- 
 
 ^S^^A^^k . 
 
 Jill l|g 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
THE 
 
 WAYS OF WOMEN 
 
 IN THEIR 
 
 PHYSICAL, MORAL 
 
 AND 
 
 INTELLECTUAL RELATIONS, 
 
 BY A MEDICAL MAN. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN P. JEWETT & Co., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 No. 5 DEY STREET. 
 1873. 
 
 
Entered according to act of Congress, In the year 1873, by 
 
 JOHN P. JEWETT, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 LANGS, LITTLK & HILLMAN, 
 
 PRINTERS, ELECTROTYPERS AND STEREOTYPER8, 
 
 108 TO 114 WooeTKR STREET, N. Y. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A LEADING object of this volume is to explain, in a familiar 
 manner, how women may improve their condition by conform- 
 ing to the laws of health. 
 
 Next, to point out the way by which, in this active age 
 of Christian civilization, they may be qualified for sustaining 
 themselves honorably and successfully in various new relations 
 to society. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGB. 
 
 .Women Their Influence, Magnetism, Inborn Intuitions, and Power in 
 
 every Age and Country 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 'Generalizations References in Construction to Specific Purposes Rudi- 
 mentary Organs Constant Evidences of Design Organic Life and 
 Multiform Objects of Interest in the Investigation of Laws Regulat- 
 ing Existence 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Laws of Adaptation Reference to Lactation Pelvic Carpentry Ex- 
 posures to Weather Being too Delicate Progress of Sentimen- 
 tality 24 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Social Status of Women. . . 26 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Exterior of the Sexes 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Imperfect Development of Women 41 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Dress of Women 54 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Exercise of Women 69 
 
 M363083 
 
g CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Nervous System of Women Different Nerves Their Functions Ana- 
 tomically alike in both Sexes Old Age Children Nursed by Men- 
 Arrest of Pulmonary Consumption by Lactation Too much Restraint 
 Exercise Essential 83 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 'Amusements of Women Young Animals in Sports Blind Buffaloes 
 Reptiles Brain Volume Mechanical Ingenuity Conversation with 
 Children Theoretical Schemes of Female Education Dancing 
 Entertaining Distinguished Guests Theatres Always have Existed 
 Labor Children Over- worked Philanthropic Efforts Play-time 
 a Sanitary Measure Why Sleep is Necessary 100 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Their Mode of Living Pickles Dentists Benefited Mountaineers 
 Digestion Sugar-eating Character of Food Food of Animals 
 Camels Artificial Teeth Must Vary Pursuits Rural Diseases 
 Neuralgic Pains Sallow Complexions 114 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 How they should Sleep Sleep of Insects Somnambulism Glandular 
 System Repair Transfer of Vitality Marriage of Aged Persons 
 Females in Factories 133 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Food of Women Dietetics of the World Everything Eaten Habits 
 Sugar a Necessity Economy of the Liver Pork By whom Avoided 
 Starch Experiment with Honey Bees Law of Life Illustrated 
 Fruits for Children Open-Air Exercise for Girls A Benevolent 
 Citizen of Boston Fish Food 155 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Internal Structure Chest Compression of Blood Vessels in Women 
 Healthy Children Anger Heart Irritability Origin of its Power 
 Sudden Death Be Moderate Dropsical Effusions 1 ', ? 
 
CONTENTS. 7 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Over- working the Heart 184 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Their Lungs .194 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Their Digestion 212 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Their Growth 232 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Their Eyes 240 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Their Teeth 255 
 
 % 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 Their Hair How Abused Desquamations Depilation Excessive 
 Growth of Baldness Covering the Head Luxuriant Hair Hair 
 Dyes Objections toEffects of Lead Sulphur 269 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Their Feet How Inj ured Origin of Corns and Bunions Tight Shoes 
 Enlarged Joints Rubber Shoes High Heels Remedies for Pedal 
 Deformities 284 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Their Physical Necessities 296 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV, 
 
 Minor Sources of Annoyance Pride Mutilations Ligation of Limbs 
 Freckles Epidermis Moth Patches Nostrums Grass Diet 
 Topical Applications Red Noses Astringents Smelling-Bottles 
 Stimulants Appearing to Advantage 302 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Their Peculiar Organization 311 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Their Maladies Pleasure and Pain Wheat-Growing Regions Change 
 of Location Town Residence Transplantation of Humanity 
 Travelling for Health Contest between Life and Death Peritoneal 
 Inflammation Pleural Adhesions Stays Female Clothing Un- 
 covered Arms and Chest Progress of Refinement 314 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Their Powers of Endurance What they can do In Science Being Mis- 
 placed In Offices Out-Door Employment Capacity Iceberg Sym- 
 pathy Children of Indigent Parentage Varying Temperatures 
 Development of Strength 332 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Brain Force Mental Differences Genius Molecules of Matter Dupli- 
 cation of Organs All Brains appear alike A Divine Mystery 
 Male and Female Brains No Anatomical Difference 342 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 Over-working the Brain 348 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Their Complexion Physical Bearing Cosmetics Eruptions Pearl 
 Powder Water as a Purifier Pores of the Skin Insensible Per- 
 spiration Tint of Antimony 354 
 
CONTENTS. \) 
 
 TAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 Female Education 366 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIL 
 
 Acquiring Languages Capacity for Certain Pursuits Waste of Life 
 A One-Tongued People How to Proceed Dogs learn the Meaning 
 of Words Carious Relation of Facts Telegraphy 381 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Women in Professions Not Good Public Speakers A Reason Pro- 
 fessors in Colleges Female Physicians a Success Admirable Artists 
 Approved Teachers Should be Encouraged and Sustained 402 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 Marriage , 412 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 Their Dangers in Marriage 431 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 Divorces 449 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 The Longevity of Women 457 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 Their Future in the United States. . . 473 
 
THE "WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Their Influence, Magnetism, Inborn Intuitions, and Power in every Age and 
 
 Country. 
 
 SINCE the creation of Eve, women have been objects of 
 peculiar interest wherever seen. They are conscious of possess- 
 ing a controlling influence over men, whatever their social 
 position, and they wield it according to circumstances. They 
 assume a general attitude of defence, as though recognizing the 
 fact of being physically weak, while exercising a mysterious 
 strength which no man has the energy to resist. Whatever 
 her condition, from a pampered lady of the court to a menial 
 servant of the kitchen, every woman demonstrates in her inter- 
 course with the world the truth of the foregoing proposition. 
 Her attractions or exhibitions of contempt are acts of volition. 
 Both may be exerted either for good or for evil, according to 
 her own individual determination. 
 
 There are peculiar inborn properties of the sex which 
 education modifies but cannot extinguish. Beauty, elegance 
 of form, and grace of manners are powerful auxiliary forces 
 when exercised for the accomplishment of ambitious designs. 
 There is neither spirit nor persistency enough in the whole 
 range of masculine humanity, with but a few rare exceptions, 
 
12 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 to withstand the artillery of a magnificent woman's charms, 
 when sent forth in all their potency with a view to conquest. 
 
 Kings, princes, statesmen, theologians, and those of grave 
 and solemn deportment, are alike impressible when subjected 
 to those mysterious influences which are the glory and the 
 shame of womanhood. Science sheds no light on this subject, 
 since it has not yet been explained how female organization is 
 endowed with such superior force. 
 
 In the functions of organs essential to nutrition, and in the 
 form and offices of the apparatus of the special senses, there is 
 no apparent difference, and yet men and women differ in their 
 natures. Neither one is a perfect being. They are complete 
 halves. The two constitute one perfect whole. 
 
 THE FRAME OF WOMAN. 
 
 There are about two hundred and forty-eight bones in a 
 human skeleton. More are often found, but fewer than two 
 hundred and thirty-nine could not be dispensed with, and the 
 individual not be noticeable as organically defective. 
 
 When extra bones appear, they are usually under the balls 
 of the great toes. From their resemblance to sesamum seeds, 
 they are called sesarnoids. 
 
 The production of those split-pea shaped bones may happen 
 at any period of life about the articulations of the thumbs, 
 fingers, or toes, to meet certain contingencies to which they 
 may have been exposed. Their development under flexor 
 tendons are purely a mechanical principle, to carry the cord 
 farther from the joint to increase its power. In some cases the 
 introduction of those extra bones is a temporary provision, and 
 they are absorbed and taken away when no longer of service. 
 
 The knee-pans are of the same character, being movable 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 13 
 
 fulcrums, rising and falling in the flexion or extension of the 
 limb. By placing the palm of the hand over the knee-cap 
 while bending the leg, the sliding motion of the patella, 
 up and down, illustrates its office in the economy of that joint. 
 "When extra burdens are imposed for a succession of weeks 
 or months, requiring a firmer foothold in order to carry the 
 weight steadily, the cordage of the feet will increase, both in 
 volume and tone, to meet the emergency. Thus, a hodcarrier, 
 climbing ladders, will not only have enlarged feet, but sesa- 
 moid bones make their appearance at points where the tendons 
 have the greatest amount of strain upon them, about the under 
 side of the toes. 
 
 LAWS TO MEET CASES. 
 
 Nature exercises a discretionary oversight, as it were, for 
 the comfort of the individual as well as for the immediate pro- 
 tection of a most exposed part, by introducing temporary assist- 
 tance, and removing it when no longer necessary. 
 
 Small ossific deposits sometimes appear about the finger 
 joints, for the same beneficial purpose. Should they become 
 inconveniently large, when the cause is removed which quick- 
 ened them into existence, ordinarily they begin to diminish in 
 size, unless the individual is at an advanced age, when vitality 
 loses much of its former force. 
 
 EQUAL NUMBER OF BOITES IK BOTH SEXES. 
 
 There are exactly as many bones in the female as in the male 
 skeleton, but they are smaller and more delicate in texture, 
 with slighter depressions and less prominent eminences upon 
 them. A female skull is smaller, thinner, and bears upon its 
 general exterior, peculiarities indicative of mental qualities, if 
 
14 . THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 there is any reliance upon phrenology, not to be neglected or 
 overlooked in studying osteological architecture. 
 
 One of the most obvious differences is a gentle arching of 
 the female head from the forehead upward to the vertex, which 
 is always more elevated than in male skulls. Scarcely one 
 flat head, in that region, can be found in a thousand. On the 
 contrary, the number of upwardly arched heads is small, in 
 comparison, among men. They are more commonly quite flat, 
 or slightly raised between the sinciput and occiput. 
 
 This characteristic difference is considered, by experts in 
 sentimental craniology, as proof positive, that women always 
 have more elevated moral sentiment, and are actually better 
 than men, because they possess a more favorable organization. 
 Nothing is more familiar than bones, and therefore, little or no 
 thought is bestowed upon them. But, when carefully ex- 
 amined, they are rich in lessons of instruction. They are 
 levers for the attachment of muscles or movers, by the con- 
 traction or relaxation of which motions are effected. 
 
 Every animal which is capable of making a motion possesses 
 muscles. Most of them have skeletons clothed with flesh, 
 and that is an aggregation of muscles. In the simpler forms 
 of aquatic life, as in lobsters, crabs, etc., etc., the skeleton is on 
 the outside. "While it gives attachment to muscles, it also is a 
 coat of mail, a house or a fortress in which they dwell, secure- 
 ly defended from the assaults of enemies. 
 
 FORMATION OF BO^ES. 
 
 At birth we have no perfect bones, with the exception of 
 the auditory, but they soon begin to harden as the infant 
 is furnished with food. Then ossification commences, a very 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 15 
 
 gradual process, not fairly completed till about the twentieth 
 year. 
 
 The formation, therefore, of two hundred and forty-eight 
 hard bones of different shapes, densities, and positions, out of 
 food taken into the stomach, is a marvel. But that is not the 
 whole of the wonder. When fashioned and apparently finish- 
 ed, then they are taken to pieces, particle by particle, and carried 
 out of the body, a new particle invariably being inserted 
 when an old one is removed. 
 
 There is no cessation of this vital process ; it is perpetually 
 going on from the hour of birth to the expiration of the last 
 breath. It is not unlike building a brick edifice. When com- 
 pleted, were the masons to commence forthwith to remove a 
 brick in the wall, and, at the same instant, introduce a new one 
 in its place, and never relax in that repetition of exchanging new 
 for old ones, till the structure was destroyed, it would represent 
 the process always going on in a living being. 
 
 Our very bones are many times renewed, therefore, in the 
 course of a medium lifetime, although their composition is a 
 compound of phosphate of magnesia, phosphate and carbonate 
 of lime, manganese, iron, silex, etc., in definite proportions, 
 which no chemist could more accurately weigh in his scales. 
 
 MALE AND FEMALE SKELETON. 
 
 Although constructed of exactly the same materials, in the 
 same elementary proportions, having the same general forms, 
 there is a difference in the skeletons which the anatomist 
 detects very readily. 
 
 When suspended side by side, a characteristic difference 
 becomes apparent. The pelvis is broader and deeper in the 
 female, which throws the hips further apart, giving to that 
 
16 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 central pivot of the frame a feature which artists, particularly 
 sculptors, are careful to note, as it cants the knees so nearly 
 together they almost touch. In the male subject the thigh 
 bones are nearly parallel. 
 
 Again, the necks of the femoral bones are longer in the 
 female, throwing the shafts further from the sockets in which 
 they are articulated. A vertical line drawn perpendicularly to 
 the space between the knees, from the chin, gives the most 
 satisfactory demonstration of this very curious arrangement. 
 
 The distance between the articulating heads of the thigh 
 bones is so plainly recognized, as to enable those with a very 
 limited acquaintance with osteology, to determine, with con- 
 siderable accuracy, to which sex a skeleton belonged. 
 
 This circumstance may be of considerable importance in con- 
 ducting judicial inquiries. Public anxiety is sometimes pain- 
 fully excited when human remains are found in obscure places, 
 that lead to the suspicion of a concealed crime. If a man had 
 mysteriously disappeared, and the discovered bones belonged to 
 a female, it would be important in settling a mooted question. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 GENERALIZATIONS. 
 
 References in Construction to Specific Purposes Rudimentary Organs 
 Constant Evidences of Design Organic Life and Multiform Objects of 
 Interest in the Investigation of Laws Regulating Existence. 
 
 FKOM the beginning of woman's existence, a reference is 
 discoverable in her mind and body, in regard to the exact posi- 
 tion she was predestined to occupy. As already expressed, her 
 bones, not in their composition, but in some of their directions 
 rather than in their forms, indicate a reason for deviations from 
 lines given to those of the male. They must have had the same 
 condition in the first created woman, otherwise the architecture 
 manifested in the pelvic construction w^ould have been an 
 imperfection. Eve would have left no posterity on the earth, 
 had the carpentry of that region been different from what it 
 now is in her feminine descendants. 
 
 Small philosophers have dared to suggest that Adam was, in 
 his own person, both male and female. Rudimentary paps of 
 men, monkies, dogs, swine, and many other quadrupeds, are 
 cited as testifying to the truth of their theory, that they were 
 originally hermaphrodites being in their present state, substan- 
 tially, degenerated females. In the first chapter of Genesis, 
 they find a declaration respecting the first man, which strength- 
 ens their convictions. 
 
 Woman, then, in the peculiarities of her bones, presents 
 evidences of a design which could not have been so without a 
 designer. She did not fashion herself ; and, therefore, in the 
 commencement of our inquiries, are irrefragable proofs of 
 
18 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 a Supreme Intelligence in every step of progress in these 
 investigations. 
 
 The sexes have been distinct from the beginning. 
 
 It would be inappropriate to discuss the mental attributes of 
 women in the commencement of these deliberations, or to insti- 
 tute comparisons by weighing her brain in patent balances, 
 measuring the length of her muscles, counting the hairs on her 
 head, or drawing parallels between her attainments and those 
 of giants in art, literature, and science. It is necessary to keep 
 within prescribed boundaries in order to gain accurate know- 
 ledge of her ways, by studying carefully what is already known, 
 to find out what may be unknown, that would enhance her 
 claims for better treatment and justice at the hands of those 
 who are her natural protectors and associates. 
 
 By contraction, muscles bend the arm, raise a shoulder, 
 grit the teeth, or carry a spoon to the mouth. There are no 
 surprises excited by motions so common. Women walk, run, 
 eat, drink, sleep, and recruit their exhausted vitality as men do. 
 By analagous mechanism, they perform on musical instruments ; 
 think, speak, sing, and express their sensations. Therefore, 
 their brain is the same in form and texture, but smaller, and 
 hence it has been hastily concluded they are unequal to enter- 
 prises in which men excel. Only those quite incompetent to 
 comprehend the mission of women, or appreciate her many 
 claims to distinction, arrive at that conclusion. 
 
 
 
 WHAT THEY HAVE DONE. 
 
 By hereditary right women have ascended thrones. History 
 narrates thrilling military successes of women. In strategy, 
 they excel when they choose to exercise their ingenuity. 
 
 They have risen to an enviable distinction without wealth, 
 
THE WAYS OP WOMEN. . 19 
 
 by the practice of several arts, and also by varied intellectual 
 attainments. Aside from the immense aid of personal charms, 
 which a few of the many make stepping-stones to eminent 
 positions, their bravery, heroism, and indomitable perseverance 
 have always been themes for admiration, which poets and his- 
 torians seize upon with avidity for illustrating their capacity 
 and their eminent success in all ages. 
 
 They struggle mightily and die valiantly in defence of their 
 honor. Guns, swords, batteries, armies, and ships-of-war are set 
 in motion by men for the subjugation of an enemy. Women 
 bring conquerors to their feet with the magic of their eyes. 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 Although osteology has been referred to, a study of the 
 bones of all kinds of animals, it would be a profitable study in 
 female schools and seminaries. There is nothing improper, 
 revolting, frightful, or disgusting in the pursuit. No better 
 opportunity ever presents for impressing upon the plastic minds 
 of youth, properly presented, an overwhelming argument 
 against infidelity, than a plain demonstration of the skill and 
 superhuman contrivances exhibited in the adjustment of the 
 bones of a bird, a carnivorous beast, or, better still, in the con- 
 struction of a human skull. 
 
 Children must see things to understand them. The eye 
 takes in a group at once, and the impressions made by tangible 
 illustrations of the resources of the Divine Originator, in the 
 examination of such mechanism, cannot be easily forgotten. 
 To see the tubular bridge spanning the Straits of Menai, the 
 traveller has ever after a vivid recollection of its appearance 
 and utility, which he could not have by simply reading about 
 it. Anatomical researches fail to show any very striking diner- 
 
20 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 ences in the general construction of men and women. Bones, 
 muscles, nerves, blood vessels, most of the glands and viscera, 
 are precisely alike in shape and function. 
 
 It is not enough to state explicitly, that all the internal ap- 
 paratus of organic life so much resemble each other when de- 
 tached from the cavities in which they were lodged the most 
 experienced student of a dissecting-room could not decide 
 which were taken from a male, or which from a female. Pro- 
 ducts of secreting glands, as the salivary in the mouth; the 
 lachrymal in the orbits ; wax in the external ear, etc., are pre- 
 cisely the same in composition. In short, whatever is necessary 
 for sustaining life in the one is equally so in the other, and 
 accomplished precisely in the same manner. 
 
 These generalizations are neither new nor equally interest- 
 ing to all ; nevertheless, they are curious facts, and not un- 
 worthy the thoughtful consideration of those who confess their 
 belief in the existence of a Being who alone could have ori- 
 ginated these complicated mechanisms, and established laws 
 which secure for them, as they do for planets in their orbits, 
 perfect harmony in their movements. 
 
 NOTHING BY CHANCE. 
 
 Two deviations in the bones of the female have been special 
 points of interest, not on account of their texture or relations, 
 but because they indicate, unmistakably, an office which the 
 same bones in a man were not to have. 
 
 The collar-bones, or clavicles, are invariably longer in women 
 than in men. Whether she is short or tall, those bones always 
 maintain the observable proportionable length to the rest of the 
 skeleton ; otherwise, there are no peculiarities. Attachments 
 of ligaments, muscles, the course of vessels over or under them, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 21 
 
 are no way different in the sexes. "While women inhabit the 
 earth, those collar-bones will have the same relative length, 
 whether mothers nurse their babes as they should or not. 
 
 By their extra elongation, their shoulder-blades are forced 
 farther back towards the spine, thus making a broader flooring, 
 or space, for the lodgment of the breasts in front. This is a 
 reason why women cannot exercise their arms gracefully in 
 throwing a ball. Rarely, indeed, can they hit a mark in that 
 exercise, even with hours of practice. Their awkwardness in 
 that respect is proverbial ; not, however, from any neglect in 
 the education of the muscles of the arm, but from a congenital 
 conformation, are they less expert than men in throwing. The 
 difficulty lies in the arrangement of the ends of the muscles, 
 further removed from the shoulder- joint, by reason of longer 
 clavicles. 
 
 VOCAL Box. 
 
 That protuberance of the upper part of the throat, vulgarly 
 called Adam's Apple, from a tradition that the forbidden fruit 
 stuck there described in books under the name of larynx, or 
 vocal box is a genuine musical instrument. Within it there 
 are vocal chords, which vibrate as the current of air passes their 
 thin edges. The sound thus produced is voice, afterwards 
 modulated, and by systematic practice forms a language. 
 
 In men that box, at puberty, becomes enlarged and partially 
 ossifies. At that period of development the boy's voice is 
 irregular a vox rauca a sign that he is passing from adol- 
 escence to perfect manhood. 
 
 With females, on the other hand, the original flexibility of 
 the cartilages of the larynx remain without much apparent 
 alteration ; thus they can sing in the same tones through life. 
 Their voice remains always the same. No such physiological 
 
22 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 metamorphosis occurs in them, as in the boy, that alters the 
 shape or cartilaginous character of the vocal box. For expan- 
 sion or development of the larynx, its powers were very slowly 
 maturing for thirteen or fourteen years, and when the voice 
 changes, Nature announces, in that sudden evolution, an extra- 
 ordinary physiological revolution in the boy's system. He is 
 then a man. His beard grows, the muscles attain more volume, 
 and all the powers of the body and mind are exalted. 
 
 This law perplexes physiologists. They have not success- 
 fully explained vital phenomena which still await elucidation. 
 
 Why some organs are active, and others quiescent for suc- 
 cessive years, and then quickly burst into vigorous development, 
 waits the patient researches of future philosophers. 
 
 In height, weight, and corporeal beauty, women differ from 
 men essentially. In their moral constitution they also differ. 
 Although neither so tall, so heavy, nor so strong, they are not 
 without a commensurate compensation, always equal, and in 
 many respects more interesting, according to the progress of a 
 refined civilization. 
 
 LAWS OF LIMITATION. 
 
 In comparing the physical structure, it must appear obvious 
 to the most superficial observer, there are laws in force which 
 regulate and determine animal growth. The elongation of the 
 body of a man much beyond the stature of six feet, is a devia- 
 tion from a normal standard in nature. An inch or two above 
 or below the ordinary height excites no particular surprise, as a 
 departure from the ordinary standard of humanity ; but six feet 
 and a-half or seven feet are anomalies, arresting our attention 
 as abnormal, and, therefore, extraordinary. An experiment of 
 an eccentric King of Prussia for rearing an army of giants, by 
 compelling the tallest soldiers to marry the tallest women in the 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 23 
 
 kingdom, exclusively, whether they were willing or not, is a 
 matter of history, which proved singularly unsuccessful. The 
 children of such parents, as often as otherwise, presented all 
 those intermediate conditions between short and tall, character- 
 istic of families in general. In a group of six or eight descend- 
 ants from those unusually tall fathers and mothers, perhaps a 
 majority of the sons were six feet. A few were even taller 
 than the parents, while the remainder fell considerably below. 
 
 There are representatives of those Anaks in various parts of 
 Prussia, at this time, but nowhere are there either families or 
 communities which have perpetuated an unusual altitude. They 
 degenerated to the original measure determined by a recognized 
 law of limitation, and there men and women will remain. 
 
 There is a seeming predisposition in tall men to select short 
 women for wives. It is an inborn, inexplicable fancy of 
 exceedingly tall women to marry short husbands. It may not 
 be either universal or imperative, but it is so frequently occur- 
 ring as to have been noticed by philosophical writers, earnest 
 interrogators of Nature into causes and the effects of causes. 
 They think they perceive in this spirit of selection, otherwise 
 denned to be an impulse of affection or preference, a law for 
 equalizing the height of mankind. Were dwarfs to give pre- 
 ference to the marital companionship of dwarfs, and giants to 
 giants, there would possibly be the two extremes pigmies and 
 Brobdingnags dividing the habitable portions of the earth 
 between them, instead of races of rational beings controlled 
 by a uniform law of limitation, standing upon the same plane,, 
 and averaging the same stature. 
 
 Yery tall men, with remarkably tall wives, are met with- 
 everywhere, but they are exceptions, rather than illustrations of 
 the law of development. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CUKIOSITIES OF ANATOMY. 
 
 Laws of Adaptation Reference to Lactation Pelvic Carpentry Exposures 
 to Weather Being too Delicate Progress of -Sentimentality, etc. 
 
 PECULIARITIES of the collar-bones, tlie width and depth of 
 the pelvis, articulation of the thigh-bones and some other 
 deviations in the female skeleton already adverted to, are 
 quite sufficient for establishing the truth of one important 
 proposition; viz., that they incontestably prove design, and, 
 therefore, there was a designer. As we cannot add one inch to 
 our stature, or make ourselves either handsome or ugly, we 
 are at liberty, as free agents, to improve our condition. The 
 form given us in the shape of those few bones, proves as clearly 
 as grander exhibitions of Omnipotence, the controlling agency 
 of a superior Being. 
 
 Let us analyze a little further those few specimens of design, 
 to gather further insight into the object contemplated and the 
 results to follow. 
 
 These long collar-bones are braces, keeping the shoulder- 
 blades from being drawn too far forward by the pectoral 
 muscles. Were they to encroach, it would be to the injury of the 
 breasts, crowding them out of place, and thus interfering with 
 the prescribed function of lactation. 
 
 A female breast offers a more inviting pillow for the infant's 
 head than the hard flat chest of a man. A woman who has 
 had no experience in the care of children always exhibits more 
 tact and success in managing them to their satisfaction, than 
 the most tender, sympathizing man. The softness of the invest- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 25 
 
 ing tissues of the chest, the wider space for the infant's resting 
 place, and the delicate cushioning of the ribs, forms an object 
 contemplated from the beginning, and indicated beyond ques- 
 tion by their precise position. 
 
 The out-spreading hip-bones, give a breadth to the fe- 
 male form, which is striking in any form or fashion of dress, 
 compared with the hips of an adult man. The pelvis is built 
 up of only three immensely large, irregularly-shapen pieces, 
 constituting its walls. The key, or wedge-bone, under the 
 name of os sacrum, is the base on which rests the spinal column. 
 Its prolongation on a horizontal line in animals is the tail, but 
 which in the human skeleton is formed of several distinct pieces, 
 gently curved, so as to become, at the extreme tip, a flooring of 
 the pelvis, for sustaining the viscera above. 
 
