented Lucy Stone once said, "I seemed to be shut out of everything I wanted to do. I might teach school--that is, if it would keep as good order and teach as well as a man, for considerable less money; I might go out dress making or tailoring, or trim bonnets, or I might work in a factory, or go out to domestic service; there the mights ended and the might nots began. A few years ago when my daughter left Boston University with her degree of B. A., she might do what she chose; all the professions were open to her; she could enter into any line of business.

Mrs. Stone did not say--although she might have done so with absolute truth--that it was because she, and others like her, had been persistent and courageous and true that the way had been made possible not only for her own daughter but for thousands of other daughters. Every woman in the world should say devoutly, "God bless her for the brave work she did!" To- day the young woman pauses to consider which of the many open roads she shall take. It has ceased to be a matter of obligation with her; it is largely a question of choice.

One of the first openings that came to women outside of the circumscribed list which was given by Mrs. Stone, was that of tending in stores. This opening was made at the time of the civil war when so many men went into the army, leaving occupations of every kind, that women must needs do the work. Those of you who have made a study of history from its philosophical, rather than its statistical side, understand that when an advanced step is made it is never retraced. There is no such thing as going back. So when in the history of the world's progress you read of the advancement made by women, you take the fact gladly

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because it is something done for all time. The women who have lived and worked any part of the time for the past thirty years have felt that they were living and working in one of the most important epochs in the history of the civilized world. A young girl, alive and alert as the girl of to- day is, said not long ago: "I am so glad that it has been given me to live just now. I come to all the good things of life as a heritage and yet not so late but that I catch the echoes of the struggle for their possession and kiss the hands of the women who have gained them for me."

And she was right. Being a girl of average ability and firm principle, it is a good time in which to live. The chances for success are good and opportunity is better than it ever has been.

Take mercantile life, for instance: I have often heard girls say that it was all nonsense to expect any preferment there; that only the men get advanced; and that only men become the head of the house. Now, there is no reason why a woman should not conduct a mercantile business if she wishes and if she has the capital. Probably one reason why women do not oftener do this, is because when they have money they prefer to invest it in some manner which shall bring them a steady income without exertion of their own. They let the money do the earning and they take the result. Another reason is, that when girls take a position, they do not, as boys do, take it with the idea of making it a life-work. It is a temporary matter-- something to bridge over the time of waiting between leaving school and settling down into homes of their own with a boy, it is serious business; with the girl it is a makeshift. The success of any one in any line of work depends upon the spirit in which she takes it up. A young girl had tried for a long time for a position in one of the leading dry goods shops in Boston. Her persistency was rewarded by a trial. She was put at the handkerchief counter during a bargain sale. The very first morning she was there a gentleman came by and stopped at the handkerchief counter, looking carelessly at the goods and at the prices which were marked on each box. She did not wait for him to ask for anything special, but she immediately called his attention to some handkerchiefs which were really low priced when one considered their fine quality. He did not seem inclined to buy, but she was so interested to make the sale and talked so intelligently about them, that he took half a dozen of the handkerchiefs. When she was paid her salary at the end of the week, she received a sum much in advance of that which had been agreed upon. She took it at once to the head of her department, thinking there must have been some mistake; but she was assured that it was all right.

"Do you remember selling half a dozen handkerchiefs to one gentleman time first morning you were here?" he inquired.

"Why, yes, I remember," she replied; but what has that to do with it?

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"Simply this--that was the head of the firm; and he was so pleased that he asked about you and said that any girl who could sell his own goods to a proprietor was worth a good salary and a steady place. So he ordered you put in the pay roll at the wages I have just given you, with the promise of a rise as soon as it was possible." A thing like this isn't likely to happen every day, perhaps; nor even once in a lifetime; but of one thing you may rest quite assured, my dear girls who are reading this--simple eye service is noted more frequently than you imagine, and so is the honest, hearty rendering of your duty.

Not long since a prominent business man in Boston said to me when we were talking over the reason why so few young men really succeed, some things that will bear repetition for the girls who think seriously of a business life. "The boys"--and he might have said, the girls too"-- in the store whose watches are always on time at the dinner or closing hour are the ones who will not advance in business; while those who are asking for more to do, instead of making apologies for work not finished, are those who find room at the top of the ladder and who do not complain of the crowd at the foot."

Possibly another reason why women do not oftener attain a higher position in mercantile life is, because they do not learn the business as a man does. When a girl seeks a position in a store she expects a living salary at once; the immediate need of money is the force which impels her to work; she must be her own breadwinner. A boy expects to give a certain time to learning the detail of business, and takes a place at first with very small remuneration, working his way to the more profitable position.

