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At times life breaks upon us with her
ills,
A hopeless sky, a flight of lonely hills.
And yet there is one saving word for
us:
Even the vanquished are victorious,
If from the wild disaster they arise
To press on with new purpose and
new eyes.
CHA T
A Chivalrous Husband. A Woman
Lawyer Thirty Years Ago.
Dear Old Woman, chivalry, as com
monly applied, seems to be one of the
most ambiguous words in the English
language. I knew a man who mar
ried a young girl stenographer who
was earning fifty dollars a month.
She gave up her business, her hus
band saying, pompously, that he hoped
he had too much Southern chivalry in
his make-up for him to allow his wife
to work. He took her to his home in
the country, where, a few years later,
she was visited by a friend, who had
taken her place as stenographer with
a business firm, and who had saved
money enough to buy a lot and put
up a nice home. The visitor found
her friend splitting kindling wood,
and learned that she not only attend
ed to two children, and did all the
never-ending woman’s work, but milk
ed the cow, fed the pig, cultivated the
vegetable patch and picked cotton as
a recreation. In return, she had her
“keep,” which amounted to very plain
food, two pairs of shoes a year, and
four dresses and one hat, which she
retrimmed thrice. Yet the husband
had boasted he was too chivalrous to
let his wife work!
The Woman Lawyer. By no means
is the woman lawyer a very modern
product. There were women lawyers
practicing successfully and making
reputation in their business, forty
years ago. And their brother lawyers
held out to them the cordial helping
hand while living and held largely at
tended memorial meetings to eulogize
their work and express profound sor
row for their demise. As an instance
of this there was Mary Fredrika Per
ry, of the Chicago bar. She was but
82 years old when she died ip. June,
1883. She had been practicing her
profession only six years, but she had
conquered for herself a high place.
“She was beloved and respected by
her own sex and by the members of
her profession.” This was said of her
at the memorial meeting in her honor,
attended by the most distinguished
members of the Chicago bar.
An eminent jurist, Judge Tuley, was
chairman of the committee. In the
course of his admirable address, hr
said: “Liberal ideas and sentiments
made progress within the last decade,
and in no greater direction than as to
the right of a woman to earn her own
living in whatever way her physical
and mental abilities will enable her.
The legal profession was among the
first of the learned professions tp
welcome women to its ranks. Now,
I believe, in all parts of our country,
women possessing the requisite legal
qualifications and good moral charac
ter, are freely admitted to all the
privileges of the profession,” This,
NEVER DESPAIR
EDWIN MARKHAM.
THE HOUSEHOLD
A Department of Expression For Those Who Feel and Think
Yes, since the grind of ages first be
gan,
“Never despair” has been the word
for man.
Onward forever breaking every bar:
There is no time to parley or retreat:
Up and away and onward toward the
star,
Though Earth turn to ashes under
neath our feet.
you remember, was spoken nearly 30
years ago.
Her Refining Influence in the Court
Room. Judge Tuley declared in this
memorial oration, that “every lawyer,
imbued with the true spirit of his pro
fession, who realizes that it makes
him a wiser and broader man, wel
comes the refining influence of wom
an in the court room. Miss Perry,
within the last three years, had a
number of cases before me. I was
suprised at her legal knowledge and
the great legal acumen she displayed.
She tried her last case in my court.
It was a bitter contest between hus
band and wife, where the wife sued
for a separate maintenance, alleging
that she was forced to live apart from
him without her fault.
“The charge was cruelty and I
thought it peculiarly appropriate that
a woman solicitor should represent
her sister woman in this contest. The
cruelty was made out by proof of con
tinuous neglect, contemptuous treat
ment, studied ignoring of her and of
her rights as a wife —things that only
a woman could fully comprehend and
make clear to the court.
“Her opponents were irrascible, bel
ligerent lawyers, hard fighters, who
made their client’s cause their own
personal matter. They had been noted
for their rough dealing, but the fact
that a woman was their opponent had
a most salutary effect upon them.
“I remarked publicly that I had
seen few cases tried in which the
courtesies of the profession had been
so well observed between opposing
counsel. I became fully satisfied that
the influence of women would be high
ly beneficial in preserving and sus
taining that high standard of profes
sional courtesy which should always
exist among the members of our pro
fession.”
I wish I had space to give you part
of the beautiful, discriminating eulogy
given on this occasion by Miss Mar
tin, the partner of the lamented Miss
Perry. Among many noble character
istics of her dead friend, Miss Martin
thought her strict integrity, her b
conscientiousness, was pre-eminent.
She said, “Even in minutest transac
tions, Miss Perry’s conduct of life was
adjusted according to the dictates of
great principles. She had a high ideal
of her duty as a lawyer and consid
ered her first obligation as such the
promotion of justice. She took no
cases, unless after careful investiga
tion, they conformed according to her
judgment to this standard.”
Os how many lawyers of the strong
er sex can this be said?
Old Woman asks: “Can not you,
Mrs. Bryan, use your pen in denounc
ing the great outrage of the white
slave trade, as it is practiced on our
ignorant country girls, who are en
ticed into cities to their ruin?”