 This particular section of the frame of the female, abound- 
 ing in curious manifestations of means to ends, is complicated 
 with muscles and vessels, and, consequently, cannot readily be 
 described in a way to have the mechanism understood, without 
 drawings. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SOCIAL STATUS OF 
 
 CUSTOM sanctions the treatment of women as though they 
 were unable to bear atmospheric exposures, or meet hardships 
 of any kind with impunity. It is a mistake. 
 
 When their lives are cast in pleasant places, and they are 
 sustained by a conscious independence of circumstances, which 
 can only be realized in a state of Christian civilization, they 
 then present themselves in the dignity of intellectual character. 
 Uneducated, and simply occupying the position of a slave or an 
 out-door laborer, they are adequate to the severest test of servile 
 employment. 
 
 In refined communities, where contentment prevails, and 
 where she is contemplated as a dependent appendage, rather 
 than an efficient assistant, woman physically deteriorates. 
 Kindness may degenerate into sickly sentimentality. Lamb- 
 like and gentle, restless, irritable, and presumptuously exacting, 
 are the poises that have much to do with the happiness or 
 unhappiiiess of the sex. 
 
 Industry being honored as a virtue, idleness, consequently, 
 tips the beam in an opposite direction. Being unemployed is 
 no mark of a lady. Those who imagine it degrades them to be 
 associated with pursuits indicative of labor, unfortunately for 
 themselves lose what they most covet, viz., the admiration of 
 their friends. 
 
 In-door industry is, by general consent, commendable, and 
 there it is supposed that woman is in her appropriate sphere. 
 The cares devolving upon them, married or single, relieve 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 27 
 
 them from those exposures which bronze the features, harden 
 the hands, and destroy those traits of gracefulness which largely 
 contribute to the withering of their charms. Caring for chil- 
 dren, presiding as the spirit of order in the domestic circle, or 
 giving the products of the field their preparations for the table, 
 are not incompatible with elegance of manners, courtesy, and 
 the handy disposition of the toilet. 
 
 When she steps beyond that assigned theatre for the exer- 
 cise of her powers, whether improved by education or displayed 
 in the rudeness of untutored abandonment, a woman is out of 
 place. 
 
 Whether wise or foolish, learned or ignorant, poor or rich, 
 beautiful or ugly, it is conceded by most men, not by reasoning 
 but by intuition, that woman should be favored, and not sub- 
 jected to the same discipline, in any department of industry, as 
 themselves. On this sentiment civilization took its rise. To 
 some extent, savages and barbarians concur with philosophers, 
 that females cannot endure as much as men, because they have 
 not the same hardy organization ; so they alternately favor or 
 oppress them, regarding them as servants, but not their equals 
 or companions. 
 
 With savages, woman bears all the domestic burdens, suffers 
 indignities patiently, and rears up children tenderly, protecting 
 them with a mother's undying love, to be abused by them as 
 soon as they have strength in their little arms to give them a 
 blow. 
 
 A true history of the world is also a record of the wrongs 
 of woman. Her happiness, her sorrows, her influence, and her 
 misfortunes, are not estimated as they should be. She deserves 
 heaven as a compensation for her bad treatment on earth. 
 
28 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 EQUALITY OF THE SEXES. 
 
 In theory it sounds well, when a political demagogue prates 
 loudly before a multitude, of human rights and the equality of 
 the sexes. A millstone hangs as heavily at the neck of a 
 colored woman on a cotton plantation, as it would suspended 
 from the neck of the orator's wife; but circumstances alter 
 cases. After election, nothing more is heard of all being born 
 free to pursue their way to happiness, till preparation for open- 
 ing the polls comes around another year. 
 
 Unfortunately for the best-contrived plans for ameliorating 
 social distinctions in this commercial age, it is necessary to 
 stand on a pile of dollars in order to receive the same attentions 
 accorded to those who actually possess them. Talent, educa- 
 tion, or blood of martyrs in one's veins, are no recommendation 
 to an acquaintance with property-owners, because revenues are 
 the accredited touchstone to respectability. 
 
 Every city in Europe and America has its philosophers in 
 rags, splendid women in poverty, the descendants of great fami- 
 lies without a shilling. Who cares for them? Who invites 
 them to dine when they entertain distinguished guests ? 
 
 Nobody ! No, they are not asked to take a seat in the broad 
 aisle of a church erected by their ancestors ! This is a text for 
 reflection, but not a suitable subject for a sermon, it would 
 so shock the sensibilities of devout hypocrites, who worship 
 mammon under the mistaken idea of honoring the institutes 
 of religion. 
 
 AN INCONSISTENCY. 
 
 A glaring inconsistency in the present order of society is 
 I an unwillingness to allow females to sustain themselves by in- 
 dustrial pursuits which are claimed to be the legitimate avoca- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 29 
 
 tion of men. J3y their exclusion, therefore, from enterprises 
 perfectly within their sphere, many are unemployed, while 
 another portion are cruelly overworked. 
 
 A million of women in the United States, and perhaps 
 twice or thrice that number, contribute nothing to the common 
 weal. Necessity makes no demand upon them, and conse- 
 quently they are not only non-producers, but are sustained by 
 the industry of others. 
 
 One class of unemployed females are denominated ladies, 
 because they are above labor, and another stigmatized as va- 
 grants, if scrutinized legally, on account of doing nothing. 
 
 No woman can be so far elevated by the adventitious cir- 
 cumstances of having an income that defrays her expenses, as 
 to be exonerated from a moral obligation of doing as she would 
 be done by, in her intercourse with those less fortunate than 
 herself. Where that golden principle is lost sight of by man or 
 woman, deterioration follows. A few are lulled on down and 
 pampered on delicacies; others have measured out to them 
 bitter draughts : vexations, disappointments, blighted expecta- 
 tions, thwarted aspirations succeed each other in rapid suc- 
 cession. Their pathway in life is through darkness and personal 
 sufferings. 
 
 No wonder an expression of despair escapes the lips of 
 those who feel themselves born to misfortune, in contrasting 
 their condition with others, who never had an ungratified de- 
 sire. They cannot see why they have been forced into exist- 
 ence to be miserable. 
 
 God in his wise purposes will clear away the clouds which 
 make the course of life obscure to our limited mental vision. 
 A law of compensation exists on the statutes of the Sovereign 
 ruler of events, which will never be repealed while the pillars 
 of justice sustain an edifice in heaven not made with hands. 
 
30 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Those difficult, social, and pecuniary problems are not for us 
 to solve. Why sinners are rich or saints poor, cannot be satis- 
 factorily explained by human wisdom. Divine government is 
 impartial, since it rains upon the unjust as copiously as upon 
 the just. 
 
 MIGHT AND RIGHT. 
 
 Argue as we may to persuade the favorites of fortune to 
 divide their goods with the destitute, they will not do it. In- 
 side passengers pity those exposed -to the peltings of the storm 
 outside, but they do not voluntarily exchange places with them. 
 Nor do the poor, when unexpectedly put in possession of an 
 abundance, manifest a grain more of compassion than those 
 they before envied on account of their independence, or de- 
 nounced for their cold-heartedness and want of sympathy. 
 
 ONE OF THE GREATEST INVENTIONS. 
 
 Money was as potent when Abraham wandered with his 
 flocks as it is in the transactions of bankers in this year of 
 grace. 
 
 It was a great invention, and clothed with additional inter- 
 est, when we reflect upon it, that whoever hit upon the idea 
 first, of having a piece of metal represent the value of a camel, 
 a horse, goods, chattels, or territory, thousands of times larger in 
 bulk, and then succeeded in making those to whom the scheme 
 was divulged agree to it, still more extraordinary. 
 
 Antiquarians cannot decide the epoch of its first appear- 
 ance in trade. As far back, however, as sacred or profane his- 
 tory reaches, money was quite as potent as it now is. So pre- 
 cious was it very anciently, it was probably counterfeited, 
 which is inferred from a transaction mentioned in the book of 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 31 
 
 Genesis, in which the purchase amounted to four hundred 
 shekels, " current money of the merchant" 
 
 Civilization, from its phases in the orient to Anno Domini, 
 1873, has not much improved this universal representative of 
 wealth. It also represents power. The mere belief that an in- 
 dividual has more of it than another, gains ascendency for him 
 over those who were before his equals. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 EXTERIOR OF THE SEXES. 
 
 WHY the male lion has a shaggy mane, a larger body, or 
 stronger claws than the lioness, is beyond our ken. Throughout 
 the animal kingdom, with a few exceptions already partially 
 recognized in a preceding chapter, males are larger and stronger 
 than females of the same race, and far more beautiful. 
 
 Male birds, from the gaudy peacock to the ground sparrows, 
 are magnificently ornamented with variegated plumage, difficult 
 to imitate successfully by art. But, on the ascending scale, on 
 reaching human beings, there is a reversal of the law. Woman's 
 beauty transcends all other displays of beauty, while man is far 
 less engaging in facial expression. His face inspires a different 
 kind of surprise, admiration, or sentiments, but no sentiment of 
 adoration. 
 
 Man's face is partially covered by a beard, if he is fully 
 developed. His features are bolder, harder, and his build and 
 movements are indicative of strength, vigor, and the wildest 
 exhibitions of impetuosity. With massive limbs and regular 
 deportment, he has no exterior beauty to be compared with the 
 exterior of a beautiful woman. A handsome man is handsome 
 by contrast, in possessing those harder, bolder, and rougher phy- 
 sical signs of attributes which animate him. 
 
 Why was a beard bestowed upon man ? That question, many 
 times answered, is still open for a more satisfactory explanation 
 than has yet been given. If it serves as a sieve to prevent the 
 inhalation of dust into the lungs, why not protect a woman in 
 the same manner? She crosses the sandy deserts of Africa 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 33 
 
 with her bearded nomadic associates, exposed to the same 
 simooms. His cervical glands, a priori, require no more protec- 
 tion than those on her throat performing precisely the same office. 
 
 Alternations of heat and cold do not interfere with the 
 functions of those salivary organs in her exposed neck, any 
 oftener than when matted with a bushy beard. ISTor do we 
 admit the cogency of the argument, that a beard is a sign to 
 signify the perfection of manhood. Those fair-skinned or dark 
 tribes, or the red Indians of this Continent, are provided with 
 no such appendage. The Caucasian has a beard. "We shave it 
 off daily, but Nature takes no hint cares nothing about the 
 inconvenience to which we are subjected in removing it with a 
 dull razor : it continually grows. It was intended to subserve 
 some useful purpose, but at present physiologists cannot agree 
 what that is. Were non-bearded men mentally inferior, or 
 those persons less muscular, a clue would be found to a solution 
 of the question. There are as many Samsons without a beard, 
 and bald, as there are with long locks and a disgusting sheet 
 of tangled beard swaying over their linen bosoms. 
 
 Straggling hairs on the chin and the angles of the mouth on 
 females are taken, on slender authority, however, as indications 
 of a masculine character and sterility. A Spanish woman was 
 extensively exhibited a few years since in all the principal cities, 
 who had a prodigiously black bushy beard. She was the mother 
 of three children, neither of whom appeared to have inherited 
 a predisposition to its mother's anomalous appearance. 
 
 In her case, the development of a beard did not diminish a 
 womanly expression of refinement and feminine excellence, 
 nor did it interfere with any maternal relations. It was thick, 
 glossy, long, which, with thick-set whiskers, would have been 
 the delight of scores of beardless bucks who have vainly coaxed 
 for a show on a smooth chin, through costly pots of perfumed 
 bear's-grease. 
 
34 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 When women have passed the age of maternity, it is quite 
 common to be annoyed with straggling hairs shooting out on 
 the upper lip, and about the lower edge of the chin ; but 
 attempts at removing them by violence, the grip of tweezers, or 
 jerks by the fingers, by creating a slight local inflammation, 
 furnishes an extra determination of blood to the locality, that 
 rather augments the crop. Depilatories are to be had in the 
 shops which remove them without inflicting an injury to the 
 complexion. 
 
 FEMALE VOICE. 
 
 A particularly sonorous voice is ordinarily associated with a 
 beard in men. The tone of the female voice is subject to none 
 of the changes which the boy's larynx produces on his voice in 
 passing through a pubert revolution of his system. The girl of 
 the agre of the boy is more mature, and shows her advance 
 
 o / 
 
 beyond him in the contour of her chest. Both remain physi- 
 cally stationary for many successive years. At forty-five or 
 fifty, depending to some extent, perhaps, on climate, all other 
 circumstances being equal', she passes through a change quite as 
 curious and inexplicable as any phenomena which are stumbling- 
 blocks in science. 
 
 With all her faculties in maturity, in health, in capacity for 
 all the responsibilities belonging to her surroundings, nature is 
 inflexible by declaring she shall no longer exercise the functions 
 of a mother she can no longer bear children. 
 
 On the other hand, man may possibly be a father at any 
 period from youth to a full one hundred years, if reliance is to 
 be placed in the statements of very high medical authority. 
 
 -Some men's voices are not essentially altered in timbre at 
 puberty. They are harsh, unmusical, or squeaky, which is 
 attributable to an arrest of larynx development while other 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 35 
 
 revolutionary changes are taking place in the natural order of 
 events. An analogous transition in the vocal apparatus of fowls 
 is noticeable. Young cocks make laudable efforts at crowing, 
 which are ridiculous, compared with the full sonorous voice of 
 a fully-grown chanticleer. Wild fowls exhibit no very noisy 
 vocalizations like crowing. Theirs is a repetition of one or two 
 notes or warbles. A sonorous voice is due, in part, to an evo- 
 lution of sinuses or apartments in the bones of the, cheeks and 
 frontal bone, in which there are large chambers, bearing a certain 
 proportion to the capacity of the box in which the vocal cords 
 vibrate. In eunuchs, these sonorous rooms for the reverberation 
 of sounds are hardly perceptible. There are none in children. 
 The plates of bone begin to recede for the formation of sinuses 
 at puberty. They are extensive in the skull of the lion, whose 
 roar is a terrific sound in those dreary regions where he prowls 
 a monarch over beasts. 
 
 THEIR RIBS. 
 
 From immemorial time a vague impression has been enter- 
 tained among those most susceptible in the way of marvels, of 
 course the most ignorant, that men have not as many ribs on 
 one side as the other ; and the reason given for it is simply this, 
 viz. ; that Adam had one taken out for the manufacture of Eve. 
 A very ridiculous notion, without a single fact to base it upon. 
 Every well-formed man has precisely twelve ribs on each side, 
 twenty-four in all. Seven are long, articulated to the breast- 
 bone through the intervention of elastic cartilages. Five on either 
 side are short, articulated posteriorly to the spine, but their front 
 extremities float loosely in the fleshy walls of the abdomen.* 
 
 * A monomaniac in one of the Western States, in May, 1871, undertook 
 to extract one of his own ribs, out of which it was his purpose to make a 
 wife who should come up to his ideal standard of a proper companion for a 
 bachelor of means 1 
 
36 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 This curious arrangement in the. lower ribs allows for the 
 enlargement of the stomach and bowels, and the flexion of the 
 body forward. 
 
 All the ribs of serpents are free at their anterior extremity, 
 and move like feet in crawling, each being acted upon by a 
 complicated attachment of muscles. In consequence of their 
 peculiar articulation to the backbone by a kind of rolling ball 
 and socket joint, those hideous reptiles are enabled to swallow 
 their prey in one piece, even when the mass has a greater 
 diameter than their own body ; the ribs, being pressed off either 
 way, react back, as so many springs, to compress the contents 
 of the stomach into the smallest dimensions as the process of 
 digestion proceeds. 
 
 In number, situation, and use, the ribs are the same in both 
 sexes. The muscular cordage embracing them is also the same, 
 and they bear the same names. 
 
 Even admitting it to be literally true that a rib was taken 
 from Adam, which we have no right to doubt, deformities, 
 malformations, or defective developments, we have seen, are 
 not transmissible. If they were, then there would be a space 
 for a missing rib. 
 
 An excess of members is not unfrequent, but in a majority 
 of instances, when there are supernumerary parts, as an extra 
 finger, extra ears, supernumerary toes, etc., they invariably ap- 
 pear to have belonged to another being. In the commencement 
 of uterine existence, there were two germs ; the growth of one 
 being arrested, while some fragments becoming attached to the 
 other, in the progress of development, were nourished and be- 
 came a part of the living child. 
 
 In every case, supernumerary appendages are considered as 
 having been the property of the blighted twin. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 37 
 
 STRANGE FREAKS itf NATURE. 
 
 A man advanced in years, awhile since, exhibited himself 
 extensively, who presented the strange anomaly of the lower 
 limbs of an infant protruding from just below the pit of his 
 stomach. To the spectator it had the appearance of a babe 
 half hidden in his abdomen. 
 
 Originally there were twins. There was an arrest of devel- 
 opment of one, from the hips upward. The other portion 
 became attached to the other at the point of union described, 
 and then there was a second interruption. The limbs had 
 attained their present size, when all further growth was com- 
 pletely suspended. Had there been no causes operating to 
 interfere with the uniform law of utero-gestation, there would 
 have 'been a pair of twins of equal completeness in form and 
 development. 
 
 The babes that recently died, born at the "West, whose bodies 
 were united in a way to appear as though lying on their backs, 
 with their heads in opposite directions, are a further illustration 
 of this melting of two beings into one. 
 
 Occasionally twins are born united firmly back to back. 
 The Siamese twins are held together by a large ligamentous 
 mass, the division of which might peril their lives, no surgeon 
 being willing to sever the connection for fear of a hemorrhage 
 from arteries they might not be able to control. 
 
 "Where there are two heads with only one body, as seen in 
 the colored sisters who have been through the States, they are 
 two distinct persons. This is certain, because the two brains 
 pursue different trains of thought, utter words, and constantly 
 show in their mental manifestations they are distinct in soul, 
 though nourished and sustained by one body. It is quite prob- 
 
38 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 able, however, that it will be discovered there are two spines, 
 and two distinct spinal cords, hereafter. 
 
 An agent who appeared to have a pecuniary interest at stake 
 in this double-headed girl, proposed insurance on her life at an 
 office in New York. A question was at once mooted, whether 
 there were two or only one individual to be examined. There 
 were four lower limbs, but only one set of bowels, and, as it 
 was thought, only one stomach. A paper was handed in from 
 a medical gentleman of Boston, who gave it as his decided 
 opinion there were two persons in the one ! 
 
 In the course of these deliberations, we shall endeavor to 
 show that defects are not propagated to the injury of a race. 
 Individuals, but not families, are imperfect in form. Nature 
 is conservative and corrects deviations, but never perpetuates 
 them. Accidental circumstances modify conditions. Hence, 
 the children of such deviations from a normal standard are not 
 like their parents. One-arm children, children with only one 
 leg, or those with extra limbs, are not, as a natural consequence, 
 the offspring of parents thus defective or over-burdened with 
 useless appendages. 
 
 PELVIC CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Notwithstanding the consideration that has been given in 
 preceding pages to the pelvis, as a piece of mechanism, unri- 
 valled, curious from the simplicity of its construction, and the 
 many essential offices it sustains, it would be unpardonable to 
 omit pointing out to parents, instructors, and those having 
 charge of school-houses, seminaries, and institutions for the 
 education of females, a danger that should be avoided, but 
 which rarely receives any thought beyond the lecture-room of a 
 medical college. 
 
 In a sitting posture, the weight of the body is transmitted 
 

 . 
 
 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 39 
 
 to the seat through the lower ends of two bones, having an 
 irregular knob-shape, called ossa ischia. 
 
 If in early youth those three bones composing the pelvis, 
 are forced out of place, or gradually distorted by pressure, it 
 may not only produce a subsequent life of misery, but abso- 
 lutely be a cause of a painful death to a woman. 
 
 As repeatedly asserted, the bones are slow of growth, and 
 not completely ossified till near the twentieth year in females. 
 A neglect to provide them with soft cushions or elastic cover- 
 ings, instead of hard benches, hard chairs, or harder stools, 
 while pursuing their studies, may produce such deviations in 
 those bones as to be ever after beyond relief. A hard bone out 
 of shape, or forced from the line it would have taken had it 
 not been for habitual violence, cannot be pressed back to the 
 position it should have to secure the benefits of a perfect organ- 
 ization. 
 
 No school for female children should be considered suitable 
 for them, if the seats are not as generously supplied with cush- 
 ions as the pews of a church. 
 
 The same danger does not threaten boys on board-benches. 
 Their pelvic bones are set nearer together, are stouter, heavier, 
 and the depth from the pubic brim to lower margin is shal- 
 lower. In a word, on the perfect form of that bony basin de- 
 pends the existence of the human race. 
 
 There is no parallelism between female savages and deli- 
 cately nurtured young ladies, the pride and the glory of civili- 
 zation. The latter cannot endure the privations nor sustain 
 themselves under a tithe of those vicissitudes which are inciden- 
 tal to nomadic life. While civilization brings out the moral 
 and intellectual faculties of an immortal soul, it carries in its 
 train customs, habits, and tendencies which sometimes debilitate, 
 undermine, or effectually destroy individual constitutions. 
 
40 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 "We cannot dwell on all the points that present themselves on 
 reflecting upon what and how we are to act in regard to favor- 
 ing the proper development of yonug females. They demand 
 far more attention than they receive in the way of delicate 
 attention. There is a public duty and obligation to be dis- 
 charged, independently of parental solicitude. Providing them 
 with soft seats in schools and seminaries is indispensable, and 
 for the reasons here set forth. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IMPERFECT DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN". 
 
 IN no country are there so many imperfectly developed 
 females as in this, in proportion to the population. Nor are 
 there more perfectly formed ones on the globe. 
 
 "When a woman is defective in physical development, there 
 is sometimes a corresponding imperfection of mind. Excessive 
 nervous irritability, or any deviation from an uniform expres- 
 sion of that calm, consistent deportment which is a command- 
 ing element in the character of a lady, may be due to some 
 derangements in her system. 
 
 It is proverbial that women of the Eastern States are 
 spare, sharp-featured, and wear an anxious, restless expres- 
 sion. There are smiling faces, and fair ones too; but most 
 of them exhibit an air of haste, nervous agitation on slight 
 occasions, quite at variance with that gentleness of manner, 
 sweetness, and affability, which, properly directed, wins more 
 than a park of artillery could control. 
 
 Climate is chargeable with many influences which derange 
 temperaments. Nevertheless, it is sadly to be lamented that, 
 while some are constitutionally less attractive than others, it 
 is their misfortune to make themselves unnecessarily repulsive. 
 Assuming they 'have a presumptive right to do as they choose, 
 and all men are bound in courtesy to bear and forbear under 
 a galling fire from their batteries, such women are more 
 dreaded than loved. 
 
 Women who are resolved upon driving, mistake their 
 
42 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 mission. Weak men may be led by them ; but it is a difficult 
 undertaking to drive those they may most desire to have at 
 their mercy. 
 
 No woman who has arrived at eighteen with a flat chest, 
 is harmoniously developed. Prominent signs of womanhood, 
 the absence of which" are indications of a defect to be deplored, 
 not because she is less vivacious, less capable, or less able to 
 fill the role prescribed to the sex in the ordinary pursuits of 
 life, are very common with irritable temperaments. The 
 ingenuity of dressmakers and india-rubber manipulators is 
 consequently invoked. 
 
 There are young ladies, in the ratio, perhaps, of ten in 
 a hundred, in the Northern and Eastern States, on whom 
 there is no mammal elevation till they become mothers. 
 When that event occurs, there is an immediate deposition of 
 fat round the lactic ducts to protect the breast from injury 
 during lactation. At weaning, the adipose deposit is absorbed, 
 and the vessels, so carefully surrounded by elastic tissue against 
 the possible contingencies of contusions, while the fountain 
 was supplying the wants of a new being, shrink back to the 
 surface of the great pectoral muscle, hardly larger than fine 
 threads. 
 
 Fashionable interference with nature is the secret of this 
 anomalous condition. To an extent quite noticeable, the cut 
 and fit of garments suppress the mammal characteristic of 
 perfect womanhood. 
 
 It is a tacit acknowledgment in trade, that art takes the 
 place of nature in all cases where show answers all the 
 purposes of substance. 
 
 Artificial limbs, wigs, cambric breast-cups, basket-work 
 convexities, wooden calves, etc., which improve the appear- 
 ance, are neither violations of statute or social law, and, 
 
THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 43 
 
 therefore, will not be abandoned while one sex has a desire 
 to appear well made to the other. 
 
 So artistically are mammal appliances put in place, res- 
 piration produces all the movements as when the organs are in 
 full maturity. 
 
 An imposition is practised both on old and young ladies 
 of non-mammal development condition, that should be exposed. 
 There is on sale in shops an ointment, exceedingly precious, 
 according to the shameful misrepresentation of proprietors, for 
 promoting the growth of the breasts. 
 
 Medications, either externally or internally, for that pur- 
 pose, are positively useless. The swindle is enormously 
 profitable, because no female, after wasting as many dollars as 
 she has teeth, has the moral courage to denounce the fraud. 
 It would be confessing her failure in the experiment. So 
 the sale goes briskly on, and will till something new, repre- 
 sented more potent, with a sweeter odor, takes its place. 
 Empty-headed bucks and beardless fops patronize whisker 
 fertilizers in the same way, without ever having started 
 three hairs where none were designed to grow. 
 
 ANOMALIES. 
 
 "When the hair bulbs are wanting, or are but imperfectly 
 developed, which are hereditary conditions in some families, 
 no medications are effectual in quickening them into activity. 
 When they are imagined to have been serviceable in pro- 
 moting a growth of hair, it is from friction in rubbing on 
 the article, and not the preparation which produces the change. 
 
 Anomalous peculiarities show themselves from generation 
 to generation in families. A predisposition to baldness is 
 one; a beardless chin is another. But such departures are 
 
44: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 not uniform. Thus one son has a full beard and whiskers, 
 while a brother is deficient in both. It is to be observed, in 
 regard to these deviations from a normal type, or inconstancy 
 in external markings, that there are no departures or variations 
 in organs essential to perfect nutrition. 
 
 Through the entire history of the Kendalls, as far as 
 chronicles refer, a child is occasionally born with six toes, 
 on one or both feet, or with an extra finger outside the small 
 one, on one or both hands. But that by no means warrants a 
 belief the Kendalls of England, or their relatives in America, 
 are the lineal descendants of extinct Palestine giants, who 
 were thus provided with additional toes and fingers. It is 
 rather to be explained on the philosophical principle that has 
 already been suggested, viz., that each and every supernu- 
 merary finger or toe is the remnant and only surviving one 
 of a blighted twin, that would have been born had all its 
 parts been symmetrically developed in time. 
 
 A female dwarf is often seen in New York, petitioning 
 for charity, whose arms terminate at the elbows. There are 
 no fore-arms. On the end of each stump are fleshy kernels, 
 which may be properly considered rudimentary fingers. This 
 is an instance of arrested development, and not to be con- 
 founded with cases of excess of members. Her lower limbs 
 are perfect in shape, but not elongated, which indicates a 
 second arrest of vital force at the period usually most active 
 in children, when the shafts of their cylindrical bones are 
 lengthened. 
 