In the city stores the rules governing the duties of the various employes are arbitrary. And they are strictly enforced. The law has taken the matter of child labor into its protecting hand, so that now, no boy or girl under fourteen may be permanently employed in any establishment. That, then, sets the date when the girls may begin to work. The cash girls in the large stores are, as a rule, fourteen and fifteen years of age; their duty is to run on errands, carry bundles from counter to counter for customers, and be at the beck and call of everybody else in the store. In the days before money was sent to the desk by machinery, the girls had to carry it and bring back change and parcel. But even with this duty taken from them in so many stores, the cash girls still find enough to do, and do not have many idle moments. They have to be at their post, ready to begin work when the store is opened. As most of the stores open at half- past eight o'clock, this means being there certainly at quarter-past eight. They must report to their superintendent, put away their street garments, and be at their places in front of the counters at the unlocking of the doors. The time of their arrival is marked against their names and if they are late they are fined a small sum. In some

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[image: THE FAITHFUL SALESWOMAN]

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stores they are allowed to work out their fine by shortening their dinner hour as many minutes as they are late, but in others this chance is not given them, and the fine must stand. All day long they are on their feet, flying about here and there, and nobody is gladder when the big gong gives the signal to lock the door at half-past five than are these young girls. For these long hours and all their work, they receive $2.50 or at most, $3.00 per week, and this is oftentimes decreased by the fines. If a cash girl proves herself bright, clever and capable, she may look forward to being advanced into a position as stock girl or salesgirl, or given a place in the mail order department. The stock girl, as she is called, has the charge of the stock for a certain counter; she must see that this counter is kept well supplied and the goods in order; she must be watchful, quick, and have a pride in the attractive appearance of her goods. Her hours are the same as all the rest, and she has from $5.00 to $6.00 a week.

It is the ambition of every cash girl to become a saleswoman and it is a proud day when she is allowed for the first time to attend upon a customer and supply her wants. In that trial she usually proves whether or not she has the stuff for success in her. Many eyes are upon her. The hours that the saleswoman has to keep are the same as those of the cash girl, and she is subject to the same rules, until she arrives at the head of a department, when a little more latitude is allowed. The same system of fines prevails that governs the cash girl. One would think that when a girl had been given a position of dignity and responsibility, there would be no need of anything like discipline; but it is found necessary--to the shame of the workers be it said.

In most of the large stores the proprietors know just how much each sales woman sells every day and in that way it is easy to keep track of her value to the firm. When girls complain that their salaries are not raised when some other girl is advanced, they do not take into account that they have not made them selves of value to those who employ them.

Discipline varies in different establishments. In some it is almost military in its severity and its perfectness. The girls are not allowed to converse with each other, except upon topics connected with the business; at other stores they may chatter as much as they please. They are not supposed to neglect customers, but they sometimes do, or else betray such an utter indifference to the customers wants that she goes away irritated, without making her purchase.

I had a funny little experience in a Boston store. I wanted to match one silk with ribbon, and I went with my pattern. As I entered I was met by one of the proprietors, who was known to me, and we walked along to the ribbon counter together. I handed my sample to a girl, who did not look up, but reaching it back to me, said rather curtly, "We've nothing like it."

"But you haven't looked," I persisted.

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She was about to persist also, when an odd expression on the face of one of the other girls made her glance at me. As she saw the proprietor standing by my side, she turned very red, muttered a confused apology, and began looking for the ribbon, which she very soon found. I didn't pity her distress one bit. I think I was rather glad she was caught in that way; it will probably be a lesson to her and she will be more careful in the future.

Quite in contrast to this was something which occurred in another large establishment. A lady brought a little girl for whom she wished to purchase a cloak. The child was very large of her age, and most difficult to fit; but the saleswoman who was attending upon her did not lose her patience in the least; she tried on garment after garment; she was as interested as possible to please the customer; she made valuable suggestions, and did all in her power to help the mother out of the difficulty and give her exactly what she wanted. The result was that she made a good sale, and at the same time secured a constant customer. Do you suppose that that lady will ever go to that establishment again without asking the same girl to serve her? It is women like this one who make themselves valuable to their employers; and they are the ones, also, who are steadily advanced, and who come by and by to be time heads of departments. They are the women, too, who get the larger salaries; they are worth the most money to their employers; customers will wait for them if they are busy, and will not, if they can help it, purchase of any one else.

There is something very mean in the mere giving of eye service; it is a species of dishonesty. One of Boston's leading merchants used often to say, in speaking of his help, "I would rather one of my salesmen or women took money from my pocket than the time which belongs to me and for which I am paying. One is just as much stealing as the other, but the latter is the more dishonorable."

With an honorable employer, honest service cheerfully given is nearly sure to meet the reward of advancement. It is different to be always pleasant of voice, eye and bearing; it is not easy to feign an interest one does not feel--but the thing to do is to feel the interest. Make the customer see that you are as anxious that she should be pleased as she herself is. It will be much easier to please her. There is no reason why the purchaser and the one who serves her should regard each other as natural enemies, and each be constant on the lookout for some fancied insult or slight. If both of them would exercise patience and charity, they would get on perfectly well together. The girl who takes a position in a store can afford to proclaim a declaration of independence to every customer by the insolence of her deportment. Courtesy, self-respect and a genuine interest in her business are the conditions of ultimate success, and no girl need be a failure if she has these qualities, added to the natural abilities to do the work which she has

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undertaken. She will succeed, and she will also win for herself a multitude of friends who will both respect and admire her and make her, in their own thought, the pattern for other women of her class to model themselves upon.

So you see there are good chances for girls if they will only take them, as well as for boys; but they must be in earnest, must work as though it were a life-work, even though they do lay it down after a while; must not despise the day of small things, but be ready to do every duty as it comes to them, remembering that it is only when the lesser duty is well done, that the larger duty is offered.