Dear Old Woman —Many abler pens
than mine have persistently brought
The Golden Age for October 12, 1911.
this wrong before the notice of muni
cipal authorities. I have tried to call
attention to the root of the evil —
the lack of moral training of girls and
boys in the home; the necessity of
giving them nobler ideals and higher
standards of life. Let the stream at
its source be pure. There is so much
ink and money lavished on the advo
cacy of education, and too little stress
laid on the moral hojne education of
the girl and the boy. I would like to
hear the views of our Household
friends about this.
With Gorrespon&ent*
DANGER TO COUNTRY GIRL 3 IN
THE CITIES. IS CHIVALRY
DEAD?
I don’t think I can find a pleasanter
task this delightful evening, than talk
ing with the dear Householders —some
of them have been absentees almost
as long as I have. Although it has
been the hottest summer any one can
remember, yet I have had a happy
time. I have been away for three
months, visiting dear relatives and
members of my family, resting, feast
ing, going to picnics and fishing par
ties, where there was a lot of enjoy
ment with the drawback of red bugs,
which seem to be more vicious and
numerous in Alabama than anywhere
else.
Also, I have read a good deal. I
read my Bible through again, from
cover to cover, and read several of
the new works of fiction. And I read
“The Great White Slave Trade” —a
book that tells of such horrible condi
tions in our large cities, as one can
hardly believe. It seems that the vig
ilant police and immigrant commis
sioners, reported to the authorities
that wrongs were being perpetrated
on the young immigrant girls, and se
cured stringent laws to protect these
foreign girls, but nothing has been
done to prevent similar wrongs to the
girls of our own country, who are
lured from their rural homes to the
large cities by specious promises of
big-paying employment and then,
whe* they are disappointed, penniless
and heartsick, they are enticed into
dens of infamy where they are sold in
to a bondage from which there is no
freedom this side of the grave.
Dear Mater, cannot something be
done to prevent this horrible wrong?
Are our men no longer the defend
ants of the sex to which their moth
ers belong? If chivalry is dead and
Christianity is insufficient, then where
is common humanity?
Our Georgia legislators were ridi
culed and censured for thair late ac-»
tion in refusing to pass a bill licensing
women, who had graduated from law
schools, to practice in Georgia courts.
These solons declared that their sense
of chivalry forbade them to encourage
women to leave their homes and ex
pose themselves to the demoralizing
influence of the court room. It was
certainly an out-of-date excuse —a real
mossback —when women have been
earning a living side by side with
men in every kind of business and
profession for nearly fifty years.
Almost every other State in the
Union freely admits women to prac
tice law, and frankly acknowledges
the refining influence they have on
courts and men lawyers. Sometimes,
when I see women who have entered
a crowded car forced to stand up,
while men look at them, swaying and
tottering, I say, to myself, “Men have
lost all chivalric regard for women.”
Then again, I have seen nearly every
man stand up and offer his seat to
ladies who entered the crowded car.
Some true gentleman set the example
and the others, fearing to be thought
rude, followed his lead.
Circumstances often force women
to enter the field of outside work.
Many men are too indolent, dissipat
ed or incapable to provide for their
families, and then it is that women
bravely take up the office of bread
winner. All occupations now are
practically open to women, and every
office in some States, where women
are gaining high praise as sanitary
commissioners, mayors and law-mak
ers.
Yes, Brother Ben Ivy, Robert
Raikes, the pioneer Sunday school
teacher in England, taught from the
Bible. He did not have that great help
to Biblical instruction —The Quarter
lies. Yes, we read today of a great
deal of crime and suicide; but there
is not nearly as much of these, in pro
portion to the population, as there
was a century ago. Th6 world is now
thickly populated, and the cable, the
telegraph and the telephone bring the
news of everything that takes place to
the daily papers. This age is far
more charitable and quick to give aid
to the advancement of education and
religion than its predecessors. There
does not seem to be as much rever
ence and unquestioning obedience to
parents among the children of today.
They are disposed to think for them
selves and certainly some of them
seem to have old heads on young
shoulders. Perhaps, too, there is less
old-fashioned love and more marry
ing for convenience. I can’t help de
ploring this, even at the risk of being
called a sentimentalist.
OLD WOMAN.
IRONICA.
“Ironica—a Romance of the Rock
ies,” is the title of a new and most
interesting novel, written by Mary
Kroh Colvin and published by Herman
Lechner, New York City.
The scene of the story is among
the rugged range aid fertile valleys of
the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Here
Carlton Fairfax —a scholarly, deep
hearted man has taken refuge from
the world in which he has suffered a
crushing disappointment. Surround
ed by pictuesque, extensive grounds :
he has built a beautiful home and
brought up from early childhood his
adopted daughter—the child of the
beautiful woman, now dead, who had
“wrought him woe.”
In this secluded home in the moun
tains, Ironica has grown to girlhood,
knowing nothing of the world, save
through books, educated by her fath
er, and an accomplished woman tu
tor, who taught her music and paint
ing. She almost lives out of doors
and is a daring horseback rider and
climber of mountain sides. She has
many original ideas and beautiful
dreams. She is independent in char-'
acter, but she adores her father and
bends her wishes to his will.
It proves to be unfortunate that she
has this habit of implicit obedience —
when at length a crisis comes in her
life. Into the quiet, happy life at
Lakeside there enters a disturbing
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