 There is a much-respected member of the British House 
 of Commons who never had arms or legs, nor are there any 
 rudimentary prominences to lead to the supposition they ever 
 had a germinal existence. Melancholy as this extraordinary 
 form of defective external organization appears, he is a man 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 45 
 
 distinguished for a brilliant and cultivated' intellect. With 
 singular adroitness, he writes with a pen in his mouth. That, 
 too, shows to what vicarious uses muscles may be trained, 
 and how the nerves, even those emanating from ganglionic 
 centres, may conduct volitions or carry influences widely 
 different from those assigned to them by the physiologists. 
 
 ABNORMAL DEVIATIONS. 
 
 The subject is not yet exhausted. Some further obser- 
 vations on the fruitful topic of deviations are appropriate. 
 A violation of a natural law does not abrogate it. It may 
 be more logically expressed by repeating the words of another 
 chapter, that a law of nature cannot be altered or abolished. 
 In those singular deviations in animal forms from the true 
 type, we see that a constant effort for a correction of the 
 error or defect is apparent. Nature never relaxes or aban- 
 dons the undertaking till the object is fully accomplished. 
 
 A calf with two heads, a pig with only one eye, a chicken 
 with four legs, or a Nellis without arms, is a departure from 
 a prescribed pattern. They are aberrations, and therefore 
 not to be repeated by direct propagation. Whenever they 
 happen, it is due to circumstances which we have not had 
 the sagacity to detect by scientific researches. 
 
 Physical defects that incapacitate individuals from serving 
 themselves according to the requirements of their nature, and 
 for aiding and assisting their offspring till they are in a 
 condition to take care of themselves, independently of the 
 parents, are not represented in their progeny. Monsters are 
 neither the fathers or mothers of monsters. Were it other- 
 wise, confusion would follow, and no two animals would 
 resemble each other in form, in character, or habits. The 
 
46 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 world would teem with frightful creatures, more hideous and 
 terrible than the prolific imaginations of poets muster for 
 their most daring contests with strange beings, created for 
 special occasions. 
 
 ORIGINAL FOKMS PRESERVED. 
 
 By ingenious, persevering manipulations, flowers, fruits, and 
 even animals may be produced wholly unlike those from which 
 their origin was derived. But they cannot be kept at that 
 point. A tendency to fall back to the form and condition of 
 the original type cannot be effectually suppressed. A gardener's 
 treatment, unrelaxed, furnishes the market with uncommonly 
 large strawberries ; but a relaxation of his attentions would be 
 taken advantage of by vigilant nature, to turn them back to 
 the size to which the law of limitation had assigned them. 
 
 Animals may be so amalgamated by interfering with the 
 laws of reproduction, as to bring into being forms that indicate 
 an origin from mixing races. They may not very accurately 
 resemble either parent, and yet there are characteristic pecu- 
 liarities which belong to both. Mules are neither horses nor 
 asses. Without the beauty of the first, or insignificance of 
 the latter, they are highly-prized hybrids, often taller than the 
 horse, longer-lived than either of the parents, and with a 
 hardier constitution, greater powers of endurance, and immu- 
 nity from diseases to which both are incident. "With such 
 excellent properties, mules do not breed mules. Nature is 
 consistent with herself in the enforcement of laws for the 
 preservation of species. 
 
 ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 
 
 "We shall not meddle with the engrossing subject of evolu- 
 tion, the present plaything of scientists. "Whether we are 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 47 
 
 degenerated monkeys or the children of Adam, is of no conse- 
 quence in these investigations. It is enough that we are here ; 
 but how or when the first human being assumed the preroga- 
 tives of a man, if the Mosaic cosmogony is ignored, cannot be 
 determined by quarrelling with theorists. 
 
 To fortify the position assumed, that nature does not allow 
 of the reproduction of defects, or rather deficiencies, of parts 
 essential for individual protection, further illustrations might 
 be collected quite as cogent as any already cited. 
 
 Of a large collection of remarkable examples, two more only 
 are introduced, not so much on account of their novelty as to 
 preserve a connecting fact, usually omitted, viz. ; that persons 
 born without a full complement of limbs feel no deprivation on 
 that account, nor w T ould they ever repine over the misfortune, 
 were they not commiserated and educated to a knowledge of 
 their condition. 
 
 A bank clerk resided in Boston, born with only one perfect 
 arm and hand. The other stopped short at the elbow. Ex- 
 ceedingly expert in handling bills at the counter, he could not 
 conceive of any use for another hand if he had had one. 
 
 Mr. JSTellis, whose name was once familiar from Maine to 
 Georgia, was born without arms. Not the slightest rudimentary 
 elevation at the shoulders indicated a blighting of elementary 
 limbs. His skill in using scissors with his toes, writing legibly 
 and rapidly, drawing, handling a knife, firing at a mark with a 
 bow and arrow, was very surprising. He was a well-informed, 
 intelligent person, whose conversation and deportment were 
 those of a gentleman of refinement. Mr. Nellis frankly stated 
 that he could not realize that he was defective in any essential 
 particular, because he had no use for arms if he had them. 
 
 While waiting for a train at the western depot in Boston, 
 some years ago, a tall man came to the stove to warm himself, 
 
48 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 whose hands were on his shoulders. They were large, and the 
 lingers long and bony, having the appearance of being used in 
 laborious pursuits. The arm-bones were there, no longer than 
 at birth, but stout and strong. The case is without a parallel 
 in the writer's experience. Had he been questioned, no doubt 
 he would have said he experienced no particular inconvenience 
 from the deformity, because he had not been deprived of any 
 better arms. 
 
 INDUCED MODIFICATIONS OF FORMS. 
 
 Mr. Charles Brown, a native of Waltham, Mass., died in 
 1871, whose right arm-bone, between the shoulder-joint and 
 elbow, was absorbed completely, and carried out of the system. 
 An injury, inflicted by a blow from the horn of an ox he was 
 visiting in the stall, produced inflammation, which, without 
 much pain, and certainly before there was apprehension of 
 danger, resulted in that most extraordinary removal of a long 
 cylindrical bone, without the escape of a single particle through 
 an external aperture. The brace being taken away which kept 
 the muscles extended, they drew the elbow up to very near the 
 shoulder, bulging out, of course, in shortening, by contraction, 
 destroying the symmetry of the arm. When his fingers grasped 
 an object, or he lifted a laden basket, handled the reins of a 
 harnessed horse, the arm was elongated to the original length. 
 On letting go, the muscles would instantly contract like india- 
 rubber straps. 
 
 With animals, when there are anomalies in respect to limbs, 
 there is commonly an excess rather than a deficiency. We 
 have seen a dog without four legs which had acquired a method 
 of going ahead with a degree of fleetness quite surprising. 
 
 It is possible to very materially abridge the growth of parts, 
 to distort bones, and to promote or diminish vital force in the 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 49 
 
 rearing of children. Civilization is imperfect when it conflicts 
 with nature. 
 
 THE DRESS OF LITTLE GIRLS. 
 
 They should never wear tight-fitting dresses over the chest. 
 Entire and perfect freedom should invariably be given to that 
 region. Any close contact of clothing over the pectoral mus- 
 cles, or habitual compression, is an interference with a series of 
 local changes, slowly progressing there, of incalculable import- 
 ance in the economy of female life. Perfectly soft, pliable 
 fabrics for their apparel need not be urged upon those who seek 
 for knowledge in reference to a conscientious discharge of paren- 
 tal duties. For the ignorant, or those who care but little, for those 
 who assert there is something more to learn, before we have 
 exhausted the springs of thought, these comments are intended. 
 
 In the anatomical arrangements of the female chest, there 
 is a congenital preparation for the development of organs at a 
 proper time, the elements of which have been quiescent from 
 early infancy. By and by compact cells are filled, and the 
 mamma rise is organic completeness. 
 
 If, however, compression is maintained there, regularly and 
 habitually, when an increased vital activity is preparing for the 
 development of those organs, the contest will not be a pro- 
 tracted one between nature and opposition. Arterial energy 
 will diminish under restraint, and the breasts will not rise, as 
 they would have appeared, had no hindrance to the developing 
 force been operating. 
 
 Even when there is a considerable adipose fulness uncon- 
 nected with the mammary apparatus in its embryotic form, if 
 close-fitting garments are habitually worn, the roundness and 
 softness will be reduced, by absorption of the material deposi- 
 ted in the subcutaneous tissues. 
 
50 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Under the pretext for protecting the chest from cold, some 
 mothers are despotically disposed to swathe their little daugh- 
 ters as closely as bandaged mummies. It is wholly wrong. Noth- 
 ing should be allowed to interfere with the space between the 
 shoulders in front to the tip of the breast-bone. Harnessing 
 them in stays, corsets, or, indeed, any other contrivances of fash- 
 ionable acceptance for improving the forms of young gir]s, are 
 abominations. 
 
 By mismanagement, with the intention of improving upon 
 nature, that they may have more attractions, and more arrows 
 in their quivers when young ladies, mothers do them an irre- 
 parable injury. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF VITAL FOKCE. 
 
 Friction will partially raise the tone of vessels that minis- 
 ter to the mamma, but medications are inert and powerless in 
 developing them where violence of dress prevented their 
 growth at first. 
 
 Having shown the uselessness of lotions, unguents, electric- 
 ity, or other trumpeted remedies for defective mammary devel- 
 opment, and the grossness and unblushing impudence of im- 
 postors in that line of imposition, we proceed to another 
 field where the harvest is large and the laborers few. 
 
 A withered or partially palsied limb may be improved by 
 rubbing. The hand of a sound person is a thousand-fold better 
 than a flesh-brush or hair-mitten. Friction accelerates the flow 
 of blood where the circulation is sluggishly carried on, owing 
 to the defective influx of nervous influence, which, together 
 with warmth and the electrical current from the officiating 
 operator, raises the tone of vitality in the member. 
 
 Women imperfectly developed are apt to be excitable, 
 apprehensive, and wear the look of being cautiously watching 
 
THE WATS OF WOMEN. 51 
 
 for surprises. They are the women who are restless without 
 cause, and unhappy in the midst of pleasant surroundings. 
 They represent that class of ladies who are not treated as 
 they consider they ought to be by their husbands. Con- 
 ditions of the mind are recognized in which revolting crimes 
 are perpetrated by women, not accounted for upon any well- 
 established principles in mental philosophy, which, perhaps 
 remotely, have a connection with some of those abnormal 
 conditions of organs closely in sympathy with the brain, 
 about which we shall know more when the progress of science 
 has settled other questions respecting the phenomena of 
 human life. 
 
 Mental feebleness may have been caused by a want of 
 force from sources not precisely nervous centres. And the 
 other extreme, of paroxysms of unbridled rage, arise from 
 an excess of vitality, driven onward to engorge parts whose 
 intimate relations to the encephalon are more direct than 
 hitherto supposed. 
 
 MEDICAL JUEISPEUDENCE. 
 
 Medical jurisprudence is destined to undergo modifications, 
 to keep pace with a more perfect knowledge of the brain, 
 and especially the female brain, acted upon as it is by influ- 
 ences peculiar to themselves. When lawmakers have been 
 educated to a comprehensive knowledge of the origin of 
 nervous power, and particularly understand the phenomena 
 of the passions, they may more reasonably account for many 
 ungovernable freaks of an excited woman than are made 
 easy of comprehension by writers on moral insanity. 
 
 In closing these monitory suggestions in reference to 
 dressing little girls, it is hoped that no one may be so 
 uncharitable as to consider it is impertinence to discuss a 
 
52 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 subject that actually lias an important bearing on the physical 
 well-being of female adults. 
 
 Physicians and tormented mothers know, by painful 
 experience, of the origin of another misfortune; indeed a 
 considerable one, too, which is, perhaps, caused by tight 
 dressing, and certainly aggravated by it. 
 
 SPECIAL GRIEVANCES. 
 
 Undeveloped nipples, far more common than supposed, 
 are an interminable source of trouble, because an infant 
 cannot apply its mouth for drawing milk. Artificial means 
 for nourishing the child must necessarily be adopted, always 
 to be deplored; and in the next place, the breast is injured 
 by over-distension of the milk-ducts, or influenced by frequent 
 applications of instruments for drawing off the secretion that 
 would have been extracted with pleasurable suctions instead 
 of painful inflictions, by the delicate lips of her darling. 
 
 That condition which gives employment to wet-nurses in 
 the most fashionable circles, rarely occurs in the middle classes 
 of society. Nature has her own way with children of the 
 laboring classes. Little girls are not dressed and re-dressed in 
 starched garments half a dozen times a day, to meet the 
 requirements of dinner etiquette, the tea-table, the evening 
 drawing-room, and various other specialties, to fit them for 
 the positions they are presumed destined to sustain when of 
 a proper age. Consequently they grow up in health, with 
 the form they ought to have, and which the millionaire's 
 daughters would have had, had they been simply let alone. 
 
 Who ever heard of a peasant mother requiring a wet- 
 nurse? Where can a poor man's child be found brought up 
 on a bottle, in consequence of the impossibility of taking its 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 53 
 
 nourishment from the fountain prepared for it before birth, 
 because the mother's nipples were prevented from developing 
 by the indiscreetness of her mother? 
 
 In the fulness of our civilization, which is the triumph of 
 reason over ignorance, we choke ourselves with tight cravats ; 
 ligate our limbs with straps, bracelets, or something equally 
 objectionable, to check circulation ; mount up on high heels, 
 that force the feet out of the plane of comfort; wear patent 
 leather, which prevents evaporation of moisture ; cover our 
 heads with airtight hats at the expense of our hair ; sport 
 with glasses that spoil our eyes ; fill our stomachs with com- 
 positions productive of gastric derangements, and vainly seek 
 relief from self-inflicted miseries that shorten life, in gorging 
 with drugs that are worse than the diseases they were expected 
 to remove I 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 THE DRESS or WOMEK. 
 
 Small Waists Sufferings from Fashion Local Deformities Compression 
 of the Chest Development of Consumption Unheeded Advice Form 
 of Boys How Female Dresses should be Worn. 
 
 HAVING explained, in extenso, the injurious effects resulting 
 from improperly adjusted garments on female children when 
 they are ^coming into womanhood, let us now investigate the 
 positive character of modern female dress in respect to the 
 production of disabilities traceable to that source in adult life. 
 
 Invention is, perhaps, exercised as actively in the produc- 
 tion of new patterns, or modification of old ones, in the 
 garments of women, as in any department of human industry. 
 There is neither lull nor suspension in that most prolific field 
 of restless variety. There is no stability in fashions. It is not 
 required ; since rest in that direction would be equivalent to 
 a return to a system of simplicity and comfort identical with 
 demi-civilization, if not barbarism. 
 
 Complete ease and freedom of the muscles seems never to 
 have been contemplated in these ever-changing forms of their 
 clothing ; and the nearer they approach the borders of dis- 
 comforture, without exactly killing themselves outright, the 
 more agreeable, measured by a standard of the votaries of 
 fashion. 
 
 How THE CHEST is INJURED. 
 
 It is singular that in the manifold styles of dress which 
 succeed each other with the rapidity almost of barometrical 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 55 
 
 variations of temperature, not one of them favors the freedom 
 of the thorax or chest. That is the axle to which all pieces 
 are attached, and the pivot around which they revolve, if 
 at all. 
 
 SMALL WAISTS. 
 
 A small waist is the first consideration. It is, therefore, 
 the study of those who conceive they are too large just where 
 there should be no interference with the respiratory apparatus, 
 how to diminish their diameter. This desideratum has been 
 the premature death of thousands upon thousands of the fairest 
 and most promising young ladies, before they had time to 
 learn the dangers they were inviting by following the example 
 of those who teach by their practice that they prefer conformity 
 to the requirements of a perverted taste, to exemption from the 
 penalties of being out of shape, in the sense of those who 
 exercise no judgment in regard to this important matter. The 
 smaller the waist, therefore, the better, provided there is 
 space enough preserved for descent of food to the stomach. 
 
 Stays are the instrumentalities for staying the development 
 of the chest. Beginning early, the ribs are pinioned closely, 
 and by unrelaxing ligation the lacing being carried to the 
 last endurable point without arresting respiration their 
 growth is arrested to an extent only familiarly known to 
 anatomists. Their function is nearly destroyed, as they 
 become anchylosed, or welded, where they were intended 
 to have motion up and down, according to the inflation and 
 collapse of the lungs. After being subjected to the torture 
 of stays, for such it is, however eloquently those who have 
 lived through the operation of having their chests kept down 
 to the capacity of a child of twelve year's, may argue to the 
 contrary, breathing is with them an abridged function or it 
 
56 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 may be arrested without hesitation. They have counteracted 
 nature, and in various ways must, and do, suffer in con- 
 sequence. 
 
 They even carry this violence to the chest still further, 
 and interfere lamentably with the recti muscles in front of 
 the abdomen, which reach from the pit of the stomach to the 
 pubic arch. These are strong elastic straps for keeping the 
 bowels in place and in contact. Thus, tight lacing forces the 
 intestines out of place. One organ is driven too near another, 
 and the stomach, instead of being pendulous, restrained by 
 its own ligaments, is pressed down out of place, and that 
 drags the spleen ; while the free rise and fall of the diaphragm 
 is limited, which strikes at life itself, because the lungs cannot 
 be fully inflated when such displacements exist. 
 
 DISPLACEMENT OF ORGANS. 
 
 After being worn till all these disturbances have become 
 bearable, the distorted organs having been adjusted in new re- 
 lations from which there was no escape, when a lady removes 
 her stays she is very uncomfortable, because all those internal 
 parts, acting in duresse, have a tendency to return into those 
 natural relations from which they were forcibly driven. 
 
 Those abdominal muscles which keep the abdomen braced 
 in symmetrical relations, entirely lose their contractible energy 
 by being for a long while relieved from duty ; and hence, in 
 taking away the artificial support, the mass of viscera gravitates 
 in a way to make a very undesirable abdominal protuberance 
 in front. Hence, when broken into stays, the harness cannot 
 be dispensed with without discomforture. 
 
 Chambermaids imitate their mistresses, as far as their cir- 
 cumstances allow, in self-imposed misery. Fashions and cus- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 57 
 
 toms are infectious. When endemic, they have a regular run. 
 Females, therefore, in the constitution of society, suffer more 
 than men by the mutations of fashions. The latter make them- 
 selves ridiculous by the cut of their coats, the shape of their 
 hats, or the show of toggery on their watch-chains ; but they are 
 too much afraid of dying before their time comes, to kill them- 
 selves with stays, although a few brainless fops make them- 
 selves extra- ridiculous by wearing them. 
 
 WHO TO CONSULT. 
 
 If it is desirable for women to have convincing proof of the 
 injury they voluntarily inflict upon themselves, that they may 
 imagine themselves more attractive in the estimation of others, 
 let them consult medical authorities. They will there have the 
 collected opinions of professional men, who can have no motive 
 for misrepresentations, that the sacrifice of women through the 
 vice of dress, and destruction of infantile life, through malfor- 
 mations, displacements, and special maladies induced from the 
 wearing of stays, is a melancholy comment on one of the 
 demands of modern civilization. Ladies thus deformed, and in 
 a part of the body, too, which prevents the respiratory organs 
 and the heart from carrying on processes of importance to the 
 vital status of the individual, look with disgust upon the little 
 feet of a Chinese belle, kept down to the size of an adult great 
 toe by bandages. They are cruelly served not voluntarily. It- 
 is no self-inflicted torture ; they uncomplainingly submit to 
 make themselves more saleable, but it is forced upon them by 
 ambitious parents, that they may bring a remunerating price for 
 the trouble of rearing them. Of course, with such feet, they 
 cannot walk with steadiness or facility. They must have sup- 
 port by a fan against a wall, a parasol, or the occasional touch 
 
58 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 of some solid resisting body, or fall to the floor. And this is 
 beautiful ! Nor is it a whit more absurd than disfiguring the 
 chest, not allowing it to expand, nor half so injurious. There 
 are neither lungs or a pulsating heart in the feet, but there are 
 both in the pleural cavities. 
 
 % 
 
 MATERNAL INTEREST IN DAUGHTERS. 
 
 Maternal solicitude for the position and happiness of a daugh- 
 ter is manifested very differently in this country and China. 
 There, no mother in whose bosom there is a grain of motherly 
 affection, would be so lost to a sense of duty as to let her loved 
 Ky-yan-ste shoot up to the stature of herself with feet as large 
 as a Christian's. No, indeed, that would be barbarous beyond 
 forgiveness. 
 
 Compressing the waist with stays has precisely the same 
 effect on the carpentry of the bones, that bandaging the feet 
 produces. When the violence is completed, the first cannot 
 move comfortably without her stays, nor the latter hobble 
 through a room without having her ankles secured by many 
 yards of firm, strong, inelastic bandages, which, for show, are 
 made of richly-colored ribbons. Thoracic compression alters 
 the figure of the lungs. The chest is naturally broad at the 
 base, becoming narrower at the top a cone-shaped structure. 
 Women make it narrow where it should be broad, and broader 
 at the apex, where it was originally narrow. 
 
 INFLATION OF AIR-CELLS. 
 
 The lowest air-cells of the lobes cannot expand when air is 
 inhaled, while those in the upper region of the lungs are pre- 
 ternaturally put upon the stretch, in order to provide surface 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 59 
 
 for the creation of blood. One end of each lung is compelled 
 to do more towards maintaining life than it was organized to 
 do, while the lower part is prevented from giving much more 
 than a feeble degree of assistance. 
 
 Favored, as many robust women are, with a fine organization 
 in other respects, they can live out a long life in comparative 
 health and comfort ; but they are few compared to the vast 
 number who fall short and die before they have attained all 
 they might have had on earth. 
 
 The first or topmost rib on either side, just under the collar- 
 bone, is short, thin, and sharp on its inner curvature. It has 
 no motion, being a brace between the dorsal column and the 
 breast-bone. It is immovable for the purpose of protecting 
 large arteries and veins belonging to the arms on either side of 
 the neck. Such is the construction within the horizontal arch 
 of that rib, the upper portion of the lungs rise up through the 
 space above the level of the bone. In cases where the chest 
 has been manipulated till the lungs cannot expand downwards, 
 they are forced up above that rib. Rising and falling above 
 and below that rib-level, the lobe chafes and frets against the 
 resisting curvature. It is inflamed at last, and the organ becomes 
 diseased. If that chafing is not relieved, but in each respiration 
 the serous covering of the lung is irritated continually, the 
 inflammation is apt to extend quite into the body of the organ, 
 increased and intensified by exciting emotions, laborious pur- 
 suits, or unfavorable exposures. Finally, the mucous lining of 
 the air-cells within the lung sympathizes and becomes inflamed 
 also. 
 
 COMMENCEMENT OF CONSUMPTION'. 
 
 In this condition we may trace the commencement of pul- 
 monary consumption. It would be denominated sporadic, and 
 
60 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 widely different from pulmonary disease by inheritance. But 
 the possibility of deranging the function of the lungs by simply 
 distorting the chest, cannot be doubted, nor would any anatomist 
 presume to say such treatment does not do violence to those 
 much-abused, delicately-constructed organs. Being forced from 
 their normal place in the pleural cavities, is dangerous in the 
 extreme. 
 
 Consumption is not only developed by tight lacing, but a 
 multiplication of cases, where the original conformation of the 
 individual was favorable for a comparatively long life, is beyond 
 question. Medications cannot stay the onward march of dis- 
 organization, when ulcerations eat the tissues. Once destroyed, 
 they can never be reproduced. Therefore, if prevention is 
 better than cure, less expensive and always more agreeable, why 
 not profit by these suggestions ? 
 
 ~No compression of the base of the chests of men being 
 induced by tight dressing, a chafing of the upper surface of the 
 lungs rarely occurs with them. If, by constant effort to dis- 
 tend the lungs, the lobes extend where there is the least resist- 
 ance, the tissues covering the space between the inner curve of 
 the superior rib and cervical vertebrae gradually relax, and are 
 convexed upwardly at each breath. This, therefore, explains the 
 mechanical results of thoracic compression, and women, as a 
 matter of course, are the most frequent subjects of a diseased 
 condition of the lungs from that cause. 
 
 UNHEEDED ADYICE, 
 
 In a blaze of hygienic light, admonitions of the medical pro- 
 fession are unheeded, and death and stays act in unison, deci- 
 mating the fairest flowers of intellectual womanhood. A warn- 
 ing voice is lost in the distance when it refers to this subject. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 61 
 
 Not one mother in a thousand doubts the truth of what phy- 
 sicians proclaim in respect to this painful invasion of the chest, 
 yet she continues the practice. 
 
 Great men, giants in any department of busy life those 
 who make the world conscious of their influence those who 
 quicken thought or revolutionize public sentiment, and leave 
 the impress of their genius in the history of the age in which 
 they nourished, were not the sons of gaunt mothers whose 
 waists resembled the middle of an hour-glass. 
 
 TRANSMISSION OF DEFECTS. 
 
 Mothers certainly transmit their own physical, if not their 
 moral and other qualities to their children. A feeble organiza- 
 tion is perpetuated through successive generations, terminating 
 at last in the extinction of a family, unless there is a revivifica- 
 tion of vital force by an intermixture of a healthy stock. 
 
 Intermarrying among relations, with a view to a selfish pur- 
 pose of keeping estates always within the same control, or from 
 a spirit of pride that looks with contempt on alliances with 
 other blood as contamination, cannot be sustained. There 
 must be crossings, and an infusion of new elements. Utter 
 extinction of a family may safely be predicted that tolerates no 
 affinity with other blood. 
 
 Nature asserts the law, and, if not respected, a race cannot 
 conceal its deterioration. A feeble intellect, supported by an 
 imperfectly developed body, is a notification of a sovereign 
 decree the disappearance of a family only to be saved by the 
 formation of new relations with those who have vitality if they 
 have not property. 
 
62 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 PEEDISPOSITIOK TO MALADIES. 
 
 Competent .medical authority has decided that a predis- 
 position to certain maladies are transmissible from parents 
 to children. Seeds of disease may remain quiescent many 
 years, and then suddenly burst out into destructive activity. 
 Changes of weather, variations of temperature, when an 
 individual in whom they may exist is exposed, together 
 with the peculiar susceptibility of such persons, produce 
 slight inflammatory turgescence of the mucous membrane of 
 the throat, which, creeping down to the interior of the air- 
 cells of the lungs, assumes a very grave aspect. 
 
 The next phase in the progress of incipient pulmonary 
 derangement is a cough. Purulent matter is excreted over 
 the bronchial mucous lining of the air-tubes, to defend them 
 from irritation from the direct contact of air on the inflamed 
 mucous membrane. Violence in the attempt to raise that 
 matter, which, of itself, is another source of aggravation, 
 from its weight, the thin partitions of the cells are often 
 ruptured by spasmodic paroxysms of coughing. If not re- 
 moved, the accumulation, remaining in a mass, ulcerates the 
 membranes, and pus gravitates downwards. Abscesses are 
 formed. Thus the integrity of the whole lobe is involved. 
 
 Emaciations, in consequence of organic derangement and 
 imperfect oxygenation of the blood, is the result. Debility 
 marks the onward destructive progress of ulceration. Neither 
 tonics, the modification of diet, or a change of climate, can 
 arrest the further destruction that must inevitably terminate 
 in death, when the mechanism by which respiration is con- 
 ducted is destroyed. 
 
 This is a mechanical delineation of the phenomena of 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. (J3 
 
 induced pulmonary disease, "by violations of the laws of health. 
 Dress, where it interferes with a perfect expansion of the 
 lungs, certainly tends to the shortening of life. 
 
 NOT CUEABLE. 
 
 Pulmonary consumption, in the form here described, can- 
 not be cured; nor can it be much relieved. How absurd 
 then, on the face of it, to fill the stomach with drugs, with 
 an expectation of regenerating parts that have been completely 
 destroyed. Nostrum-venders thrive by the sale of consump- 
 tion-remedies, but they are the only persons benefited by their 
 falsely-represented panaceas. 
 
 FURTHER INTERVIEWING OF STAYS. 
 
 Women are not expected to lay them aside. While it 
 is universally admitted by them that their taste is superior 
 to nature, stay and corset-making will be a profitable branch 
 of manufacturing business in coming years. 
 
 Why do not boys require such appliances? Without 
 them, left to themselves, they grow up with full, rounded 
 chests, and their proportions are admirable. Rare examples 
 of feminine, beardless exquisites in stays are known at 
 fashionable places, the straws on the ripples of society, but 
 they are invariably regarded as brainless butterflies who are 
 neither men in character nor women in form. 
 
 Criticisms on female dress are not the outpourings of 
 an envious spirit, when they emanate from professional 
 writers. Life is a boon so precious, they fain would per- 
 suade women to preserve it, and not sacrifice it to the 
 caprice of fashion. 
 
64 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 How THEIR DEESSES SHOULD BE 
 
 Were all their large garments suspended from the 
 shoulders, the consequences resulting from confining them 
 round the waist with the grip of a boa constrictor would 
 be obviated. 
 
 In addition to the close-lacing of stays, each lower garment 
 is bound tightly on, over the same region, to keep them 
 up. This is all wrong. Closely-pinned waists of petticoats, 
 bands, belts, and buckled ribbons, girdles, or straps, posi- 
 tively stand with firm resistance to the development of the 
 base of the chest. So it is perfectly clear without a labored 
 dissertation, that the mischief' habitually practised to the 
 positive injury of the whole internal economy of the female 
 body, might be avoided by simply suspending garments from 
 the shoulders. 
 
 Yery young children are thus dressed, a mode only to be 
 abandoned before the bones of the chest begin to ossify at 
 their distal extremities. Moral and mental circumstances in 
 a little girl's every-day life are overlooked, comparatively, 
 in the effort to improve their forms. 
 
 Of the amount of disturbance produced in the basin of the 
 pelvis by constantly tying on garments, a detailed description is 
 given in the lecture-room where diseases of women are ex- 
 plained. It is difficult to popularize the subject, and that is one 
 of the reasons no more progress has been made in revolution- 
 izing their costume. If a cord were daily wound around the 
 body just above the hips, the bowels would be forced down- 
 wards, interfering with another set of organs. That is the 
 true cause of a painful catalogue of maladies to which women 
 are incident. Displacements cannot be inflicted without 
 suffering and real danger. Multitudes of females reach an 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 65 
 
 advanced age who' have survived the misfortunes entailed 
 upon those who possessed less tenacity of life, from being 
 subjected to the ligating discipline of the waist. But that 
 is no valid reason for continuing a practice so destructive in 
 its tendencies. 
 
 PKOOF BY ANALOGY. 
 
 Some men escape injury in severe battles, where the 
 ground is strewn with the dead and the dying. Is that a 
 proof that others might escape also, exposed to showers of 
 flying balls? "Where one woman, apparently, has had no 
 inconvenience from a diminished waist, more than one hun- 
 dred have died. 
 
 The weight of heavy clothing suspended from the shoul- 
 ders is not as burdensome as when suspended from above 
 the hips. Still, with that fact before them, ladies have made 
 no alteration in their mode of dressing. It is a favorite way 
 of demonstrating the looseness of their garments about the 
 waist, that their fingers can be pushed under their belt. 
 
 That is quite possible, but the extreme ligation is in the 
 girded skirts that are worn, pinned, or buttoned as closely as 
 they can be drawn. 
 
 Brigades of physicians thrive professionally, because women 
 persist in making themselves sick. Specialists find their com- 
 plaints a profitable field for culture. Female doctors, too, 
 have not been unmindful of the advantage they possess in gain- 
 ing the confidence of their own sex, by turning their folly to 
 good pecuniary account. 
 
 Oriental females keep their garments in place by a scarf or 
 shawl, according to their means. Their trowsers, immensely 
 large, soft and pliable, are easy for the limbs, and graceful in 
 
66 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 appearance. They, however, are by no means exempt from 
 contingencies which belong to girding the waist. Although 
 pretty severely ligated, they are not injured in the same way 
 that civilized women suffer. If they were as energetically in- 
 dustrious, they would be equally exposed. Their habitual in- 
 dolence, especially the higher classes of ladies, the stars of the 
 harem, is favorable for them. They have no chairs, but recline 
 on elastic cushions. Were they obliged to exert themselves in 
 lifting or carrying heavy children in their arms, they could not 
 escape those mechanical displacements which are intimated, 
 without being specifically described in these observations. 
 
 With them, their scarfs are not quite as terrible as stays. 
 Instead of compressing the base of the chest, Turkish ladies 
 make the ligation lower. They spare the lungs, but in stooping 
 or rising suddenly, they are frequently ruptured. The bowels 
 are forced to a point of least resistance, the groins, where her- 
 nial protrusions are common. 
 
 HER^IAL PROTRUSIONS, HOW PRODUCED. 
 
 Greek women have more freedom ; and engaging in domestic 
 pursuits of all kinds, in consequence of keeping their clothing 
 together, precisely as their Turkish sisters do, they are exten- 
 sively and badly ruptured. Perhaps no country in the world 
 furnishes an equal number of ruptured women. 
 
 Women are subject to indispositions peculiar to their organ- 
 izations, which may be made worse by neglect, or perpetuated 
 by continued violence, however gradually inflicted. On the 
 whole, leaving Nature to herself, the sexes possess equal advan- 
 tages for health and longevity. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. ff 
 
 SIMPLICITY IK DRESS SECURITY FOR HEALTH. 
 
 Permit little girls to pass their youth untrammelled by gar- 
 ments that would either compress, or in the least degree inter- 
 fere with the chest or abdomen. 
 
 Distortions of the pelvis would be avoided by providing 
 suitable seats at school, and also at home. !Nb bone can be 
 pressed out of line without interfering with some function that 
 sooner or later may be a source of suffering or sickness. 
 
 While learning to write, their positions should be frequently 
 varied. If they habitually sit in the same place, taking the 
 same posture, there is danger of swaying one shoulder or warp- 
 ing it to one side. Young girls are more prone to have their 
 shoulders distorted than boys. The latter are nervously using 
 all their muscles, especially those of the arms, which secure 
 symmetry to their shoulders. Girls are restrained from playing 
 ball, climbing trees, or engaging in exercises that force the 
 muscles of the spine to extra action. If girls are left too long 
 at the desk, one set of muscles relax, while the other set are 
 kept too long contracted, inducing weariness. Curvatures of 
 the spine have their origin in not sufficiently varying the pos- 
 tures they fall into by occupying the same seat, the same desk, 
 or receiving light from the same direction always. 
 
 "Where a scrofulous habit exists, there should be even greater 
 caution in varying the position often. Narrow chests, a breast- 
 bone pressed inwardly at its lower end two sad conditions 
 may be avoided by the simple process of having the books on a 
 high desk, which would compel the pupil to sit up straight. 
 
 With these statements and recapitulations of what parents 
 and instructors should do to secure the health, vigor, and beauty 
 of young girls, it is not pretended that perfect success will 
 crown their efforts. Some of the most faultless in form die 
 
68 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 prematurely ; but that they are wronged out of vitality they 
 might have had, treated as boys are, in respect to clothing and 
 out-door exercise, is mournfully true and lamentable.* 
 
 * In those pane of France in which stays have been laid aside as injurious, 
 it is stated the mortality of females has decreased eighteen and a-half per 
 cent. According to the same authority, chignons increased cerebral fevers 
 seventy-two per cent. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 EXEKCISE OF WOMEN. 
 
 FEET were intended for use, yet there are women quite un- 
 willing to exercise them in any other way than dancing. Some 
 scarcely feel able to walk from a dressing-room to a dinner- 
 table after completing an elaborate toilet. Elegant idleness 
 cannot be persuaded that it is not vulgar to move about on 
 one's feet. Airing in a carriage is genteel and without 
 fatigue. 
 
 Anybody can walk who is not a cripple, but all cannot ride. 
 It is charming to take a pleasant drive, provided the weather is 
 perfectly agreeable. Greeting choice friends from the windows 
 of a splendid coach, in passing, is infinitely superior to plodding 
 along on foot at the risk of rude contact with disagreeable 
 people ignorant of the rules of good breeding. 
 
 An apprehension of damp feet by touching mother earth, is 
 a common excuse for not promenading like those who never 
 owned an equipage. The susceptibility to cold is quite surpris- 
 ing with some ladies who could once trip through the wet grass 
 when they resided in their country homes with impunity. 
 Moonbeams become too ponderous for their fragile nerves since 
 coming to the city and into the magic circle of fashionable 
 exactions. 
 
 There are occasions, notwithstanding such acquired delicacy 
 as passes for an unequivocal sign of social elevation, when even 
 such zephyr-like humanity rises in the dignity of heroic resolu- 
 tion, to mingle with the world in crowded assemblies, waltz all 
 
70 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 night for charitable purposes, retiring at daylight the following 
 morning, satisfied with themselves in having discharged a relig- 
 ious duty. 
 
 If it is too fatiguing to trudge on foot like servants, how 
 much more to ascend long flights of stairs, unless they lead to 
 the exquisitely furnished apartments of a friend. In their own 
 dwellings they are not unfrequently carried in a chair or borne 
 in the coachman's brawny arms from the doorstep to a carriage. 
 
 EXTKEME DELICACY. 
 
 It kills some ladies, in court language, to exercise in any- 
 ordinary manner. This is a common complaint of very sensi- 
 tive beings who were once chambermaids or milliners. To 
 appear perfectly well is to acknowledge themselves rather ple- 
 beian. In their early days, glowing with freshness, vigor, and 
 the best elements of a sound constitution, it was the good for- 
 tune of many who now converse most about remedies to have 
 captivated a prosperous groceryman, a thrifty tailor, or the rich 
 son of a retired leather-dealer, who was accepted as a lesser evil 
 than remaining at service. Exchanging a cot in the garret to 
 become mistress of an elegant establishment on an avenue, is 
 not to be despised. Their husbands pursue the tenor of their 
 ways, multiplying goods and chattels, and becoming million- 
 aires, while their wives develop into model patients, patrons of 
 music, the drama, art, select dinners, the opera, and tract-distri- 
 butions to the poor. 
 
 Before marriage thus advantageously secured, every close 
 observer has known spirited young wives who could once run 
 from the basement to the skylight without complaining. Now 
 cologne out of a phial would not revive their exhausted spirits. 
 A few years of technical luxury, surrounded and enveloped in 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. Yl 
 
 comforts and elegancies to which they were unaccustomed in 
 the elastic days of youth, they decline to an abyss of chronic 
 indolence. 
 
 MUST EXERCISE FREELY. 
 
 The less we use ourselves, the more rapidly we deteriorate. 
 When muscles remain inactive, they lose their tonicity. They 
 cannot be strengthened by taking drugs, but by proper exercise. 
 Pedestrians derive advantages from facing the breezes, and 
 communing with nature in the open highway, which the occu- 
 pant of a carriage does not receive so advantageously. Her 
 locomotive cordage is at rest while riding. The walker puts all 
 the contracted fibres of his body in motion at the same moment, 
 and, therefore, every organ feels the impulse, and is benefited 
 accordingly, because there is an increased activity in the circu- 
 lation and the secretions and exhalant vessels. 
 
 No form of exercise has been pursued which is productive 
 of health-giving vigor, to be compared with habitual prome- 
 nading on foot, regardless of weather or season. 
 
 If men delight and enjoy pleasant walks, why should not 
 women ? Alternately balancing the weight of the body on 
 one foot and then on the other, brings every muscle to its full 
 bearing. Each one of them has an antagonist, and thus 
 tension and relaxation create a demand for nutrition, propor- 
 tioned to the force they may be called upon to exert. An 
 appetite is created to meet the wants of each and every 
 tissue ; and in providing for a hungry stomach, we simply feed 
 each one of those muscular threads which assisted us in 
 stepping off briskly. 
 
 Without appetite, strength fails, temperature diminishes 
 the extremities being cold and direct debility is the next 
 condition. Every limb, or section of one, may have its form 
 
72 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 increased simply by exercising it. Insufficient food reduces 
 vital force.* 
 
 Bearing burdens, hauling ropes, working at a pump-handle, 
 lifting kettles from a range, swinging a broom, etc., gives the 
 female cook beautifully rounded arms, the envy of her mis- 
 tress, whose bony apologies for arms cannot be made attractive, 
 even encased in diamond bracelets. Dancing develops the 
 lower limbs. Riding on horseback brings out the full propor- 
 tions of the chest and abdomen, but does not round up the 
 muscles of the legs like walking. Ladies do not reap as much 
 benefit from that exercise as men ; because only one limb has 
 opportunity for bracing, while the former press equally on 
 the stirrup with both feet. 
 
 Next to walking, a bracing morning-ride on horseback is 
 incomparably superior to an airing in a carriage. Efforts are 
 unconsciously made on the saddle in maintaining a perpen- 
 dicular position. That is what calls out an extra effort of the 
 muscles, and hence they increase in size and power. When 
 a lady drives out for the purpose of refreshing her debilitated 
 system, simply inhaling the fresh air does not accomplish for 
 her all that an uiicontaminated atmosphere certainly would do, 
 were her muscles set in active motion at the same time. 
 
 As boat-rowing is wonderfully conducive to a broad, 
 rounded chest, we are surprised that it has not been urged 
 upon narrow-chested, feeble, consumptively-inclined young 
 ladies. They would realize all the sanitary advantages from 
 an elegant and extremely popular gymnastic exercise, that 
 
 * Four of the wealthiest gentlemen in the city of New York, dis- 
 tinguished for their millions, dined together the last Sabbath of June, 1871. 
 They were famishing for want of appetite. The rich viands were scarcely 
 tasted. If each lived on sixpence a day, and earned it by labor, they would 
 not have complained of want of appetite. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 73 
 
 those do who figure in clubs and rowing-matches. They 
 present the finest-formed chests and the best breathing 
 apparatus of any class of men. 
 
 A hint might be taken from the pursuits of professional 
 bargemen. They have prodigiously large, fully-developed 
 chests. Diseased lungs in their calling must be rare. With 
 these views, the result of carefully surveying the tendency to 
 invigorate the pectoral muscles and expand the thorax by 
 handling oars, we strongly recommend boating for ladies of 
 the description referred to in these observations on exercise. 
 They might count upon having splendidly-rounded arms by 
 that graceful amusement, and improved chests, if they would 
 be sure to remove their stays before seating themselves at the 
 rowlocks. 
 
 A side-saddle is very well, as far as it goes ; but inferior to 
 the man-saddle, inasmuch as the bracing is made exclusively 
 by one foot, as already mentioned. 
 
 NUTKITION". 
 
 Nutrition of the body is a very interesting subject, not 
 generally understood, although a very frequent topic of con- 
 versation among those knowing the least about it. How few 
 comprehend the phenomena of digestion. "When food falls 
 into the stomach, it is lost sight of, in the ordinary way of 
 speaking. At that point a series of vital activities and changes 
 commences, that have given rise to researches of peculiar 
 interest. 
 
 While an animal is growing, it is taken for granted that 
 food furnishes materials for completing that process. When 
 full proportions are attained, the body is apparently stationary ; 
 but, by eating and drinking, materials are furnished for keep- 
 
74 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 ing it in repair. A waste all the while is going on. If that 
 daily wear and tear were not met by a new supply, there 
 would be immediate loss of weight and immediate debility. 
 
 Now comes into view the economy of nature, by which 
 appropriate elements are elaborated from food in that mem- 
 braneous bag the stomach which are floated along in tubes 
 to places where new matter is required to take the place of old 
 substance which has just been removed. 
 
 Arteries may be compared to canals, through the aid of 
 which freighted boats carry every imaginable product of the 
 country for meeting the necessities of the people. 
 
 Blood runs through these vessels, in which there is held in 
 solution whatever is required such as lime, glue, phosphorus, 
 etc., too numerous to mention which is carried to the re- 
 motest fibre, where each takes up what it needs, and no more ; 
 and whatever remains, after being thus selected from, passes 
 on to other stations, where freight is discharged, according to 
 the demands of the body. 
 
 The mechanical part of digestion is simply this. After 
 being reduced to a greyish pulp in the stomach, by being mixed 
 with a variety of .products which have their origin in glands, 
 food gradually enters the intestinal canal, a thin, strong, curi- 
 ously constructed tube, about six times the length of the indi- 
 vidual. In childhood it is nearly eight times the length of the 
 body. 
 
 LACTEAL VESSELS. 
 
 From the descending mass of food urged through the intes- 
 tinal tube by its contractions from above, a milky fluid is 
 formed called chyle. On the inner surface of the long tube 
 are millions of minute openings of hair-like tubes which ter- 
 minate in fleshy masses of different sizes, lying between the 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. Y5 
 
 duplication of mesentery. Those little orifices snck up the 
 chyle as it passes by, and convey it to the mesenteric glands. 
 It remains in them but a short time, when it goes out through 
 another set of minute tubes on the opposite side of the gland, to 
 be conveyed to a small white tube lying in contact with the 
 back-bone, known as the thoracic duct. In its exit from the 
 gland, probably something is added, or some chemical alteration 
 takes place that improves its quality. 
 
 The thoracic duct ascends by the side of the vertebrae, not 
 much larger than a wheat-straw, till it reaches the root of the 
 neck, where it curves and enters the jugular vein of the left 
 side. 
 
 How THE BLOOD is PRODUCED FROM FOOD. 
 
 
 
 At the angle, the white fluid produced in the bowels, the 
 essence of food, as it were, mingles with venous blood. The 
 current of blood and chyle mingling runs across the top of the 
 chest just back of the breast-bone, and empties into the right 
 auricle or upper chamber of the heart. 
 
 As soon as that apartment is full, the walls contract and 
 force the contents through a round opening into the next cav- 
 ity, the ventricle, which contracts and drives the fluid onward 
 through the pulmonary artery into the lungs. That great ves- 
 sel subdivides in the substance of the lungs, infinitely, into fine 
 branching vessels, where each air-cell receives a twig that 
 spreads around it like net-work. 
 
 Air is next inhaled, inflating those cells, and in the act of 
 inflation, the oxygen of the atmosphere comes in contact with 
 the newly arrived fluid, spread like a film around the cell. At 
 the same moment, carbonic acid is thrown off. The imbiba- 
 tion of oxygen changes the mixture of old and new blood 
 which arrived together, as described in the jugular, into a rich 
 
76 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 scarlet color. It is then a vitalized fluid, arterial blood, and 
 ready for general distribution by the contractile energy of the 
 left side of the heart. 
 
 Effete matter, that which remained in the system till it had 
 imparted all its serviceable properties, is evacuated. Thus an 
 explanation of the reason for eating and drinking is made plain 
 enough for the comprehension of a child. 
 
 OUT-DOOE EXERCISES. 
 
 Exercise accompanied by pleasurable emotions, as from the 
 view of verdant fields, mountain scenery, flowers, or refined 
 social intercourse, is eminently calculated to sustain and im- 
 prove our health. It should be encouraged by those having 
 the care of children. Public teachers should give it their 
 approval. In all institutions, educational especially, frequent 
 opportunities should be given ' pupils for free out-door contact 
 with the air, regardless of the season. Air was designed for 
 breathing. Those who have the privilege of being exposed to 
 it most, will appreciate its sanitary value. 
 
 Laborers have a compensation for their toil beyond a pay- 
 ment in money, in the sound condition of their bodies. They 
 are not always under the doctor's care. ' They have no fear of 
 an east wind, the dampness of a napkin, a hard-boiled egg. 
 They neither have dyspepsia or go to the White Sulphur Springs 
 on account of ailments generated by idleness. "Women above 
 industry, gently driven in a close coach, lest a ray of light 
 should imprint a bronze hue on their pallid cheeks, envy the mar- 
 ket woman, strong, hearty, and well, unconcerned about the 
 shade of silk, or the lace trimmings to be worn at the next opera. 
 Being used and not used, are very different conditions. Not 
 only health, but even the length of the thread of life are deter- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. ff 
 
 mined by the use or the neglect of our various powers. Pur- 
 suits which put the long muscles, as those of the back, chest, 
 abdomen, and extremities into frequent action, are most con- 
 ducive to continued good health. 
 
 Having particularized the benefits to be realized from horse- 
 back exercise, it will be found that those on foot gain more than 
 riders. They are longer-lived, and are freer from attacks of 
 disease, either acute or chronic. 
 
 Peasants in Europe, and females of the humble orders in 
 Oriental countries, who carry heavy jars of water on their heads, 
 make no complaint. Each and every muscle is brought into a 
 taste of tension in the act of balancing burdens thus transported. 
 They are exempt from spinal difficulties, being subject neither 
 to dropsical effusions, spinal irritation, incurvations or curies of 
 their bones. 
 
 KEMEDYING DISTORTIONS. 
 
 An orthopedic institution, which copies the Nilotic water- 
 girls, requiring fragile female patients to support weights in the 
 same manner, instead of requiring them to pass hours on an in- 
 clined plane, and the remainder of the day to be imprisoned in 
 stiff, unyielding apparatus, would succeed far more satisfactorily 
 than in the old way of going counter to the best indications of 
 JSTature. A weight on the head would immediately call into 
 play the dorsal muscles, which would increase in volume and 
 strength with repetitions. Strapping frail, slender, imperfectly- 
 developed girls, as commonly practised, to boards, a hard bed, 
 or lacing them in metallic corslets, with an expectation that a 
 distortion is to be overcome by it, is entirely wrong. Gradually 
 bringing into use neglected apparatus, as muscles of the back, 
 chest, arms, etc., and with appropriate attention to diet, relief 
 may be reasonably expected. Tonics will not give the wished- 
 for relief, unaccompanied by exercise. 
 
78 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Young ladies of a lymphatic temperament, not disposed to 
 exert themselves beyond -what may be perfectly agreeable, who 
 delight in lounging away the precious hours of opening life on 
 elastic couches, or languishingly reclining in a luxurious coach, 
 for an occasional airing, when the weather is unexceptionably fine, 
 receive but little advantage from scientific treatment, when dis- 
 torted, simply on account of the extreme tenderness with which 
 institutions treat them. 
 
 Scrofulous, sallow, indolent, lachrymose, sentimental ladies, 
 whose circumstances are ample enough to warrant them in 
 gently descending to the grave in all the pomp and circumstance 
 of fashion, would not submit to such manipulations as might 
 turn the shadow a few degrees back on the dial of life. 
 
 SOCIAL PHASES. 
 
 Condition modifies circumstances. Some- are unhappy be- 
 cause they cannot compass unreasonable projects; and others 
 complain of being wretched on account of neglected claims to 
 social position. A disgust of life is not an unfrequent apology 
 for suicidal acts, which are charitably imputed to derangement 
 of mind consequent upon ill-health. There may be a form of 
 mental depression that so lowers the vital mercury as to make it 
 appear easier to die than live in neglect or hopeless uncertainty 
 of ever being appreciated. 
 
 There is another order of female despondents who are 
 socially miserable by mistake, entertaining an idea they have 
 not all an ungrateful world ought to give them, while they are 
 revelling in the midst of phantoms and vanities. In a moment 
 of desperation they swallow a dose of opium and slumber into 
 eternity. This is a woman's way in distraction. Men blow out 
 their brains with a revolver, or with a razor tap their jugulars. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 79 
 
 Ladies in poor health, who cannot be miraculously relieved 
 the broken-hearted from unrequited love, victims of dissipa- 
 tion and the ignorant, who conceive themselves of more im- 
 portance than others admit, those who are always trying new 
 remedies from irresponsible sources, certified to by persons 
 whose word is worth no more than their bond, those who con- 
 sult quacks, have the blue devils, and refuse to be comforted, 
 and require watching, there being a suicidal tendency would 
 each and all of them receive permanent relief from regular 
 employment, coarse nutritious food, and daily walks that would 
 invite sleep from fatigue, instead of taking medicine or consult- 
 ing clairvoyants. 
 
 WOMEN OF ENERGY. 
 
 Hardy, resolute, energetic women, who rarely ride, re- 
 quire no medical a3sistance, mineral water, or soothing com- 
 positions. It is so common and perfectly genteel to be most of 
 the time an invalid, that it operates very unfavorably for the 
 prospects of those who imagine it gives them an interesting 
 appearance in the estimation of sensible men. They are unwil- 
 ling to open a private hospital in entering upon the responsi- 
 bilities of matrimony. 
 
 Robust, clear-complexioned women are not usually natives 
 of cities. Those who have the true elements of that kind of 
 womanhood which will best sustain them in city life, are trans- 
 ferred from the country. They bring with them a stock of 
 vitality which resists the effects of a vitiated atmosphere and 
 the debilitations of luxury, rather longer than those "to the 
 manor born." 
 
 But warm apartments, coal fires, gas lights, late hours, rich 
 food, strong coffee, and the pride of wealth, wear upon them 
 after awhile. "Women in health are the hope of a nation. Men 
 
80 THE WAYS OF WOMEN 
 
 who excercise a controlling influence the master spirits with 
 a few exceptions, have had country-born mothers. They trans- 
 mit to their sons those traits of character moral, intellectual, 
 and physical which give stability to institutions and promote 
 order, security, and justice. When there have been remarkable 
 deviations from this law of descent, the mothers of city nota- 
 bilities, in whom talent has been the lever of eminent success, 
 had opportunities for alternating between town and the life- 
 bestowing country. 
 
 City-born women, affected by morbid desires and corporeal 
 deterioration, jealously reared within those centres of exclusive- 
 ness which know neither merit, accomplishments, nor respect- 
 ability, not supported on all sides by golden props, cannot boast 
 of the superiority of their children. An influx of pure blood 
 from the country, to replenish languid fountains in cities, is 
 the salvation of a family. 
 
 From whence came those ladies who are pillars in the temple 
 of Christian benevolence ? From whence come the men of 
 mark in these United States? From the country. None of 
 them were born in a brown-stone palace. Such structures were 
 erected by enterprising capitalists who commenced their career 
 in market stalls, jobbing shops, before the mast, or possibly in 
 an oyster house. A widow's son, or an orphan boy, who left 
 his village home in search of employment, are those who build 
 cities, control commerce, erect factories, sustain themselves in 
 places of honor, and are a credit to the age. 
 
 DEVELOPING A SOUND FEMALE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 A decided way for receiving a permanent benefit from 
 mineral springs, is to visit them on foot, without reference to 
 distance. Those who might receive some advantage from 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 31 
 
 reputed medicinal waters, are generally unable, from want of 
 means, to remain, were they to reach them. Physicians assure 
 us that poor women have fewer complaints requiring profes- 
 sional treatment, than those who are exempt from constant toil. 
 They have occasional chronic ailments, and suffer from inci- 
 dental exposures and accidents ; but more women in comfortable 
 circumstances are sick than might be expected, as an impression 
 is entertained that domestic comforts are safeguards against 
 indisposition. How much of it is to be charged to perverse 
 habits, excesses at table, and a derangement of the system from 
 having too much assistance in doing what they should have 
 done for themselves, may be found in the writings of plain- 
 spoken physicians. 
 
 Allow young girls free, open, out-door exercise in their pas- 
 times and romping frolics, according to their disposition for 
 such active gambols. Give them good, plain food, especially 
 milk, fresh vegetables, and fruits of all kinds, in unstinted 
 abundance. Do not limit their appetites. When they have 
 had what their bodies require, they have had enough, but not 
 before. In loose garments and opportunity for putting in play 
 all their muscles, they exhaust their pent-up accumulation of 
 animal spirit, which, if restrained by hackneyed old maxims, 
 that it is unladylike to be frank, spirited, and alive, they will 
 degenerate into dawdling nonentities, who may have the forms 
 of angels without their attributes. 
 
 Permit young girls, without reference to their age, to run 
 through fields, climb over fences, swing under the trees, gather 
 nuts in the forest, and pick berries in pastures, if they incline 
 to do so. If they racket through the hall, overturn chairs or 
 break broom-handles, in their innocent sports, they are laying a 
 sure foundation for health, elegant figures, blooming cheeks, 
 and brilliant intellects. That is the way nature proposes to 
 
82 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 fashion lovely woman. It is a course of discipline which brings 
 out in rich perfection graces that no treasure could purchase. 
 
 Exercise which results from the pursuance of some kind of 
 industry, above all, should be warmly encouraged, as being 
 most conducive to the health of body and mind. A door that 
 is always closed will have rusty hinges, and creak when opened. 
 Indolence is an enemy to felicity. Keep busy, therefore. A 
 wise mother will find employment for her daughters. If they 
 are idle, then they will be unhappy. 
 
 Were our limbs rarely set in motion, they would become 
 thin and feeble. The skater's leg's increase in size bv the 
 
 O i/ 
 
 service imposed upon them. If the brain were not employed, 
 poverty of thought would expose the neglect of that organ in 
 exhibitions of ignorance. Decay follows neglect, and neglected 
 opportunities cannot be retrieved. Every faculty must be 
 exercised, if possible. Effort becomes a pleasure. Progress 
 and prosperity have no intimate connection with pain or 
 misery. Great thinkers, like fleet horses, must be kept in 
 constant training. Great things are not achieved by main 
 strength. Occupation is one of the first elements of happiness. 
 As it is a woman's mission to smooth the rough w r ays of the 
 world by the influence of her character, the power she wields 
 is strong or weak, according to the culture she has received. 
 
 Commence seasonably, then, with young girls, by allowing 
 them all possible freedom, not inconsistent with purity of 
 heart. The best gymnastic school for them is all over the 
 premises ; and when their bodies have taken the form nature 
 contemplated in their organization which is always beautiful 
 then teach them whatever may be requisite for sustaining 
 themselves with propriety, dignity, and honor, in all the social 
 relations to which they may be called. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NERVOUS SYSTEM OF WOMEN. 
 
 Different Nerves Their Functions Anatomically alike in both Sexes Old 
 Age Children Nursed by Men Arrest of Pulmonary Consumption by 
 Lactation Too Much Restraint Exercise Essential. 
 
 FAMILIAR as medical gentlemen suppose themselves with 
 the structure of the body, a woman's instincts, and the laws 
 which govern her nervous system, are still veiled in mystery, 
 which the acuteness of physiological research has not cleared 
 from obscurities. Assumptions are not demonstrations. The 
 curtain must be raised higher before we can explain phenomena 
 which belong exclusively to female life. 
 
 Considered as an animal, man is not affected by revolutions 
 of the sun, the moon, or planets, nor have conjunctions had 
 any influence over his organization. 
 
 In women, on the contrary, there are periodical changes 
 occurring with an orderly regularity which popular opinion sup- 
 poses is wholly due to an influence of the moon, far off as 
 it is. Before science had that ascendency it now has, there were 
 such precise and inexplicable functions performed from puberty 
 to about the fiftieth year, it was natural enough to suppose a 
 power in the sky that made the tide rise and fall twice in 
 twenty-four hours, also moved fluids, wherever they were, pro- 
 portioned to the volume upon which the lunar influence was 
 exerted. 
 
 Whether the nervous matter is fluid or solid, within the 
 sheaths called nerves, is not satisfactorily settled. Those 
 
84 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 flexible white cords, from the size of a pipe-stem to filaments 
 too attenuated to be seen without a magnifier, and which reach 
 every fibre, being the telegraphic wires through which volitions 
 are sent from the brain, and through which sensations from 
 without are forwarded to the soul, have their origin within the 
 head and upper part of the spinal marrow. 
 
 THE BRAHST. 
 
 Nerve-cords are precisely alike in both sexes, have the 
 same relative locations, and sustain the same office. A nerve 
 in a female arm in 110 way differs in composition or in function 
 from a similar one in a male arm ; yet the brain of a woman 
 differs from a man's, not in composition, nor in the proportions 
 the white bears to the gray matter, so far as we can discover, 
 but in its manifestations. There is a difference between the 
 two, not at all easy of explanation. Side by side, detached 
 from the skulls, it would be impossible to decide which was 
 the male, or which the female brain. 
 
 Education is simply a development of the faculties; and 
 when the process is conducted precisely alike for both sexes, 
 there are manifestations totally different, which have their 
 origin from impressions made exactly from the same sources. 
 Therefore, there is a constitutional endowment : the why or the 
 wherefore our philosophy fails to explain. "Woman's instincts 
 differ very widely from man's. She is naturally more reserved, 
 more moral, and more sympathetic. Their thoughts, their 
 dreams, and the activity of their imaginations, are certainly 
 influenced by the same agencies which leave impressions on a 
 man's mind ; still she has neither the instincts nor the charac- 
 teristic impulses of man in the concerns of ordinary life. 
 
 Whether the moon, the planet Neptune, the seven stars, or 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 85 
 
 the whole combined, govern the fluids in a woman's body, or 
 unite their forces with those of the heart, it would not be wise 
 to discuss. Certain it is, physiology has further room for 
 explanation where there is both darkness and guessing, rather 
 than light, in regard to the nervous system of women. 
 
 The structure and nervous expansion of slender twigs set 
 the microscope at defiance. Their extreme minuteness cannot 
 be followed, and, therefore, we must acknowledge our inability 
 to pursue them. 
 
 CURIOSITIES OF LIFE. 
 
 When the age of child-bearing is past, the milk ducts 
 shrink and almost wholly disappear ; but they may be revivi- 
 fied by simply manipulating the nipple occasionally a few days. 
 The increase of blood is directed to the partially obliterated 
 breasts, and the erectile tissue receives an increased influx of 
 nervous exaltation. By allowing a nursing babe to draw upon 
 the dried-up fountains, the functions of these organs, as in the 
 vigor of youth, will be reestablished. Should the powers of 
 nursing be renewed and continued at regular intervals a few days, 
 milk will be secreted abundantly. Children have actually been 
 nursed in this manner by aged women, who were fully restored, 
 in that particular, to the prominent conditions of maternity. 
 
 It will be conceded, therefore, that there are mysteries per- 
 vading the female system, when such phenomena are presented. 
 Thus, through the reflex influence of extremely minute thoracic 
 nerves, a lost function may be reestablished. Glands which 
 have been dormant for years the sleep of old age yield nour- 
 ishment abounding in elements which are the appropriate food 
 of an infant, out of which its solid body is built up in health, 
 strength, and beautiful proportions. 
 
 Medical books furnish the case of a poor Italian who posi- 
 
86 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 tively nursed his own infant seven months, on milk secreted in 
 his own breast. For the purpose of quieting the starving 
 babe, whose mother had just ' died, the afflicted father, unable 
 to provide a nurse for the wailing infant, allowed it to nestle at 
 his flat, hard bosom, which was instinctive on the part of the 
 little famishing sufferer, where, finding a rudimental nipple, it 
 was permitted to draw upon it without interruption. It quieted 
 the screaming motherless babe ; and the father, discovering that 
 it was an easy method of procuring rest for himself also, offer- 
 ed the remedy as often as the dependent little one demanded 
 it. To his astonishment, it was soon found that milk was there, 
 and the child receiving actual nourishment. For seven months 
 he officiated in the capacity of a wet-nurse and saved it. 
 
 Young heifers may become milch-cows, precisely in the 
 same manner, by the efforts of a hungry calf. This has been 
 resorted to for gaining time, rather than patiently wait a natu- 
 ral process. However, it ought not to be practised. 
 
 About forty years ago, a young baby in Massachusetts was 
 accidentally the subject of neighborhood sensation, which 
 would have been a valuable contribution to a medical journal, 
 had it not been for a fear of damaging the reputation of 
 both the living and the dead, because it would be difficult to 
 make even medical men believe the possibility of what has 
 since been fully established as a physiological phenomenon ; viz., 
 that lactation may be induced without being a mother : 
 
 An accomplished young woman in that stage of wasting 
 pulmonary consumption which indicated a speedy dissolution, 
 such was the severity of her cough, and the copiousness of her 
 expectorations, was residing in the family of a married sister, 
 the mother of a babe she was trying with considerable difficulty 
 to wean. Being advised to leave home a few weeks it was 
 thought the weaning might be more easily accomplished than 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 37 
 
 while she was continually in the society of her crying child 
 the mother departed. 
 
 The first night after her departure, the moanings and un- 
 ceasing crying of the child had such a disturbing effect upon 
 the debilitated aunt, who could get no rest in sleep, that she 
 begged the nurse to bring it to her bed, suggesting she might 
 succeed better in quieting the poor thing, than the woman in 
 charge. By tender attentions, which in fact consisted in folding 
 it to her bosom, without particularly restraining its movements, 
 and falling into a slumber from exhausting efforts, the little 
 visitor found a pap. On awaking, and ascertaining that the 
 infant was industriously endeavoring to nurse, she removed it. 
 But its renewed screams induced her to take it back again, and 
 let it have its own way. 
 
 Thus, day after day, and nights particularly, the weaning 
 babe was hushed into sweet repose. But what was the astonish- 
 ment of the emaciated invalid, to discover she was not only 
 relieved of some of her painful difficulties, the cough being less 
 severe, her appetite improving, and the child thriving on a full 
 breast of milk ! 
 
 A mortifying discovery to the aunt was this secretion, and 
 that she was nursing a babe seemed miraculous. On consulting 
 her physician, a discreet, philosophical gentleman, he advised 
 that she should continue the course, it being evident she was 
 rapidly improving from a condition of prostration quite hopeless 
 before the baby was taken into favor, and suggesting the possi- 
 bility of perfect restoration to health, if the pulmonary irritation 
 could be thus favorably subdued. 
 
 With encouraging prospects, and obviously improving 
 rapidly, an event occurred that blasted the expectations of the 
 medical attendant. 
 
 On the return of the mother, unprepared for such gratifying 
 
88 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 prospects of a recently almost dying sister, and astounded at 
 what was related of the child, it began to be whispered mis- 
 chievously, by meddling village gossips, that the putative mother 
 was not the mother, as had been supposed, but that the innocent 
 babe, doing so well for itself, was actually the child of its 
 reputed aunt ! 
 
 When the cruel slander reached the ears of the sensitive 
 patient, the shock agitated her almost beyond pacification by 
 sympathizing family friends. However, she resolutely refused 
 ever to receive the child again, much as she loved it. Argu- 
 ments and appeals were alike unavailing, although it was plainly 
 explained to her that a sudden suppression of the lactic secretion 
 would seriously damage her case. Nothing could alter her 
 determination. By the time the milk disappeared she was in 
 the grave, a victim of a wounded spirit. 
 
 It is not certain that the young lady would have finally re- 
 covered, for, as has been already shown, where the structure of 
 organs essential to life are destroyed, new ones cannot be re- 
 generated. But violence of symptoms may be abated, and life 
 very considerably prolonged, even when the lungs have been 
 extensively ulcerated, and abscesses formed in the body of 
 the lobes. 
 
 DOMAIN OF ORGANIC SYMPATHY. 
 
 There is an unfathomable sympathy existing between the 
 pelvic viscera and the mammary glands ; and because we cannot 
 explain it satisfactorily, it is better not to dwell upon a subject 
 of so much importance in the successful practice of medicine, 
 which cannot, to any advantage, be discussed in a popular 
 treatise on the laws of health. 
 
 With peculiar delicacy of mechanism, woman has also a cor- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 89 
 
 responding nervous susceptibility. Her perceptions, her intui- 
 tions, and her moral tendencies are her own exclusively, and, 
 though allied to those of the male sex, her nervous system is 
 peculiar, and differs from that of man. 
 
 Men may be refined, conscientious, timid and retiring, but 
 still fall infinitely below a woman in those attributes which give 
 dignity, grace, and loveliness to her character. 
 
 Women faint more easily than men, and weep, too, artisti- 
 cally when occasions require it ; but no familiarity with cruel 
 practices, no outrages or wrongs are perpetrated so frequently 
 in their presence, as to deaden their sensibilities to suffering, to 
 appeals to the heart and their characteristic sympathies. 
 
 They recoil at the sight of blood, scream at the approach of 
 a mouse, yet, in defence of their children, face the mightiest 
 array of force with a heroism that death cannot invest with 
 horrors of sufficient magnitude to divert them from maternal 
 exhibitions of moral courage absolutely sublime. I 
 
 Reason as we may, and rear arguments mast-head high, with 
 an expectation of making the world believe phrenology is 
 nothing more than ingenious sophistry, quite unsupported by 
 facts, there is one circumstance obtruding just where it is most 
 unwelcome to the opponents of that much-abused science, viz., 
 that a large brain has more power than a small one. 
 
 HUMAN HEADS. 
 
 Small heads, it is assumed, are never distinguished for 
 generating great thoughts. Further, there is a consciousness in 
 coming into the presence of persons with large heads and broad 
 open countenances, that an engine or a battery, call it by what 
 name we may, is inside those strong boxes, which are a power. 
 
 On the contrary, a pin-headed individual, whether man or 
 
90 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 woman, whose cranium scarcely rivals a cocoanut in size, with- 
 out breadth there is nothing commanding #bout it which 
 impresses us with a conviction of superiority in or about the 
 individual. 
 
 That placidly received doctrine, that all enter upon the 
 stage of human activity upon equal terms, and with equal 
 aptitude for being qualified by education to act the hero or be 
 a knave, according to circumstances, is more charming in a 
 Fourth of July oration, than true. Cash and circumstances, 
 especially the first, as society now stands, carries more votes than 
 talents, and buys positions which modest merit could not acquire 
 by the practice of all the moral virtues. 
 
 Some are born to command, as others are to be commanded. 
 This is exemplified in every form of government, from the 
 nursery to a throne. 
 
 Notwithstanding an array of reasons advanced for giving 
 women political, and, indeed, all other privileges which men 
 glory in possessing, reference is not unf requently made to their 
 mental capacity, genius, and other cerebral attributes. They 
 are not exactly underrated or undervalued, but there is a mean 
 attempt at both, when impudence passes for argument. That 
 they are inferior to men, just because they have not their 
 staunch bones or do not chew tobacco, is a slender cord for 
 binding up absurdities. 
 
 That the skulls of women are smaller, on an average, than 
 male crania, cannot be denied. But that fact does not neces- 
 sarily imply an incapacity for high pursuits. If they are small, 
 there is a compensation in the quality for what may be wanting 
 in the quantity. There are neither ganglions nor nerves in one 
 that are not also existing in the other. Science or education 
 will ultimately demonstrate that a female brain has a capacity 
 for the reception of any knowledge men may or should acquire. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 91 
 
 Education is a miracle-worker, especially when it takes 
 female pupils in charge. That common notion, that woman's 
 sphere is one in which there is no need of knowing much of 
 anything besides sewing on buttons, rocking cradles, or dusting 
 furniture in the drawing-room, cannot have many advocates, 
 certainly, none of sense. 
 
 KESPONSIBILITY SOMEWHERE. 
 
 Fathers, brothers, and husbands are guilty of a great wrong 
 if they neglect to elevate woman to the extent of their pecu- 
 niary resources, in giving her all attainable advantages. Her 
 mission on this fair globe is such that she must have intelligent 
 training. All her faculties should be developed, and directed 
 to meet the responsibilities of her position. 
 
 Women are under too much restraint. They have been 
 guarded in selfish ignorance, till a common sentiment has crept 
 into our civilization that they still ought to have fewer privi- 
 leges and less freedom than men. 
 
 Extreme reserve, seclusion from avenues to a familiar knowl- 
 edge of what is transpiring in the world in which they have a 
 being, is making prisoners of those who contribute all that 
 is really refined, elevating, and heavenly in our sojourn in life. 
 Reserve may be carried too far, and freedom degenerate into 
 vulgarity. That system, however, which inculcates self-respect, 
 has intimately incorporated with it dignity of carriage, gener- 
 osity of soul, frankness of manner, chastened by the highest 
 sense of propriety. 
 
 Where there is too much scrutiny too much fear of being 
 too common it is impossible to have a full gushing out of a 
 woman's real nature. Contracted views, hypocritical reser- 
 vations, and concealment of motives, are always referable 
 
92 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 to a famished mind. The brain must be exercised, or it will 
 perish. 
 
 A woman's nerves are cords of a delicate instrument a 
 harp of a thousand strings which will not keep in tune if 
 rudely handled. Whatever may be a success in the primary 
 education of boys, should also be adopted in the primary instruc- 
 tion of girls. Quite into their thirteenth year, they should 
 stand upon "the same neutral level. Whatever is proper for 
 one, is equally of value to the other. 
 
 BOYS AND GIRLS IK CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Boys of a corresponding age, owing to their innate disposi- 
 tion to frolic, and who in their boisterous pastimes put in 
 action every thread of a muscle in their agile bodies, invariably 
 have larger, stronger limbs than girls. Besides the circumstance 
 of having larger bones, too, males of all the higher order of mam- 
 malia possess an original endowment, in the general size of the 
 whole body, above the female. 
 
 Were girls permitted to exercise as boys do, unrestrained by 
 maxims and tramniels which ignorance imposes at home and 
 abroad, in the nursery and the school-room, they would become 
 nearly as muscular, and much more expanded. Their chests 
 would be broader, but an instinctive delicacy never forsakes 
 them under the roughest usage, or the most vulgar, demoraliz- 
 ing associations. 
 
 OVER-EDUCATING. 
 
 A mistake in female education that will have to be rectified, 
 before women have their true position, is over-doing. They are 
 educated too much. Their ductile minds are developed prema- 
 turely, to the positive injury of their bodies, before they have 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 93 
 
 fairly begun to live. This, too, is all wrong, and one of the 
 causes of nervous irritability and excitability peculiar to females 
 in the Northern States. They are made learned, without being 
 practical. 
 
 A discourse on astronomy, or criticisms on a musical com- 
 position, make an accomplished daughter. When she becomes 
 a wife, she is at. the mercy of servants, and her husband quite 
 undervalued, if he knows nothing beyond providing bountifully 
 for the comfort, honor, and respectability of his family. 
 
 Thousands of ladies are too erudite to be of any use any- 
 where. They look with contempt upon those who have not had 
 equal advantages for being made useless beings like themselves, 
 and yet, when examined by the test of common sense, they' 
 have never contributed a new thought, or, with their accom- 
 plishments, enlarged the circle of human happiness. 
 
 It is not a crime to laugh at the rural habits of a plain 
 farmer, but it is a disgrace to a fine woman to ridicule the 
 simple manners of country ladies. If they could see themselves, 
 occasionally, as sensible people see them, there would be a 
 change for the better. 
 
 PRETENSIONS TO ADVANCED KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Some city ladies entertain exalted views of their own 
 superiority over their country friends. When the well-meaning 
 Mrs. Baker, the grocer's widow, retired with a competency, she 
 purchased a pleasant domain of forty acres in the town where 
 she was born, one hundred miles from the city. Her head was 
 stocked with scientific agriculture, gleaned from the best 
 treatises on farming made profitable. She had not been two 
 weeks at the new home, which was undergoing astonishing re- 
 pairs, before she discovered the extreme ignorance of her neigh- 
 
94 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 bors in respect to rural pursuits. 'Not one of them had ever 
 read a page of modern agricultural literature, fascinating books 
 for a cultivated mind. She resolved to revolutionize farming, 
 by showing the world generally what could be done by a city 
 woman with a will and money cpmbined. 
 
 For the purpose of extreme accuracy, Mrs. Baker having 
 further resolved to report her successes in experimental farm- 
 ing, she had a leaf in her diary ruled off for profits. She ex- 
 plained, in the kindest manner, to her coarse neighbors in her 
 opinion the most wooden-headed creatures she had ever known 
 in the shape of men that each bean, before planting, should be 
 weighed in Professor Pollock's patent agricultural scales. In 
 that way an exact register of the increase could be determined. 
 Fertilizers, purchased in tin canisters, which could be carried in 
 a vest pocket, contained the virtues of a cart-load of nasty 
 manure. Instead of delving with a hoe to clear away weeds, a 
 pair of Sly's patent vegetable tweezers were worth a dozen hoes 
 with that instrument the operator could extract weeds with 
 gloved hands. 
 
 All this was novel intelligence, really quite new to Mrs. 
 Baker's astonished auditors, who said nothing beyond express- 
 ing uproarious wonder that a great lady had known so much 
 about a subject they had generally supposed did not come under 
 the catalogue of book-knowledge. They noticed she expressed 
 herself in long terms, not in all the dictionaries. 
 
 It was revealed to Mrs. Baker that some of her most re- 
 spectful listeners, in appearance, actually laughed behind her 
 back. " Never mind," replied the philosophical reformer, 
 whose zeal had not degenerated into lunacy, " let those laugh 
 who win." 
 
 When harvest arrived, those ignorant farmers had excellent 
 crops without having consulted an encyclopaedia, while Mrs. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 95 
 
 Baker's manager gathered less than had been sown. She 
 opened her eyes with amazement to the solemn realization of a 
 singular fact, viz., that too much science is unprofitable, if 
 one intends to live by farming. 
 
 Female education may be deplorably defective when women 
 are taught too much of what is of no earthly value to them, at 
 the expense of their health, and equally so, when they assume 
 to know what they do not know. Their systems may be de- 
 stroyed by over-taxing the brain, while the machinery of organic 
 life, on which mental excellence depends, is considered either of 
 secondary importance, or quite overlooked. 
 
 UNSOUND WOMEN. 
 
 It is a national calamity that the women of this country 
 are so generally unsound. Those distinguished for brilliant 
 intellects are the most common invalids. To be under medical 
 treatment is not only necessary, but very genteel. 
 
 A gentleman of ample possessions and of excellent social 
 position, gave it as a reason why he did not marry, that he 
 did not feel able to keep apothecaries and doctors continually 
 under pay ! 
 
 "Women would not be so nervously excitable, slender, 
 fragile, sharp-featured, and petulant as too many of them are, 
 for the happiness of their households if they had not been 
 wronged in the beginning, through a mismanaged education. 
 They would not have been so universally predisposed to dys- 
 pepsia, neuralgia, paroxysms of depression which throw a 
 gloom through a pleasant home, and discourage indulgent 
 husbands had they been generously permitted to breathe out- 
 door air, subsist on plainer food, rise earlier, sit fewer hours at 
 a piano, and read something superior to sensational magazines 
 
96 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 devoted to exaggeration, moonshine sentiments, love in a bower, 
 and other kinds of nonsense calculated to mislead and over- 
 excite their youthful imaginations. This is the misfortune of 
 what society is pleased to call the better classes. 
 
 The best-informed young ladies those whose educational 
 advantages embrace whatever is supposed will fit them for the 
 highest positions which refined society has at its disposal- 
 are the poorest wives. Matrimonial disagreements and wretch- 
 edness are not found in the middle classes, but just where 
 the refinements of the lady of the establishment enable 
 her to discern imperfections where she has fondly hoped to 
 find a companion who would sigh perpetually, recite poetry, 
 and buy cosmetics by the gallon. 
 
 Their petulancy, curt answers, despotic rule of servants, and 
 dissatisfied expressions toward those who are devotedly endeav- 
 oring to promote their happiness, cannot be cured by pills, 
 soothing powders, strengthening plasters, annual jaunts to 
 Saratoga, or the attendance of a high-priced doctor. 
 
 Liberty to exercise in childhood, without being constantly 
 reminded that it is unladylike to run, vulgar to eat enough to 
 satisfy a moderate appetite, and wicked to be natural, but 
 charming to cultivate hypocrisy, improving to be fastened in 
 garments that restrain the growth of the chest, and glorious 
 to be in misery for the sake of dying a real lady, is the 
 lamentable cause of many of the common woes of elevated 
 domestic life. 
 
 Men and women were designed for each other on the high- 
 way of the world. They are destined to the same length of 
 days ; and, above all, it was not intended in the original con- 
 stitution of humanity that they should be strangers to each 
 other, unless formally introduced, after having carefully in- 
 spected a pedigree. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 97 
 
 NEKVOUS CEKTBES. 
 
 Besides injuries originating in the vice of dress prejudicial 
 to health, suggestions ought to have been made respecting the 
 violence inflicted on nervous centres. Just under the line 
 where the pressure is most severe in girding on the waists of 
 dresses, are the solar and semilunar ganglions. They are way- 
 stations into which nerves enter and others go out, which hold 
 control over the stomach, liver, spleen, etc. They are the 
 brains of the abdominal viscera. They surround a short, 
 horizontal artery that shoots off from the trunk of the aorta, 
 the great arterial tube from the heart. The coelic artery not 
 over an inch in length subdivides into three. One goes to 
 the stomach, a second to the spleen, and the third to the liver. 
 Any compression of the waist, therefore, besides disturbing 
 those nervous centres, interferes also with a free circulation 
 of blood to three important organs in the abdominal cavity. 
 
 Mandates, or volitions, are sent from the brain, but the 
 way-stations those ganglia repeat the commands. Unim- 
 portant transactions, when everything is progressing in the 
 usual way in the viscera, are not transmitted to the principal 
 office, the brain. When there is unusual disturbance, pain 
 and inflammation, then word is sent forward, and the judgment 
 determines how to act. 
 
 Simple irregularities of digestion may occur, but unless there 
 is a grave condition of things, the brain has no immediate knowl- 
 edge of it. It is not always necessary to communicate what 
 may be transpiring in any one organ, unless its functions are 
 seriously impaired : then a dispatch is sent upward to the brain. 
 
 There are many considerations connected with the subject 
 of the nervous excitability of women, which have called forth 
 expostulations, but to no purpose. 
 
98 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Were physicians to write plainer than ever, and address 
 themselves to parents, instead of preparing elegant essays for 
 journals, walled in by so many barriers of technical phrases, 
 which nobody understands w r ho is not an expert in half a dozen 
 dead languages, no change of system would follow. Fashion 
 is antagonistic. 
 
 SOCIAL KELATIOKS or CHILDREN. 
 
 When boys and girls are brought up together in large 
 families, sitting at the same table, mingling in each other's 
 society, sharing in amusements and intellectual pursuits they 
 invariably go forth with better principles, stronger convictions 
 of what is duty, and live purer lives, than those who are taught 
 that it is sinful to look each other in the face, unless in the pre- 
 sence of a watch-dog of a parent, or a dilapidated old duenna, 
 whose eyes can be covered with a ten-dollar bill to oblige her 
 young mistress. 
 
 IMPORTANT CAUTION. 
 
 It should be taught children, that the pit of the stomach, 
 as it is called, is nearly over those ganglions, or nervous 
 centres, and that they must be favored in swathing the chest. 
 A blow there is almost instant death. Life explodes, as it 
 were, by any rude approach. A kick of a horse, or the 
 weight of an angry man's fist, at that spot, is almost invariably 
 fatal. 
 
 There are numerous glands in the neighborhood of the 
 ganglions, which compression disturbs, and any interruption 
 in their appropriate offices affects the general health ; espe- 
 cially those connected with the function of chylification, if 
 pushed from their natural relations, or in any way interfered 
 with. They may become scirrhous, enlarged, hypertrophied ; 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 99 
 
 and a softening of the bones, too, is sometimes referable to 
 a similar cause. 
 
 Mendicant children of both sexes, common in public streets, 
 scarcely covered decently in tattered loose garments, which are 
 the cast-offs from persons twice their size, are in robust health, 
 with splendid forms, sound white teeth, thick hair, round limbs, 
 and good brains for cultivation. The rich man's daughters are 
 forced into being ladies before they know the meaning of the 
 word, by a system of unnatural discipline that kills them by 
 inches. 
 
 Excessive fear of mingling with persons with a small rent- 
 roll, or with none at all, and harboring the opinion that men 
 are monsters seeking whom they may devour, are productive of 
 nervousness and feebleness, traceable to the present system of 
 female education ; and which has also immensely multiplied 
 maiden ladies, to the detriment of their own happiness and the 
 best interests of society. 
 
CHAPTEK X. 
 
 AMUSEMENTS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Young Animals in Sports Blind Buffaloes Reptiles Brain Volume Me- 
 chanical Ingenuity Conversation with Children Theoretical Schemes 
 of Female Education Dancing Entertaining Distinguished Guests 
 Theatres Always have Existed, and Probably always will Labor 
 Children Overworked Philanthropic Efforts Playtime a Sanitary 
 Measure Why Sleep is Necessary. 
 
 lN"o suggestions can be made, or plans proposed, for the 
 innocent amusement of youth, that will not meet with opposi- 
 tion from some source. 
 
 The absolute severity of some parents, who believe they 
 have the special approbation of heaven for making their chil- 
 dren wretched by interdicting amusements, is very surprising, 
 since, in their own youthful days, many of them were distin- 
 guished for reckless, rollicking lives. It can be explained on no 
 other principle than by a common observation, that the greatest 
 sinners become very exacting saints. 
 
 All young animals have their sports and festive gambols. 
 It is a natural way of exercising muscles, while under the 
 excitement of pleasurable emotions, to act as they were intended 
 to contract and relax when matured. Thus, they run, turn 
 short corners, and seize each other with a tender grip precisely 
 as they will hold their prey when urged by the stimulus of 
 hunger. 
 
 Such, certainly, are the characteristic manoeuvrings of car- 
 nivorous quadrupeds. Cattle, sheep, horses, etc., till their teeth 
 are fully grown, are particularly playful, when they become 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 grave and cautious. The lion's whelps, young tigers, foxes, 
 bears, and those of a similar type, are extremely playful while 
 nursing ; but as soon as their stomachs crave more substantial 
 food, the ferocity of their nature is manifested. Puppies are 
 very sportively inclined, nor do they express their canine energy 
 till they have had a taste of flesh. They then begin to quarrel 
 among themselves, on the slightest provocation, which termi- 
 nates in terrific fights for the possession of a bone. 
 
 Grass-eating animals rarely give such vehement displays of 
 irritability, even when goaded by pangs of extreme hunger. 
 Colts, calves, fawns, kids, rabbits, etc., delight in the freest 
 exercise of their limbs, if in sight of their mothers. The males 
 only engage in combats. 
 
 When battles are suspended, and renewed at short intervals, 
 it is solely for the purpose of recuperation. A contest, once 
 terminated by the submission of one of the belligerents, suffices 
 for the remainder of their lives. The victor ever after walks 
 abroad in the consciousness of being without a rival. Stallions, 
 dogs, and bulls, when once conquered, remain in subjection 
 while the conqueror lives. 
 
 Blind buffaloes are actually leaders of immense droves, by 
 virtue of their prowess in youth, which is respected by hun- 
 dreds of brave bulls, stronger and younger, demeaning them- 
 selves peaceably in the herd while the acknowledged ruler is 
 able to move. 
 
 Skeletons of bucks are often found in deep recesses of the 
 forest, with their branching antlers so inextricably interlocked, 
 that the combatants must have died, in that painful condition, 
 of actual starvation. 
 
 In these illustrations of the youthful propensities and habits 
 of animals, the law of might is allowed to predominate. There 
 are no rights acknowledged among themselves. Puny, feeble, 
 
102 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 imperfectly-developed males cannot compete with the large, the 
 strong, and the highest type of the race to which they belong. 
 Consequently, nature 'secures, in perpetuity, all the best proper- 
 ties for a succeeding generation. 
 
 WHERE THERE ARE NO AMUSEMENTS. 
 
 Neither birds, reptiles, nor insects appear to have amuse- 
 ments or periods of sportive relaxation. From birth, they are 
 sedulously devoted to habits of industry, in providing for their 
 own necessities and the wants of their offspring. There is an 
 instinct always making reference to successors, but the sentiment 
 of parental affection is not long-lived with them. 
 
 Pigeons and domesticated doves fly about in groups, forag- 
 ing, but they never visit each other's cotes, nor engage in sports. 
 The attachment of the parents, when once paired, might be 
 advantageously imitated by reasoning beings, who find more 
 relief in the laws of divorce, than comfort in dove-like matri- 
 mony. 
 
 Their attentions to their young are of short duration, and 
 quite at variance with some other traits, which have been 
 poetically lauded as worthy of consideration. 
 
 Fishes, crabs, lobsters, turtles, prawns, etc., seem never to 
 have sports among themselves. Serpents, frogs, toads, and 
 lizards are solitary as oysters, each intent on selfish pursuits. 
 Whenever they do huddle together on the margins of pools or 
 in cliffs of submerged rocks, they never indicate the slightest 
 gratification, or hold any intercourse with each other, more than 
 with other inhabitants swimming in the same element. 
 
 While young birds are being fledged in a nest, they lie 
 quietly, without the slightest show of playfulness. Chickens, 
 turkeys, goslings, ducks, prairie-hens, partridges, quails, peacocks, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 103 
 
 and caged songsters, press together for mutual warmth or pro- 
 tection, without manifesting the remotest show of a disposition 
 for sport. Of the attachment of mother birds, nothing can be 
 more demonstrative for a short period. They brave all dan- 
 gers for the protection of their little ones, and die in unequal 
 struggles for their safety. 
 
 Affecting scenes are described by arctic navigators, of the 
 attachment of polar bears for their nursing cubs, and the bloody 
 encounters they have been known to maintain against rifle- 
 balls, in unequal efforts to save the objects of their affection. 
 Usually, the male is rather an indifferent spectator. Pairing 
 birds, and perhaps a few of the pairing quadrupeds, make some 
 show of interest in the young, in their most helpless infancy, 
 and join with the mother in defending the lair ; but, as soon as 
 they are old enough to run and look out a little for themselves, 
 the father loses all interest in them. Warm-blooded animals 
 are those which have pastimes, rude to be sure, but, nevertheless, 
 they actually enjoy social recreations. 
 
 THE BRAIN. 
 
 As the volume of brain augments, a disposition for play- 
 fulness is more apparent. Boys and girls scarcely do much else 
 from the cradle to adolescence, than play in some manner that 
 promotes their happiness. The fabrication of toys of any con- 
 ceivable description for their amusement is a branch of manu- 
 facturing interest that has always been profitable, and gives 
 employment to large numbers of ingenious mechanics in every 
 country, civilized or not. Yery large commercial houses are 
 exclusively engaged in the importation of playthings for 
 children. 
 
 In the catacombs and mummy-pits of Egypt, and the cem- 
 
104 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 eteries of extinct nations, toys have been found in abundance, 
 showing that the demands of childhood have always been re- 
 cognized in every age and country where humanity has had a 
 being. 
 
 The disposition, tendencies, and irresistible demands of 
 their nature for objects proper for exercising their juvenile 
 brains, is a necessity, and has been, from the first formation of 
 human society. Savages tax their ingenuity in making rude 
 toys for their children. 
 
 This may be thought a small matter, but it is of importance. 
 Toys assist them in forming opinions, correcting their judg- 
 ment, and in classifying muscular action. Distances, weight, 
 dimensions, form, color, etc., are insensibly acquired, to be 
 applied in other ways, and for far different purposes as they 
 advance in knowledge. 
 
 GIVE THEM FACILITIES. 
 
 Mechanical skill and a genius for invention is very early 
 manifested in some boys. They should always be gratified with 
 the possession of implements for perfecting their designs. Too 
 generally they are denied facilities which would give them 
 great advantages. Tools are invariably coveted by such as have 
 a mechanical turn, but nothing is more common than to deride 
 their plans and ridicule their machinery. Let them have ham- 
 mers, saws, chisels, files, and by all means a turning-lathe, even 
 if they break some of them and lose the remainder. Children 
 have wants, real ones too, which, when not positively preposter- 
 ous, should be indulged. It may lead to proud results. Every 
 one who has had experience with children, knows what a treas- 
 ure a gimlet is to a boy. A jack-knife is something above 
 riches. With it he converts shingles into wind-mills, carves 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 105 
 
 horses out of turnips, builds edifices with blocks, and makes 
 happiness for himself with it in a garret. With a box of tools 
 he learns the use of instruments, while exercising both brain and 
 muscles. "With tools, boys can amuse themselves in the dullest 
 weather. While mending their broken sleds, or constructing a 
 miniature wagon, they are creating something, which is always 
 a pleasure. The little miss, in dressing her doll, finds unspeak- 
 able enjoyment. It is teaching her how to use the needle, the 
 thimble, and her scissors ; therefore, it is not a waste of time, 
 but a regular course of instruction, in which practice makes 
 perfect. 
 
 If girls and boys are benefited in no other way with tools 
 appropriate for each in the sphere in which they have been 
 designed to move, it is in being kept out of mischief while they 
 are permitted to use them. They always love and honor 
 parents who indulge them in the line of their social propensi- 
 ties. Constantly forbidding them to do this or that, because 
 they themselves dislike it, makes disobedient children. If men 
 and women are but children of a larger growth, they surely 
 ought to sympathize with youth, and not exact of them sedate- 
 ness, or the solemn expression of thoughtfulness that belongs 
 to mature age. 
 
 ASSOCIATE WITH CHILDREN. 
 
 Those parents who never allow themselves to mingle with 
 their children, or express an interest in their little pursuits, ' 
 have no foretaste of heaven. Conversation with them gives 
 them encouragement in what, to their immature minds, seems 
 of the highest importance. Ridicule is a hateful weapon in 
 damping the ardor of ambitious children. Help them on with 
 their inventions ; assist them in their rude drawings ; suggest 
 improvements in their constructions; for a great architect, a 
 
106 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 splendid artist, or a distinguished engineer may be hidden in 
 the rough combinations of blocks, old bricks, or snow-balls rolled 
 together at recess in front of a country school-house. 
 
 Young women, like young men, must have amusements. 
 It is an inborn necessity of their nature, and hence the question, 
 What may they do or not do, after passing through rattles and 
 dolls ? 
 
 A host of propositions emanate from all sorts of people in 
 regard to the question, which is thought more momentous in 
 reference to girls, than the question merits. There is a plain 
 way of settling the matter, in accordance with the acknowl- 
 edged rules of Christian propriety and benevolence. 
 
 It is curious that more schemes for rearing young ladies to 
 be what society expects and demands them to be, emanate 
 from persons who never had daughters of their own, than from 
 those who have had many to perpetuate their memory. Let 
 them have the confidence and intimate society of their parents. 
 That is one of the first lessons for improving them. 
 
 Theoretical schemes on the culture of female youth almost 
 always have their origin with sour, opinionated old-bachelor 
 teachers, or, worse still, retired maiden ladies. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF Music. 
 
 Nothing more instantaneously quickens nervous excitability 
 than instrumental music. Some airs have such inspiration in 
 them that we can hardly control our feet, which is a very direct 
 mode of conducting off what the brain is taking in. If octo- 
 genarians unconsciously beat time with their gouty toes, what 
 electrical ecstasies get the ascendency of young ladies and 
 gentlemen, when the thrilling tones of a violin break in upon 
 their ravished ears ! 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 107 
 
 Dancing is one of those natural, spontaneous outbursts of 
 youth, which can hardly be suppressed by efforts of the will. It 
 is not to be first learned before a disposition to dance is 
 developed. Those who know nothing, artistically, of taking 
 steps, or ever saw others dance, can scarcely restrain themselves 
 from a sudden display of sprightly antics, when music rouses 
 them to a state of exultation, which cannot be produced by any 
 other means. 
 
 Why have we ears for music, or music at all, if it is wrong 
 to listen to it ? Why is Old Hundred any more acceptable to 
 that Divine Intelligence, who is the author of harmony and the 
 contriver of our acoustic nerves, than the College Hornpipe ? 
 
 
 DANCING. 
 
 Dancing is an admirable exercise for all the cordage of the 
 body, and eminently conducive to health. It quickens the cir- 
 culation, while promoting all the glandular secretions. Nothing 
 else compares with that exercise. Nature intended it for a 
 peculiar sanitary pleasure. Although young animals do not 
 artistically dance, they caper and display their agility under 
 the exhilirating excitement of exuberant health. 
 
 We dance to sounds that stimulate a more highly-organized 
 brain than animals possess, till weariness succeeds, which is an 
 evidence that 110 further excitation is required for that time. 
 
 Let hard-faced, dilapidated casuists reason as they may on 
 the moral torpitude of dancing, it is perfectly in harmony with 
 those hygienic laws, the observance of which, never carried to 
 excess, tends to health and longevity. King David danced 
 before the Ark of the Covenant, for which he was severely 
 criticised by one of his pious wives, whose pharisaical hypocrisy 
 was of a piece with the moral shock the sensitive objectors to 
 
108 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 a very innocent recreation pretend they feel when a ball is 
 proposed. 
 
 Religious intolerance, from immemorial time, has been at 
 open war with the votaries of the dance. It is, indeed, remark- 
 able that the clergy of some denominations never fail, when 
 opportunities present, of thundering anathemas against that 
 odious so-called sin, as though it were a dreadful crime in the 
 sight of heaven. 
 
 Under the shadow of those edifices where fearful denuncia- 
 tions are annunciated against that shocking vice, and where 
 solemn pronunciamentos are regularly promulgated, dancing- 
 schools flourish with undiminished success. Dancing has never 
 been abandoned in any community where those great ecclesias- 
 tical guns have been levelled, nor ever temporarily suspended on 
 account of the bigoted hostility of bilious sour-krouts, who are 
 never happier than when they have made some lady wretched, 
 in obedience to their interpretation of the Divine Will. 
 
 Government officials and municipalities greet distinguished 
 guests with cordial attentions, which usually embrace festivities 
 in which dancing is a prominent feature. 
 
 MORAL SENTIMENT. 
 
 Those self -constituted instructors in moral excellence, who 
 presume to assert what is most pleasant and satisfactory to 
 themselves as being also most satisfactory to the power above 
 they represent, gain nothing for morality by their hostility to 
 innocent amusements. Ecclesiastical cannonading avails no- 
 thing, since people will continue to dance while they have feet 
 and music is heard on earth. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 109 
 
 THEATKES. 
 
 Theatres are universally denounced by the same self-consti- 
 tuted interpreters of divine precepts, as the focus of demoraliza- 
 tion; but, notwithstanding the unrelaxing bombardment to 
 which they have been subjected, they are multiplying with the 
 extension of civilization. Delighted crowds throng them, and 
 they will continue to do so, while society exists in its present 
 form. 
 
 Were it true that scenic representations of the foibles or 
 the graces of mankind on the stage were as bad as ranting re- 
 formers represent, a second deluge would have been required 
 centuries ago, to wash away their pollutions. 
 
 Dancing, music, and theatres will be sustained while men 
 have ears, music charms, and the stage represents the passions, 
 hopes, fears, love, and hatred engendered in the human heart. 
 ISTo legislation could arrest either, or suppress them so effectually 
 as that they would not reappear in some form essentially the 
 same. 
 
 Appeals to the conscience have been as ridiculous as shoot- 
 ing at the moon with an expectation of forcing it from the 
 orbit in which it moves. Persecution is ineffectual. "When 
 legal enactments are sustained by a force strong enough to stop 
 public amusements, of which dancing and theatricals are most 
 prominent and universal, because they are considered a nuisance 
 or a sin, then moral reformers must interdict music also, in the 
 same bill. After that, to be consistent, ears must be cut off, 
 whenever it can be proved before an impartial jury of self-con- 
 stituted saints, any man, woman, or child, wickedly, and with 
 malice aforethought, listened to prohibited strains of melody, 
 against the dignity and majesty of an offended law. There are 
 in Europe, at the present moment, fourteen hundred and eighty- 
 
HO THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 two theatres. In Prance, three hundred and thirty-seven ; in 
 Italy, two hundred and eight ; in Spain, one hundred and sixty- 
 eight ; in Austria, one hundred and fifty-two ; in Prussia, sev- 
 enty-six ; in Russia, thirty-four ; and in England, one hundred 
 and fifty-six. In the United States, where they are numerous 
 and constantly on the increase, the Canadas, Mexico, South 
 America and the West Indies, make a very formidable list for 
 the New "World. 
 
 MOKE KECREATION DEMANDED. 
 
 The opposition which narrow-minded people manifest 
 against dancing, is perfectly unaccountable. In the New Eng- 
 land States, there are not recreative amusements enough for the 
 proper relaxation of body and mind. Public sentiment was 
 formed by Puritan ancestors, who were compelled to work in- 
 cessantly for their preservation. They had no opportunity for 
 relaxation or social enjoyment. Their ecclesiastical teachers, 
 in whom they reposed implicit faith, and to whom they yielded 
 servile obedience, were careful to instil into their crude con- 
 gregations the heinousness of levity. The wickedness of laugh- 
 ter, and blind devotion to the gloomy teachings of a church 
 that fled from oppression to become an oppressor, was incul- 
 cated by saintly men who vigilantly superintended their flocks. 
 Labor was necessary, but they were over-taxed with cares which 
 gave a fixed gravity of countenance that has been transmitted 
 to their posterity. This accounts for the haggard, gloomy faces 
 which predominate there to this day. They are taught to do 
 everything from a sense of duty, and never to allow any out- 
 gushing impulses of hilarity. It is quite remarkable, that with 
 the progress of society in art, science, literature, and humanity, 
 there are still many remnants of the good old times referred to 
 in their chronicles, who deem any deviation from their stand- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. HI 
 
 ard of faith, a near approach to an abyss of misery in the 
 world to which offenders are hastening with railroad speed. 
 
 OVER-TAXING CHILDREN. 
 
 Children are over-worked far beyond their powers of en- 
 durance. It is discoverable in their imperfect physical develop- 
 ment. "With us, their brains are over-taxed. ' Schools of every 
 grade, from primary infantile to normal institutions, require too 
 much. Under the impression they are having rare facilities for 
 acquiring knowledge, the poor things break down under a pres- 
 sure of too much instruction. 
 
 Force of circumstances compels parents to place their chil- 
 dren too soon in factories, where they are wronged out of their 
 share of vital air to which all are entitled. Philanthropists 
 have appealed to the legislature, but in vain. There is law 
 enough for their protection, without a corresponding earnest- 
 ness to execute it. Though all are born free, and have equal 
 rights in the pursuits of health, wealth, and happiness, only few 
 of the many secure either. Poverty connot compete success- 
 fully with wealth. 
 
 There is another field for culture where the harvest might be 
 large, but the laborers are few. In private families where chil- 
 dren are loved and watched over with paternal solicitude, there 
 is a culpable ignorance in obliging their little ones to do 
 too much, under the mistaken idea of giving them superior 
 advantages. 
 
 Precocious children disappoint the ardent expectations of 
 their friends. "When they arrive at an age at which they are 
 fondly supposed to be ready to blaze with extraordinary mental 
 brilliancy, their feeble light goes out. Slow and sure is a true 
 saying. Gradually evolving an intellect, as a flower unfolds its 
 
112 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 beauty, is a safer process than bursting open suddenly, to wither 
 under the first rays of a morning sun. 
 
 Children ought not to be taught much of anything more 
 than moral duties, till they have reached at least six years. 
 Their brains are in no condition for concentrating thoughts 
 before. They should have perfect liberty to act out their ex- 
 uberant playfulness with as little restraint as possible, consistent 
 with proper discipline in the lessons of good manners, courtesy, 
 truth, and order. Time is not lost in giving them such scope 
 for exercising body and mind. Their activity and ever-varying 
 amusements are but so many ways of tutoring their muscles, 
 their organs of sense, and in preparing them for the places and 
 responsibilities of the future. 
 
 Public schools are over- working pupils, goaded by fear of 
 disgrace or punishment ; over-excited by promised rewards, 
 their immature nervous systems are forced at the expense of 
 their vitality. When pale, delicate, frail little girls are nattered 
 into a morbid ambition in a Sunday-school, to commit to 
 memory long, dry chapters, to them without meaning, it is re- 
 prehensible. It is a violation of a physical law that has broken 
 down and spoiled many a bright and promising child. 
 
 Allow children all the play-time they wish. They will stop 
 at a seasonable period for disciplining their innate powers, 
 voluntarily, to commence a higher series of employments which 
 will be also enjoyments. 
 
 It is a lamentable mistake to keep young misses several suc- 
 cessive hours at the piano. Dragooning them into accomplish- 
 ments is a poor policy. Besides deranging the minute structure 
 of the brain by long-continued practice at a single sitting, if 
 attended with fatigue, the continued attitude presses painfully 
 on certain bones. Curvatures of the spine, and a droop of a 
 shoulder, are traceable to such circumstances. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 113 
 
 Recollect tlie bones of young girls are not completely ossified 
 till near their twentieth year. They are not hard and firm. A 
 fixed attitude, therefore, so as that the weight of the body 
 presses directly on the pelvic frame-work, may warp them out 
 of the line in which they should have development. Nature 
 has inspired all young animals with a restless spirit, on purpose 
 to keep them moving. A love of change is simply giving each 
 and every fibre and organ a chance to perfect its organization. 
 
 While children sleep, which is about all the rest their active 
 limbs require, processes are then rapidly going on for the phy- 
 sical completion of their bodies. That is the reason why they 
 require so much repose. Internal artisans then labor with in- 
 tense energy while they are quiescent in slumber. 
 
 Growth is suspended when they are awake, but renewed the 
 instant their eyelids are closed. 
 
 Unfledged birds in the nest sleep nearly all the time, after 
 leaving the shell, till their feathers are sufficiently developed to 
 sustain them on the wing. Their perfect quietude favors vital 
 processes, so that in a very few weeks they are complete in all 
 their proportions. 
 
 "When the brain is large, the process of growth is slower. 
 Allow young girls and boys as much sleep as they desire. It is 
 not from indolence, or a sluggish nature, that they are so uni- 
 formly disposed to drowse to a late hour in the morning. If 
 they retired earlier, they would rise earlier. But Nature de- 
 mands both time and opportunity for completing their bodies 
 according to a prescribed pattern. If we interfere with that 
 law, and interrupt processes instituted for that purpose, they 
 will have unfinished bodies, weak brains, and poor health. 
 
CHAPTEE XL 
 THEIR MODE OF Livnsra. 
 
 Pickles Dentists Benefited Hereditary Tendency Mountaineers 
 Digestion Sugar-eating Character of Food Food of Animals Camels 
 Artificial Teeth Must Vary our Pursuits Rural Diseases Neuralgic 
 Pains Sallow Complexions. 
 
 WITH digestive organs requiring the same kinds of food that 
 instinct and custom sanction for man, there is a special refer- 
 ence made in favor of some women, on account of a supposed 
 delicacy of constitution. They imagine they could not subsist 
 on ordinary diet. What they have must be very concentrated, 
 so as to occupy but little room in the stomach. 
 
 Unfortunately, it is ungenteel to have much of an appetite, 
 especially for young misses, destined to circulate in fashionable 
 orbits, whose ignorant mothers commence early with giving 
 them practical lessons in personal elegance. To dine heartily 
 would carry with it an extreme air of vulgarity : hence, the less 
 a young lady takes at table, the higher her preparation for re- 
 finements that are appreciated among those who think more of 
 a fine form than of intellectual accomplishments. 
 
 Light soups, rich cakes, choice fruits, and tea always, is held 
 to be the dietary range of an exquisite woman. Articles that 
 would meet the requirements of her system are quite inadmiss- 
 ible, at least in the presence of satirical judges of propriety. 
 
 Food most approved, and that which carries with it the 
 endorsement of manoeuvring mothers, anxiously looking for- 
 ward to the establishment of their children in commanding 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 social positions, even if the intended husband is a baboon, is 
 a slice of dry toast, weak black tea, and an occasional tea- 
 spoonful of sweetmeats. 
 
 HORROR OF FAT. 
 
 No calamity is more dreaded than fat in an aspiring young 
 lady. Consequently, on the presumption that partial starva- 
 tion is the legitimate way of keeping it at bay that horrid 
 destroyer of female symmetry and female ambition, of which 
 very many are in painful apprehension no efforts are left 
 untried to preserve a slender form. 
 
 There are two methods extensively in repute for keeping 
 off the enemy, which marketable belles manage with dex- 
 terity. One is vinegar, drunk often ; and the other, pickled 
 cucumbers. 
 
 Those in comfortable circumstances, unsophisticated in 
 the ways of acquiring extra attractions through the resources 
 of art ; those under no restraints from a dread of fatness ; who 
 satisfy a normal demand of the stomach, and breathe and 
 exercise in an uncontaminated atmosphere happily are re- 
 moved from the temptation, the trials, discipline, and excitement 
 of artificial life. But they are commiserated on account of 
 their robustness. 
 
 Gaudily-dressed butterfly-misses, who are on exhibition 
 in the street, at eclectic churches, if the weather is favorable 
 for the display of feathers, diamonds, and streaming ribbons, 
 are most frequently addicted to the vice of vinegar-drinking. 
 A dread of fat is a misfortune, when it degenerates into an 
 insane determination to be the shadow, rather than the sub- 
 stance, of a live woman. 
 
 The consumption of pickles gives employment to many 
 hands, and hundreds of broad acres are annually planted with 
 
116 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 cucumbers, to meet the mercantile demand the consumers 
 being principally ladies. 
 
 Gardeners and dentists are benefited by a trade that en- 
 riches both, while the effect is directly opposite on the health 
 of that order of patients. 
 
 This is the country of poor teeth. A full, perfectly sound 
 set is an anomaly. There are many with beautiful teeth ; but 
 there are ninety in every hundred young ladies whose teeth 
 are in a hopeless condition of premature decay. Brush and 
 cleanse them as they may, the progress of caries cannot be 
 arrested. 
 
 No doubt, the quality of their food may have some influence 
 in injuring them; especially, if taken either too hot or too 
 cold. But large numbers inherit a predisposition to an early 
 crumbling away of the enamel, which exposes the bony part 
 to the direct action of agents that blacken and destroy 
 the entire body of a tooth thus denuded of its protecting 
 covering. 
 
 This diathesis is propagated and shows itself from one 
 generation to another. Sound teeth, strong enough to resist 
 influences that act unfavorably upon others, are also an 
 inheritance. 
 
 Where an early predisposition to decay is recognized, 
 there is the more need of supplying in food those materials 
 which are appropriated for those organs in their growth, as 
 well as preservation. "With that tendency, acids hasten their 
 destruction. 
 
 COMMERCIAL PICKLES. 
 
 Pickles are but vehicles for carrying acids, and, hence, 
 those who consume them excessively, especially those with an 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. H7 
 
 hereditary tendency to premature decay, quicken the process 
 of decomposition. 
 
 Pure apple vinegar, or that manufactured from wine, is 
 slower in its action than commercial vinegar, which is made 
 of sulphuric acid. When diluted, it seizes upon the lime 
 of the teeth with such activity, that the enamel gives way 
 to its intense chemical agency. 
 
 Cider vinegar is too expensive for manufacturing pickles on 
 a large scale. Sulphuric acid, therefore, is the basis of that of 
 which common market pickles are made. It is not uncommon 
 to find a cask of pickled cucumbers converted into a thick, 
 pulpy mass of green gelatinous material, without any remaining 
 resemblance to the vegetable from which it was formed. If 
 too strong, this result is to be expected, kept barrelled eight or 
 ten months, without being opened to the air. 
 
 Pickles, therefore, made from that acid, cannot be brought 
 in contact with the teeth without doing an injury. Thus, in 
 the expectation of preventing grossness, which, no doubt, is 
 partially accomplished by acids, aided by a spare diet, caries 
 and toothache may be anticipated. 
 
 SOUND TEETH. 
 
 Travellers comment on our national tendency to defective 
 teeth. Bad teeth, however, in the country, are not so common 
 as in cities. There the food is not seasoned, usually, so highly, 
 and is, therefore, freer from elements that undermine them. 
 
 In new countries, especially in wheat-growing districts, 
 where lime is largely combined with the soil, men and women 
 are tall, and the females particularly noticeable for their sym- 
 metrical proportions and admirable teeth. 
 
 Tennessee and Kentucky are celebrated for their splendidly- 
 
118 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 developed specimens of humanity. Their out-door exercises 
 and plain fresh food provide nature with materials for com- 
 pleting her labors according to established laws. 
 
 When the soil is poor, thin, and barren of bone-making 
 constituents, the people are short, broad-chested, with lower 
 limbs disproportioned in length to the superior parts of the 
 body. There are tall and short persons everywhere, in every 
 community; but the average height is below that of the 
 inhabitants of places where the composition of the soil favors 
 their development to the utmost limits of the law of growth, as 
 in the new Western States. 
 
 Lime is scarcely appreciable by chemical tests where some 
 cereals are raised successfully, and where families are remark- 
 able for their strong, fine teeth. Yet there are those among 
 them who have decayed ones ; but the majority are favored 
 with sound, well-formed teeth. 
 
 Yermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and the adjoin- 
 ing Northern States present an illustration of this fact in 
 regard to bad teeth bearing a certain relation to the agricul- 
 tural resources of the soil. There wheat cannot be raised as 
 at the West, and there dentists are required. They are almost 
 as numerous as physicians. Dental operators appear very much 
 disproportioned to the population of the cities and towns in 
 which they settle. But that is accounted for in the facilities by 
 railroads for their customers, who reside in the interior. 
 
 Dentists are multiplying in the Western States, where once 
 the profession was hardly known. Their patrons are represen- 
 tatives of the Eastern States, in large proportions, emigrants 
 from the worn-out, exhausted soil of the Atlantic States, who 
 carry with them the hereditary tendency to an early decay of 
 their teeth. 
 
 Estimated by the good they do in a sanitary relation, den- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. H9 
 
 tists are eminently entitled to all the honors and pecuniary 
 independence they secure. When teeth, provided by nature, 
 fail prematurely, art furnishes substitutes equally useful for 
 mastication and speech. 
 
 The ingenuity of American dentists is not surpassed any- 
 where, in meeting the difficulties that present in thousands of 
 irregularities in the jaws of the toothless. 
 
 Cereals are most abundant in phosphate of lime. Indian corn 
 is not to be despised or underrated as food, because it is deficient 
 in certain elements in larger measure in wheat. "Wherever that 
 grain is used extensively for food, good teeth are in the majority. 
 
 With the loss of teeth, not only the voice is considerably 
 modified, but less distinctly articulated ; certain sounds, essential 
 to the perfect enunciation of language, cannot be given without 
 them. Deprived of teeth, the expression is deranged. By a 
 loss of the incisors, the mouth is out of shape, only to be 
 restored by the substitution of artificial ones. 
 
 When teeth have been long removed, an absorption of the 
 gums invariably takes place, which brings the lips together, 
 shortening the face, and very much altering it giving an 
 appearance of age. When the original level of the gums is 
 restored by art, sunken cheeks are again distended, and the 
 muscles of expression immediately bring back the original 
 characteristic outlines. 
 
 Because millions of teeth are blackened and eaten away 
 by sulphuric vinegar, with a view to perfecting the form of 
 the lady, by removing or preventing a superfluity of fat, 
 pains and penalties, disastrous to the teeth, have been dwelt 
 upon with a hope of wakening those, who are blessed with 
 sound organs, to the nature of the disaster, the evils of which 
 they may avoid by abstaining from factitious vinegar, and, if 
 they can be persuaded, from every kind of pickle. 
 
120 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 UNBOLTED FLOUR. 
 
 Good flour, that most esteemed on account of its whiteness, 
 is the poorest for food in those qualities which furnish tooth- 
 matter. In bolting out the bran, there goes with it the 
 materials indispensable for the formation of bone, and par- 
 ticularly teeth. Those, therefore, who subsist on coarse 
 brown bread, made from unbolted flour, take into their 
 stomachs precisely those elements that another class of good 
 livers exclude, and they consequently have strong teeth and 
 strong bones ; while those, whose bread is of the finest and 
 whitest quality, with their aching teeth to be filled or finally 
 extracted, are the best patrons of dentists. 
 
 When Graham bread was introduced, a dietetic reform was 
 needed. The bread in general use among good livers was 
 too much concentrated. The flour was deprived of parts 
 that should accompany it, in order to give distension to the 
 stomach and bowels. The Graham flour retains the bran 
 the very thing of all others in the composition of wheat, 
 which contains the phosphate of lime. When stablers feed 
 their horses on that article, they give them something far better 
 than flour. It is providing them with materials of keeping 
 not only their teeth, but their bones, in good condition. 
 
 Ladies ordinarily subsist on food too concentrated. That 
 is, it is too fine, and, therefore, does not distend the stomach 
 enough to keep its walls from coming in contact, a cause of 
 many forms of indisposition, to which the poor, living on 
 coarse, bulky food, are rarely predisposed. 
 
 DIET. 
 
 There is a medium course to be pursued in diet, which 
 entails no disasters, but favors health and exemption from 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 121 
 
 incidental indispositions, that oftener have an origin in strong 
 coffee, strong tea, and fine flour, than from any other 
 cause. 
 
 Too cold or too hot are extremes in taking food. By- 
 cooking, all food is not only softened, and therefore made 
 easier for digestion, but it destroys, by frying, baking, stew- 
 ing, etc., parasites which abound in meats, fruits, and garden 
 vegetables. Their eggs, too small to be seen without a 
 microscope, are spread over and through almost every edible 
 from the market by millions. Savages who take their food 
 raw, or in a very crude state, are subject to a variety of 
 intestinal difficulties. But their white, even, sound teeth 
 show that they never have been subjected to the destructive 
 action of hot drinks, concentrated acids, or beverages, which 
 attack the enamel. 
 
 Perhaps the characteristic ferocity of savages is due to 
 an almost exclusive meat-diet. Fishing and the chase, for 
 supplies, is their principal employment. Fruits and vege- 
 tables are uncertain resources. Those they have are usually 
 of spontaneous growth, with the exception of Indian corn, 
 which is never cultivated in sufficient amount to supersede 
 the necessity of ranging the forests for wild animals. 
 
 THE METHOD OF LIVING. 
 
 Having explained the dangers to which young ladies are ex- 
 posed, who deal too freely with vinegar, we now proceed to the 
 consideration of the true way of living, for securing sound 
 health and beauty of form. 
 
 Fish is both wholesome and nutritious. From very respect- 
 able authority it has been taught that the brain is especially 
 
122 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 benefited by it. Whether iodine, phosphate of lime, or pure 
 phosphorus is taken from it by the absorbents, and carried to 
 that particular organ, requires more decided evidence than has 
 yet been adduced. 
 
 In the history of fisheries, fishermen have been distinguished 
 for their bold, hardy, adventursome spirit, good nature, and 
 indomitable force of character. They brave storms, breast 
 dangers of the sea, and in ships of war, their spirit, gallantry, 
 and reliability are acknowledged. 
 
 Mountaineers are another representative class. They are 
 lovers of liberty, fearless, and the best of soldiers. Fresh air, 
 plain food, and few wants, easily supplied, are excellent founda- 
 tions for a vigorous constitution and mental activity. 
 
 Food has very much to do in the. formation of character. 
 With a strong, well-developed body, there is usually a corre- 
 sponding spirit. A purely vegetable diet is not conducive either 
 to a sound body or an active mind. Starch-yielding roots, as 
 potatoes, arrowroot, etc., will support life, but they fur- 
 nish neither corporeal nor mental power. Combined with ani- 
 mal aliment, corn, wheat, barley, beans, fresh or dry, etc., 
 furnish just those elements required in temperate zones for 
 developing the best intellectual and physical capabilities of 
 man. 
 
 There is neither strength of body, nor vigor of mind, when 
 an individual is kept upon one article of food long enough to be 
 loathed. The stomach must have variety, out of which are taken 
 those substances required for keeping each and every organ in 
 working condition. 
 
 Each particle elaborated by the vital chemistry of the 
 digestive apparatus, is carried to the place required, as attend- 
 ants on bricklayers transport mortar to the spot where brick 
 is to be laid. When the new particle arrives, absorbents carry 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 123 
 
 away an old one which had been in relation with others a 
 sufficient time for imparting its specific vitality. As soon as 
 that has been extracted and appropriated, another should 
 arrive to take its place. 
 
 LAW OF ASSIMILATION. 
 
 Thus the body is constantly undergoing a change. "We are 
 reconstructed many times in a single year. Even the solid 
 bones are gradually removed, particle after particle, so gradually 
 and cautiously, that the fabric is neither weakened nor left ex- 
 posed to dangers on that account. 
 
 Many times in an ordinary life of seventy years, the skele- 
 ton of every one reaching that age has been repeatedly re- 
 newed. This perpetual removal and introduction of new 
 materials explains the rationale of eating and drinking. It is 
 simply furnishing a crude mass, from which are selected such 
 parts as can be introduced into a living system vitalized and 
 assimilated. 
 
 A custom prevails of serving rare or uncooked meats, under 
 an impression that they are more easily convertible into nourish- 
 ment. If cooked too much, the quality is imagined injured. 
 Thus, underdone expresses a condition that favors digestion, 
 while overdone means that it is not readily dissolved in the 
 stomach, and, therefore, is not as nutritious. 
 
 Neither extreme expedites, or essentially retards, digestion, 
 since the solvent properties of the gastric juice act with equal 
 potency on either. By habit, if a person has been accustomed 
 to hard-cooked meats, the stomach is prepared to receive that 
 kind of preparation, and that which is rare would not be acted 
 upon so readily ; and vice versa. 
 
 Soft-boiled eggs are usually served, because a notion is 
 
124: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 extensively entertained that the stomach sooner reduces them 
 to chyme. But a hard-boiled egg dissolves just as quickly, and 
 yet, the egg-eaters are astonished at the suggestion that it is of 
 no kind of importance whether eggs are hard or soft. Either 
 way, they are quickly disposed of in the interior of that mar- 
 vellous organ, a human stomach. 
 
 Civilization, among other advantages over barbarism, re- 
 quires that cooking should modify articles of diet. Cooking, 
 too, destroys parasites which infest almost every thing in the 
 catalogue of food. When introduced alive into the alimentary 
 canal, the consequences are graver than when their ova are 
 swallowed, which may not remain long enough for incubation. 
 
 In raw food, especially meats so rare as to be hardly warmed 
 through, eggs of the tapeworm and the trichinus are actually 
 introduced into the system. Rare meats, therefore, are objec- 
 tionable on that account. Well-cooked food is safest. 
 
 BUTTER AND SUGAR. 
 
 Butter contains materials for the reparation of teeth. Chil- 
 dren are notoriously importunate for it, urged on by instinct, 
 too frequently interdicted by model mothers on the unfounded 
 presumption it is too hearty for them. That it spoils their 
 teeth and their complexion, are reasons given for denying it to 
 them. 
 
 They would have better teeth for having as much butter as 
 they desire. Egyptian taskmasters were told that it was im- 
 possible to make brick without straw, and it is equally difficult 
 to have good teeth without phospate of lime, which belongs to 
 the composition of butter. 
 
 Sugar, too, is usually withheld from children, who invariably 
 crave it in far larger amount than it is given them. ~No demand 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 125 
 
 of .the system is more urgent than a desire for sugar. It can- 
 not be overcome. Locking pantries, threatened punishment for 
 invading sugar-bowls, never overcame the relish for it in small 
 children. 
 
 The body requires sugar, and it must be had from some 
 source. It is provided liberally in a mother's milk for her nurs- 
 ing babe. While thus fed, the infant is plump, round, and cer- 
 tainly lovely. When weaned, its dimpled cheeks fall away, 
 the fat limbs lose their form, diminish in size, and the whole 
 figure becomes more muscular. 
 
 Put upon a new diet, the quantity of sugar is much less 
 than they had been receiving from a maternal source. So im- 
 perative is the appetite for sugar, that if not supplied in their 
 food in the quantity required for the purposes of nature, a sugar 
 mill is set in motion in the abdomen of land animals, and 
 especially so in ourselves, to make up for the deficiency. This 
 is one of the curiosities of organic life. 
 
 Every animal requires sugar. Some in larger quantities 
 than others, but not one of them can do without some. Grass, 
 hay, grain, rice, potatoes, beets, carrots, etc., contain it. By 
 chewing and mixing with secretions in the mouth and 
 throat, food is prepared for digestion ; and when the essential 
 properties finally mix with blood, there is extracted from it 
 sugar. 
 
 In the liver, dark venous blood is redistributed. While pass- 
 ing through the vessels, there is extracted from it bile. This 
 was long supposed to be the specific ofiice of the liver. But it 
 is made certain that the liver is a sugar-mill also. It supplies 
 sugar rapidly, and the quantity made in a given time is perfectly 
 amazing. 
 
 Whenever the supply is not equal to the requirements of 
 their system, the deficiency is made up by a more active elabor- 
 
126 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 ation of it in the liver. It is necessary, therefore, and must 
 come from some source, or a disturbance in the balance-wheel 
 of life will soon be perceived ; but, unfortunately, the true cause 
 of waning health under such circumstances is not often un- 
 derstood. 
 
 Food should not be too compact. It is really an important 
 point that it should have bulk enough to distend the stomach. 
 The stimulus of distension is a condition required in the econ- 
 omy of life, because it facilitates digestion. That solvent fluid, 
 the gastric juice, oozing, as it were, copiously from the lining 
 membrane of the stomach, cannot act so advantageously on its 
 contents in a fine, compact mass, as when loose and more 
 readily permeable. Maceration, that is, simply being in contact 
 with that secretion, is not perfect digestion. "When there is 
 bulk sufficient, at least, to press the membranous walls of the 
 stomach asunder, it quickens the muscular fibres to contact, 
 which rolls the ingesta from one part of the sac to the other, 
 and thus brings new surfaces to the more direct action of the 
 solvent. 
 
 HEALTH OF LABOEEKS. 
 
 Laborers, sustained on coarse nourishment, have far better 
 physical development, more strength, richer blood, and a far 
 higher condition of health than their opulent employers, whose 
 tables are laden with delicacies their servants and dependents 
 may never have had the gratification of tasting. 
 
 Neither horses nor cattle can be sustained on concentrated 
 food without seriously injuring them. Carnivorous animals 
 have more compact aliment, but in them distension of the 
 stomach is requisite for successful digestion. Feeding oats, 
 barley, or any other grain to horses, exclusively, would soon be 
 followed by gastritis, that would terminate fatally. The walls 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 127 
 
 of their stomach must be alternately distended and contracted, 
 to keep it in working condition. Meal alone, without hay, 
 husks, or some equivalent, would not sustain a cow or an ox. 
 
 A dog, imprisoned in the cabin of a cast-away vessel, which 
 floated about at random, after being abandoned by the men, 
 was found alive on the twenty-third day. Although the poor 
 creature had not a particle of nourishment in all that time, his 
 life was preserved by the thick covers of a Bible, which he 
 gnawed ravenously. But they afforded no nourishment. He 
 lived on his own fat and marrow, which kept the lamp of life 
 flickering, while the stimulus of distension which tlie Bible 
 covers provided saved the prisoner. 
 
 A KEFERENCE TO CONTINGENCIES. 
 
 In the anatomical construction of animals, if appears as 
 though a special reference was made to a possible contingency, 
 in regard to a temporary supply of nourishment, by filling 
 hollow bones with marrow, and cavities among muscles with 
 fat. This is more marked in some than in others, which really 
 seem to have had in view the possibility of the danger of star- 
 vation in the circuit they were predestined to act. Thus, a 
 camel's life is considerably prolonged in their dreary voyages 
 through deserts, where neither food nor water can be procured, 
 by the absorption of fat from the hump on the back. Their 
 ability, too, for carrying a supply of water that serves from ten 
 to fifteen days, is an illustration of the fact, that an animal may 
 temporarily feed upon itself, till relief is found. 
 
 Birds die of starvation sooner than quadrupeds, because 
 their bones being hollow for the purpose of being filled with air 
 instead of marrow, are not storehouses against a time of need, 
 as in the other case. The buoyancy of feathered bipeds is due 
 
128 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 to the long bones being filled with air. They communicate 
 with the tip of each and every quill, so that the barrels of all 
 the feathers are filled with it also. If marrow was there instead 
 of air, they could not fly. They could not have the same aerial 
 freedom and levity. 
 
 Warmth of the body rarifies the air thus inclosed, and with 
 motion the temperature is raised, which still further rarifies 
 it, so that the longer they are on the wing, the easier they 
 move. A wild goose is said to fly more easily the second day, 
 on one of their semi-annual migrations from south to north and 
 back, than when the jaunt is commenced. 
 
 There is a designing Power recognized in all these varied 
 provisions for the preservation, not only of individual life, but 
 also for the perpetuity of races. 
 
 EECRUITI^G CITIES. 
 
 Cities are largely recruited from the country. New-comers 
 arrive in the freshness and earnestness of health. They leave 
 homes where they breathed a pure atmosphere, and subsisted 
 on plain wholesome food. With what is conceived to be a 
 bettering of their circumstances, on changing locality, they in- 
 dulge in seasoned dishes, anomalous soups and delicacies quite 
 unknown to the family from whence they came. A morbid 
 taste is soon engendered, -which craves repetition, till the rosy- 
 cheeked clerk, or the blooming young lady, transported from a 
 residence in a distant village to become the presiding goddess 
 of a palace, have uneasy sensations. Their conversation is 
 principally devoted to the discussion of what is good or bad for 
 digestion, and they soon begin to discourse upon what may or 
 may not be eaten with impunity. Next, medical advice. 
 
 There follows a physical deterioration of women, on their 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 129 
 
 transference to cities from rural homes in the country. When 
 they pass half the night at an opera, dine near their original 
 bed-time, admire champagne as a beverage, taking no open-air 
 exercise, except in a carriage, formerly enjoyed on foot over 
 green fields, chatting with pleasant, unsophisticated neighbors, 
 as lovely as themselves, they fail. At last, with all their pros- 
 perity in social position, they are changed into pale, sickly, feeble 
 fashionables, whose fingers, once round, full, and flexible, are 
 reduced to the appearance of birds' claws. Sparkling diamond 
 rings are not an equivalent for what they have lost. Artificial 
 teeth, and perhaps a wig, made of the hair of some poor wretch 
 who sold it to keep from starvation, shows what' influence city 
 life may have in the transformation of a beautiful woman to a 
 pining, complaining, sickly lady. 
 
 Should they become mothers, their children are direct in- 
 heritors of their infirmities, the penalty of irregularities not 
 catalogued as dissipations, but which are conditions invariably 
 resulting from violations of the laws of health. 
 
 Without dwelling on the importance of abstaining from 
 highly-seasoned, concentrated aliment for young ladies, it is 
 obvious that they would have finer forms, health, and, conse- 
 quently, brighter mental development, by subsisting on plain 
 food. It is surprising that parents cannot be persuaded to 
 adopt a system that promises, with moral certainty, to secure for 
 their daughters sound health, the foundation for happiness. 
 
 Reformers are pointedly severe against some of the courses 
 which we maintain are to be encouraged in the rearing of young 
 girls. They are opposed to many exercises which are not asso- 
 ciated with some kind of productive industry. In their short- 
 sightedness, they discover no utility in a simple promenade for 
 exercise, unless a miss is armed with knitting-needles, or is 
 reading some solid work like their own stupid productions. 
 
130 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Street yarn-spinning is not sinful. It is profitable to walk 
 the streets and see new objects. While all the muscles are 
 in play, shop-window impressions call into action all parts of 
 the brain, which is as necessary for its good condition, as 
 wholesome food is for the stomach. If the eye is con- 
 tinually greeted with the same objects, or the ear has only a 
 repetition of one class of sounds, neither of them will have the 
 power they would have by varying both sights and sounds. If 
 the brain is always acting in one direction, millions of its fibres 
 are lying idle. 
 
 The whole of us, as often inculcated in this work, must 
 be used, or we cannot be developed into what we may have 
 been. Notwithstanding the severity with which street- 
 walking for exercise is treated by those who cannot appre- 
 ciate the value of it in training body and mind, streets have 
 not been depopulated by the cogency of their arguments. 
 Streets of cities are inviting pathways, and those windmill 
 warriors who have discovered that woman's appropriate 
 sphere is in the house exclusively, will never succeed in 
 debarring them from the benefits to be derived from spin- 
 ning street-yarn. 
 
 Exercise is so essential, it should always be encouraged, 
 especially on foot. When neglected, medicines and profes- 
 sional attentions are pretty sure to be in request. Sedentary 
 employments, or no employments," are equally pernicious, 
 and are certain to be followed by derangements which would 
 not have occurred had there been a sufficient amount of 
 labor for the locomotive machinery. Simply passing through 
 the air, reclining at ease in a carriage, does not meet all the 
 requirements of a living being. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 INCKEASE OF KESTAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Renal complaints increase in proportion to the neglect of 
 moving about on foot. The kidneys have a special office 
 assigned them, of selecting out of the blood whatever is unsafe 
 to be circulated throughout the system. 
 
 There is but one direct and prompt way by which noxious 
 elements taken with our food can be conveyed away and 
 thrown out, the retention of which would be injurious. It is, 
 first, to dissolve them. Mixed with the chyle, they are thus 
 introduced into the circulation, and sent to the kidneys. 
 Whatever ought not to go further is intercepted by them, and 
 separated from arterial blood, to be conveyed to the bladder, 
 from whence it is voided. Therefore, the function of the 
 kidneys is to be always in action, and never at rest. As the 
 blood never ceases flowing in the vessels while there is life, 
 the kidneys are alaways laboring without cessation. 
 
 By free foot-exercise the kidneys are very much assisted 
 in their labors. Indeed, all secretions and vital processes 
 are facilitated by it. Excessive indulgence in all malt or 
 spirituous liquors, which are but too apt to stimulate the organs 
 unduly, or, indeed, in any of those beverages palmed off on the 
 unreflecting public as genuine, although really poisonous imi- 
 tations, is very often the cause of a diseased condition of the 
 renal glands. 
 
 The kidneys are vigilant sentinels that never slumber on 
 their post. They carefully separate and send away that which 
 would positively lead to derangement of other functions, if 
 allowed to remain unseparated. Even when collected in the 
 bladder, the necessity of relieving that receptacle soon be- 
 comes urgent ; showing that what it holds, even thus secured, 
 cannot be retained there more than a few hours, without 
 producing immense disturbance. 
 
132 THE WATS OF WOMEN 
 
 Over-wrought brains, like over-worked kidneys, might 
 have been avoided. Abstaining from drinks that excite the 
 kidneys to excess, is an indispensable condition to the health of 
 those organs. 
 
 A repetition of the lesson we are desirous of inculcating is 
 pardonable, on account of its importance to youth. Simplicity 
 in diet, that is, plain wholesome food, thoroughly cooked,- 
 is best for young girls, because it will secure for them a 
 sound frame, and a clear intellect. 
 
 If they would adhere to those early habits which are 
 usually customary in the country, after a removal to 
 spheres of excitement, characteristic of what is thought, 
 unfortunately, to be elevated social relations, they would be 
 incalculable gainers. If they expect to escape neuralgic pains, 
 a sallow compexion, loss of hair, decay of teeth, a wrinkled 
 brow, waning vision, yellow moth-blotches where formerly 
 there were tints of beauty, they must avoid the causes that 
 produce those dreadful misfortunes. Whatever vitiates or 
 impoverishes the blood, or over-excites the brain, diminishes 
 the capacity for rational enjoyment ; and a weak body, a 
 debilitated mind, and premature death are the penalties 
 annexed to the violation of the ordinary laws of health. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 How THEY SHOULD SLEEP. 
 
 Sleep Necessary to all Animals Sleep of Insects Somnambulism No Best 
 for the Glandular System Repose of Children Should Sleep Alone- 
 Transfer of Vitality Marriage of Old with Young Persons Should be 
 near of an Age Reason Why Females in Factories, etc. 
 
 LITTLE or no thought is bestowed upon sleep, although a 
 condition necessary for the health of every animated being. 
 Man sleeps; beasts, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, and even 
 plants sleep. It would be quite impossible to live without it. 
 While unconscious and in perfect repose, a recuperation is going 
 on, rendered necessary from fatigue and a waste of vital force 
 expended while awake. It is only in sleep there is a perfect 
 recovery of something of that essential part of life which has 
 been lost. 
 
 How or why we sleep excites no particular attention ; but 
 the place where repose is sought, and its surroundings, is an 
 important subject for consideration. 
 
 Nearly one-third of the allotted span of existence is passed 
 unconsciously, with closed eyes. The body should be in a 
 horizontal position to have the full benefit accruing from it. 
 
 The lower animals sleep rather more than one-third of their 
 lives. Keptiles, according to the climate, even more. Hiber- 
 nates, in a sort of apoplectic repose, sleep heavily in northern 
 latitudes, three or four months in succession. Alligators have 
 a long slumber in the mud through a season most favorable 
 for maturing their eggs, to be extruded on the return of a 
 genial vernal sun. 
 
134 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Insects have their period of sleep, as profound, while it 
 continues, in a house-fly, as an after-dinner nap of an alderman 
 who engorges himself at the expense of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 SOMNAMBULISM. 
 
 Somnambulic unconsciousness is an irregular working of the 
 brain, which calls muscles into orderly action without the con- 
 trolling will-power, necessary for conscious relations to time 
 and place, for the security of the individual. Yolition is par- 
 tially suspended, and yet acts are performed while in that 
 anomalous state, which so nearly approximate true volitions, 
 that it perplexes, philosophers in their attempts at a rationale of 
 what transpires during its continuance. 
 
 Occasionally somnambulists perform extraordinary feats of 
 daring without knowing it, or rarely having even a dreamy, 
 confused recollection of what they may have done during a 
 night ramble, in safety, where they would have feared to tread 
 in waking hours. This happens, as frequently as otherwise, in 
 the darkest part of a moonless night. 
 
 There are cases on authentic record in which a lady carried 
 a lighted candle, and cautiously walked over a rapid stream, 
 where she would not have dared to venture in full possession of 
 her senses. 
 
 Some faculty of the brain, yet to be discovered, is in action 
 during such exhibitions. Vision guides the footsteps of the 
 somnambulist through dangerous passes, and the motor nerves 
 obey the commands of the encephalon. "When locomotive 
 muscles receive a message, another set of nerves express back 
 to the central station, within the skull, the reception of the 
 order, followed by the required movements. All this tran- 
 spires without consciousness, as though an independent mind 
 were directing the machinery while the other was slumbering. 
 
THE WATS OF WOMEN. 135 
 
 The immortal, indestructible entity the soul also reposes. 
 This is inferred from the simple fact that unconsciousness, 
 really and unquestionably, is sleep. "We are obliged to express 
 that condition by the word sleep, since no better term can be 
 found that carries with it a more comprehensive meaning. 
 
 ORGANIC LIFE. 
 
 While the organic mechanism by which life is sustained 
 remains unimpaired, the current of vitality flows on uninter- 
 ruptedly, indepent of volition. To a limited extent, it is quite 
 beyond its control. Thus, the heart beats from the first moment 
 of foetal existence, months before birth, till the last expiring 
 breath, not unf requently one hundred years ; and through that 
 long period no effort of the will can arrest its pulsations. 
 
 We may hold the lungs from inflating by expelling the air 
 a few moments ; and, by practice, pearl-divers suspend respira- 
 tion an incredibly long time, but vital necessity obliges them to 
 come to the surface in about five minutes. 
 
 In sleep, the mind has no directing influence over the infla- 
 tion or expulsion of air from the lungs. The circulation of 
 blood, the contractions of the heart, and the return of venous 
 blood from the extremities for revitalization, cannot be checked 
 or accelerated by will-force. A sudden surprise, painful intel- 
 ligence, or pleasurable communications, however, singularly 
 quicken or retard arterial action. 
 
 Neither the heart, stomach, kidneys, nor any of the gland- 
 ular bodies interspersed through the abdominal cavity, are 
 supposed to have any rest or suspension from labor. They 
 work continually without relaxation. Muscles, on the contrary, 
 must have rest. The brain must have relaxation in sleep ; and 
 the soul, too, if confidence is to be placed in the deductions of 
 science, demands undisturbed periods of repose. 
 
136 THE WAYS OF WOMEX. 
 
 In dreams, the mind does not have perfect repose. It is not 
 refreshed under a state of emotional disturbance, and, hence, we 
 complain of not having had a refreshing slumber. If the mind 
 is not as completely quiescent and oblivious in sleep, as the 
 voluntary muscles which it controls, then it is but imperfectly 
 recruited. Long-continued seasons of imperfect sleep lead to 
 grave consequences, such as impaired vitality, nervous debility, 
 and, if no relief is had, to insanity. 
 
 Travellers describe the punishment inflicted in China on 
 criminals sentenced to be kept awake till they die, as the most 
 terrible punishment ever devised by the diabolical ingenuity of 
 man, for tormenting a fellow-being. The closing scenes of the 
 shocking condition to which the unhappy prisoner is reduced, 
 are painful in the extreme. He finally becomes insensible to 
 almost every form of torture that can be inflicted to keep him 
 awake, and dies at last, about the fifteenth day, in awful misery. 
 
 Two criminals in Russia, not many years since, were made 
 the subjects of a scientific experiment in regard to the value of 
 sleep in the maintenance of life. They were kept awake with 
 the utmost difficulty, after eighty hours. What fiendish 
 cruelties were practised on the wretched creatures beyond 
 wedging their heads, so as to be continually receiving droppings 
 of cold water, has not been revealed ; but on the nineteenth 
 day, death mercifully terminated their misery. Such punish- 
 ment is a disgrace to any country, and too shocking to be 
 tolerated where Christianity is the religion of the rulers. 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL STAMINA. 
 
 A sound constitution must have its beginning in childhood. 
 Small girls, anywhere from three years to ten, should sleep in 
 good-sized airy rooms. It is not always possible or convenient 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 137 
 
 to provide them spacious apartments, but it is possible to ven- 
 tilate their dormitories thoroughly daily, in a house with doors 
 and windows. On a free introduction of air, vital elasticity and 
 recuperation of the sleeper mainly depends. Of the value of 
 an uncontaminated atmosphere, no one entertains a doubt ; 
 therefore, the discussion of a subject so frequently before the 
 public as ventilation, is passed over in silence, its importance 
 being understood, and everywhere appreciated. 
 
 When too many persons occupy the same apartment, even if 
 of large dimensions, the vitality of the air is ultimately 
 diminished very considerably, which is recognized by an in- 
 creased temperature, perspiration, and physical exhaustion. 
 Small rooms, in the occupancy of two persons, are soon in a 
 similar state, if no fresh supply is regularly admitted. 
 
 Two children sleeping in separate beds thrive better than 
 when together in the same bed, even in a spacious room, high 
 studded, and in other respects appropriate, because they are 
 kept from inhaling each other's breath, hardly to be avoided in 
 their unconscious relations in sound sleep. 
 
 Expired air is charged with elements deleterious to other 
 lungs, and especially so if from a person indisposed or sick. 
 Expired air directly from the mouth or nostrils is deprived of 
 all its vital properties. If inhaled into the lungs of another, it 
 is particularly injurious. ~No doubt, many painful forms of 
 sickness in children, which cannot be accounted for on familiar 
 principles, have an origin in the baneful inhalation of another's 
 breath. 
 
 A lady exposed to incidental inhalations of the offensive 
 breath of a smoking husband, or one whose expirations are laden 
 with alcoholic odors, is liable to various forms of indisposition, 
 the result of Nature's efforts to drive out of her system the cause 
 of disturbance. 
 
138 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Expired air is deprived of oxygen, the pabulum of life, 
 while carbonic acid, destructive to life in its highest forms, con- 
 stitutes the volume of breath thus expelled from the lungs, 
 mixed with aqueous vapor and impurities, which chemistry 
 detects. Other vile products, traceable to tobacco and whiskey, 
 are also carried off in the breath. 
 
 When such expired compositions are drawn into the sound 
 chest of a sleeping companion, although only occasionally, an 
 incalculable amount of future suffering may be thus unsuspect- 
 edly commenced, which medical skill cannot always successfully 
 control. 
 
 Growth, strength, and the regularity of organic functions, 
 perfect nutrition and mental development, are each and all of 
 them defective, if the air is charged with deleterious elements, 
 or simply deprived of oxygen. 
 
 Each one is entitled to as much pure air as their organization 
 requires, the lungs being the instruments for separating the 
 constituents of which it is formed, and conveying such elements 
 into the circulation as support life, and rejecting those which 
 are noxious. 
 
 TRANSFERENCE OF VITALITY. 
 
 A pale, feeble, sickly appearance of children, whose debility 
 cannot be clearly accounted for, and made the more mysterious 
 from having a sound healthy parentage, not unfrequently are 
 amply provided with all the appliances for their comfort with 
 one single exception, their sleeping-room. 
 
 It is a wise precaution, therefore, to place girls in separate 
 beds, and better still, give each one a room exclusively to herself. 
 Neither is it proper for sufficient reasons that might be given, 
 for children of different ages to sleep in the same bed, even when 
 ventilation and the dimensions of the apartment are satisfactory. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 139 
 
 "When two children are thus associated for eight dr ten 
 hours, it has been ascertained that, if either becomes indisposed, 
 it is usually the youngest, although both were in the beginning 
 equally well and robust. 
 
 Physicians recognize a law of which very little is known be- 
 yond the effects resulting from imprudence, in placing persons 
 of different ages under circumstances which lead to an actual 
 transference of vitality from one to the other, at the expense 
 of the one from whom it is drawn. 
 
 By placing a strong and a feeble child in bed together, after 
 a few months the latter will profit physically, while the other 
 will lose some of its former freshness and vigor. If a sound, 
 plump, healthy child sleep with an emaciated, sickly, or aged 
 person, the former becomes indisposed. Therefore, children of 
 a tender age should not be the bed companions of aged aunts 
 or grandmothers. 
 
 Sometimes a blooming child is unaccountably reduced in 
 strength, loses its rosy cheeks, and moves about languidly, 
 losing its relish for food, which may result from sleeping with 
 an aged person. 
 
 A feeble, attenuated woman, advanced in years, will won- 
 derfulty recruit by sleeping with a healthy child. She myste- 
 riously imbibes vital force from the innocent in her withered 
 arms. 
 
 How that subtle something that passes from one to the 
 other is transferred, or what it is, has not yet been philosophi- 
 cally demonstrated. The fact, however, that some property 
 does escape from one, and is taken up by the other, is not ques- 
 tioned by medical men. 
 
 It is not judicious, therefore, to have a nurse who has 
 passed beyond the middle age of life, for an infant. She will 
 take from the child, by this law of transference, more than the 
 
140 THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 
 
 child will receive from her. It is equally unsafe to place chil- 
 dren of a tender age in sleeping-rooms, or in bed with servants 
 or nurses who are ten and fifteen years older, or have sallow 
 complexions, decayed teeth, a bad breath, or peculiar habits of 
 any kind. 
 
 These precautions have express reference to young female 
 children. But it would be equally injudicious to permit an 
 athlethic, energetic boy to be the habitual bed-fellow of his 
 grandfather. 
 
 Such violations of the general laws of health are not so 
 common in regard to boys as girls. Aged women are particu- 
 larly fond of sleeping with their young kindred. Their 
 sympathies are' active, and their love for the society of 
 children rather increases than diminishes with the progress 
 of years. 
 
 The extraction of vitality was far better understood by the 
 Jews at an early historical period, than by modern teachers of 
 hygienic laws, with all the assistance and appliances of modern 
 discoveries. 
 
 "When King David was waning in health, and the alarm 
 spreading that his life was in danger, on the philosophical 
 principle recognized in this chapter, effort was made in 
 his behalf to transfuse vitality into the monarch's cold and 
 fragile body, by taking it from a very select source. But the 
 hopeful experiment was deferred too long. He could gather 
 no warmth, in the language of the sacred narrative, and the 
 king gave up the ghost. The theory was correct, but it was 
 put in practice too late to be of service. 
 
 When a young man, for the worldly consideration of pro- 
 perty, weds a woman old enough to be his mother, she will 
 gain by the contract in health. Repeated instances of ill- 
 assorted marriages of that description have established the 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 fact, that the husband will decline in health, with all his 
 advantages of youth, and generally die first. His vitality is 
 transferred. 
 
 This may be novel intelligence to those who are more 
 intent upon bettering their financial circumstances by matri- 
 mony, than in securing happiness in that sacred relation. 
 
 In those reprehensible and unnatural matches, where 
 selfishness is the ruling passion, an aged wife, in a majority 
 of cases, will become a widow. 
 
 Reversing the proposition, the husband being the oldest 
 by years enough to have been the father or grandfather of his 
 wife, although so much her senior, may outlive his young 
 wife. 
 
 There are many deviations from the principles laid down 
 in these observations, but individual cases do not conflict at 
 all with this peculiar law in reference to the transference of 
 vitality. 
 
 When a young woman sells herself to a man old enough 
 to be her grandfather, she puts her life in jeopardy. She 
 usually dies first. There are modifying circumstances, some- 
 times, that partially arrest the downward tendency to a pre- 
 mature dissolution, of which the public are ignorant. Family 
 secrets embody physiological problems more strange than 
 poetic fiction. Of the many who thus run the gauntlet for 
 luck in marital adventure, a few win the race, living to get 
 what they anticipated wealth. When women have attained 
 it by a sacrifice, they deliberately survey the ground, and 
 select a second husband more congenial to their age, to fill an 
 hiatus in their affections. 
 
 It is a fearful risk to marry a husband considerably the 
 oldest. There should, be a correspondence in age, as in 
 temperament and disposition, to secure all that a divine 
 
142 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 institution promises to those who are guided by reason, 
 rather than impulse, on entering upon the solemn obligations 
 of matrimony. 
 
 LAW OF ADAPTATION. 
 
 A man should not be much more than nine years older 
 than his wife. From four to seven years the senior is a 
 natural relation, and always insures a reasonable prospect of 
 domestic happiness. Their physical, intellectual, and moral 
 natures then harmonize most satisfactorily. 
 
 Leaving out ambitious views in regard to .advantageous 
 alliances, from a selfish determination to sacrifice yearnings 
 of the heart for pecuniary power, if the husband is a few 
 years older than his wife, both parties will have more domestic 
 comfort than when madam is the senior. 
 
 In regard to sleep, as especially belonging to the domain 
 of health, it may be received without qualification, as both 
 sound and reasonable, that two women accustomed to sleep 
 together would escape many annoyances in the form of 
 headaches, neuralgic twinges, occasional nausea, etc., were 
 they in separate beds. 
 
 It is injurious for two men of about equal age to lodge 
 habitually in the same bed, but always worse for females. 
 Young women, at all times after the establishment of perfect 
 womanhood, should lodge alone. The objections to sleeping 
 together are not removed, even though the apartment is 
 large arid airy. 
 
 Husbands and wives sleeping in the same bed do not con- 
 taminate the air, as two men or two women do. There is a 
 correcting influence from opposite sexes thus circumstanced, 
 difficult to explain, but, nevertheless, true. In many parts of 
 Italy they practise the discreet policy of never permitting 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 two persons to occupy one bed, by making them too narrow 
 for two. It impresses the traveller with curious surprise 
 to see hotel beds in that sunny land so very insignificant 
 in width. 
 
 There is a peculiar electrical condition of tho sexes. Two 
 females do not develop the same nervous state, neither is it pro- 
 duced by two men, that is, elicited by one of each sex. The 
 extreme subtlety of this phenomenon defies scrutiny. "We really 
 do not know anything about it beyond the fact, which is familiar 
 knowledge with those who have no insight into the first prin- 
 ciples of science. 
 
 It is said that a man and a woman, introduced into a per- 
 fectly dark room, totally ignorant of the presence of each other, 
 will not only soon ascertain that a person is present, and that 
 without moving an inch, but decide accurately whether the 
 neighbor, unseen and unheard, is a man or a woman ! 
 
 FEMALE OPERATIVES. 
 
 One reason why female operatives in large manufacturing 
 establishments, as cotton-mills, book-binderies, printing-offices, 
 paper-box shops, tailoring lofts, etc., are pale, cadaverous, or 
 yellowish, besides being of inferior strength, although but a few 
 months thus circumstanced, is due to exhalations from their 
 own bodies, inhaled with the air they are breathing. 
 
 A morbid craving for clay, charcoal, slate-pencils, chalk, 
 broken bits of crockery, and similar substances, is almost 
 irrepressible among females when working together in con- 
 siderable numbers. This is usually regarded as a novel cir- 
 cumstance. 
 
 Deprived of home influences, grouped together in a vitiated 
 atmosphere, morbid propensities are generated. 
 
144 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Such was the charcoal-eating propensity of the female 
 weavers in one of the great mills in Massachusetts a few years 
 since, orders were given to lock the bins in which charcoal was 
 kept, as the girls were actually consuming such quantities daily. 
 
 TEMPERATURE OF THE BODY. 
 
 In drawing-rooms, halls, concerts, and, indeed, on all public 
 occasions, where large numbers of persons are compactly wedged 
 together, ladies, much sooner than men, complain of a sense of 
 suffocation. While gentlemen are quite at their ease, the 
 feminine part of the audience are plying fans with extreme 
 activity. 
 
 In churches, men sit bundled in thick heavy clothing, but- 
 toned to their chins, and then are only just comfortable, while 
 ladies throw off* their outer garments, and express by various 
 movements their oppression from heat or foul air. 
 
 In public conveyances, nothing is more common than to 
 have a car full of men thrown out of temper by the entrance of 
 a frail, shadowy woman, who immediately requests a window to 
 be opened. On some railroads, cars are expressly appropriated 
 for females, in which they may have a temperature as much 
 below zero as their necessities require ; but they invariably in- 
 dicate dissatisfaction in being placed by themselves, even though 
 they might respire more agreeably. 
 
 Clothing which women wear is more delicate in texture, 
 thinner and lighter than male attire in the same climate. Yet 
 they are as warm and comfortable as muscular men in their 
 Mclntoshes and buffalo overcoats. 
 
 This shows that women have a temperature above the slug- 
 gish vitality of their legal protectors. Their circulation is more 
 rapid up to about forty-five, ceteris parilus, than the circula- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 145 
 
 * 
 
 tion of men, sustained upon the same diet, and having a home 
 in common. 
 
 SLEEPING WITH ANIMALS. 
 
 The importance of having women sleep well that is, re- 
 freshingly need not be argued. A vile practice is gaining in 
 this country, that should be frowned down by all well-wishers 
 to humanity. Young ladies, and particularly many in the 
 maturity of age, are excessively fond of pet dogs. They are 
 their most intimate companions, and they bestow as much at- 
 tention upon them as affectionate mothers mete out to their 
 children, to gratify their philoprogenitiveness. It must be met 
 by something, and black-and-tan imps take the place which poor, 
 abandoned orphans should have in their arms and in their 
 affections. 
 
 They not only feed them on delicacies unsuitable to their 
 natures, but they take them out to ride in carriages, when it 
 would please them more to have liberty to run on the ground, 
 like all quadrupeds. It is disgusting to see little snapping curs 
 receiving the fondest caresses and the sweetest .tones of endear- 
 ment, lavished on them by accomplished women who would 
 not allow imploring poverty to stand between their ladyships 
 and a darling puppy. 
 
 There are demoralizations and contaminating influences 
 connected with this canine mania, which a loving father is 
 bound to forbid. If his commands are not honored, his next 
 resort should be a revolver, which would most effectually rid 
 the premises of such unnatural and such disgusting associates 
 of his daughters or his wife. 
 
 Not satisfied with feeding their dogs with dainties unsuit- 
 able to their organs of digestion, their carnivorous maws are filled 
 with such articles as they like best themselves ; they pamper 
 
146 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 them on cushions, walk with them reposing on their bosoms, 
 and sleep with them ostensibly at their feet. The rage for 
 pet dogs is a cultivated taste. They commence with moderate 
 attentions, but soon become fascinated, and next bewitched. 
 From a pillow on a rug, they are promoted to the foot of the 
 bed. Having served a sophomorical period there, the rise to 
 the position of senior and intimate companion is not distant. 
 
 " Whoso lies down with dogs will rise up with fleas," says 
 the proverb. It cannot be healthy for a woman to inhale air a 
 dog has breathed, to say nothing of the emanations from the 
 pores of his body in the confined apartments in which such 
 favorites are ordinarily kept. 
 
 There is a tremendous exposure to an incurable malady, if, 
 by any mishap, madam or her daughter should be bitten by a 
 rabid pet. They become mad, and no dog is proof against a~ 
 sudden development of that incurable malady, hydrophobia. 
 
 Cats are preferable to dogs for little children, in their kitten- 
 hood days, as less prone to bite and snap, even if handled 
 roughly.* 
 
 * June 8th, 1871, the following circumstance occurred in a police court 
 in the city of New York, which shows how strong an attachment for a dog 
 may become: 
 
 Mrs. Sophia Clinton lived at 156 Clinton street. She had a little black - 
 and-tan dog, and the black -and -tan dog's name was Dexter. A week ago the 
 dog strayed away or was stolen, and she advertised in the papers, and 
 searched the metropolis for that little dog. At last she found him in the 
 possession of a German named Lippman Kessler, living at 130 Attorney 
 street. . But Mr. Kessler would not give up the animal. So Mrs. Clinton had 
 Mr. Lippman Kessler arrested, and he was brought before Judge Scott, at 
 Essex Market. Quite a scene ensued as the high disputing parties made 
 their entrance into the vestibule of Justice. Mrs. Clinton is a tall, slender 
 lady, of fine presence, and has beautiful blonde hair. Mr. Kessler is a gross- 
 looking Teuton of herculean build. The lady was very demonstrative in her 
 affections, and kissed and hugged the "innocent cause of the war," calling 
 him "mother's own baby," and other endearing terms. Poor little " Dexter 
 was lost, wasn't he ? Poor little pet !" 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 14.7 
 
 CRIBS FOE INFANTS. 
 
 When a child has been weaned, it should have a crib by 
 itself. With the development of teeth, it is a sign a modified 
 aliment is required, and their food should have more solidity. 
 No rules can be given, nor are they required, for feeding young 
 children. No arbitrary system of dieting can be borne. Ya- 
 riety is necessary, that elements may be selected by fashioning 
 vessels essential in their economy. 
 
 If a child of a tender age is habitually fed on diluted milk, 
 softened biscuit, rice, tapioca, and similar unsatisfactory pap, 
 because an ignorant mother has a theory which becomes a law 
 in her own house, if it lives, it can hardly escape having a 
 defective mind encased in a feeble body. 
 
 OVER-DOING. 
 
 Thousands of children die annually that would have lived, 
 had they been let alone. One of the trials of infancy is teeth- 
 ing. Large numbers are chronicled in the bills of mortality as 
 
 "Oh, yais; zay Dechster ! Declister ! mooch vot you bleese. I call heem 
 Preence. He coom shoosd de zame," said Mr. Kessler. 
 
 "What mark do you know him by?" asked the judge. 
 
 Mrs. Clinton "His claws were cut short, so he would walk nice, and 
 his ears are cut longer than most dogs'; and, Judge, here is the man that cut 
 his ears; " pointing to a young gentleman standing alongside. 
 
 Mr. Kessler "Oh, yais. You hear owel aboud dem tings fon de bo- 
 leeceman. Coom here, Preence, coom. You see, Shudge, he coom to me 
 yust de same;" and the little dog trotted over to his last owner. 
 
 Judge "Where did you get the dog?" 
 
 Kessler " I got heem fon a shoemaker man. I dond can remember his 
 name, dere is so mooch excitements about dot." 
 
 Mrs. Clinton called the dog back again, and it clung to her, as if it had 
 regained its mistress. At last the Judge decided in her favor, and she 
 stalked off triumphantly. 
 
148 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 having died from that cause. The truth is, if the facts could be 
 known, children are doctored to death far oftener than they die 
 from diseases peculiar to their age. Indifferent physicians 
 guess at their ailments, and prescribe accordingly, without much 
 reflection, since to do nothing, when called in for advice, would 
 be rather unprofessional. 
 
 Charging the stomachs of little children, who cannot give 
 any account of their indisposition, with nauseous drugs, is repre- 
 hensible. More vital effort is wasted to throw them off, than 
 would have been expended in resisting the invasion of inflam- 
 mation of the gums in the protrusion of primary teeth. 
 
 Let infants and young misses have separate beds. School 
 girls should invariably sleep by themselves. "When they be- 
 come young ladies, it is inexcusable to permit two of them, 
 however attached and dear to each other as friends, to occupy 
 the same beds habitually. 
 
 Pulmonary consumption is sadly sweeping away women 
 from spheres they beautify and adorn. The mortality is far 
 beyond what it would be from hereditary sources, because those 
 who die of it transgress many laws of health. To obviate the 
 formation of a susceptibility in the constitution to the approach 
 of pulmonary consumption, begin seasonably by simply avoid- 
 ing exposures to influences which may be derived from sleeping 
 with others in early life. 
 
 BEDS. 
 
 There is another subject connected with this topic, too long 
 overlooked, which it is proper to introduce. The materials of 
 which beds should be made is an important study. 
 
 It is certain that there is a constant exhalation from the 
 surface of the body. If the emunctories are closed by inflam- 
 mation, or accumulations of foreign matter, a thickening of the 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 epidermic tissues, indeed, from any source, as exanthematous 
 obstructions, produces internal febrile heat and universal dis- 
 turbance in the system. 
 
 Febrile heat sometimes ensues on mechanical principles, 
 from the non-escapement of fluids which ought necessarily to 
 pass off externally. Insensible perspiration is a safety-valve for 
 the body, as much as a crater of a volcano is the natural outlet 
 of pent-up forces that would destroy the whole mountain if not 
 allowed to escape. 
 
 The kidneys by no means secrete all the fluid taken into the 
 stomach in a very warm day. 
 
 Fluids taken by the renal apparatus directly to the bladder, 
 hold in solution elements already referred to as being com- 
 mingled with our food, but hurtful if not carried off in the 
 most direct manner. 
 
 Those who perspire freely, when exposed to a slightly 
 elevated temperature, have thus less duty imposed on the 
 kidneys. 
 
 OFFENSIVE CUTANEOUS EXHALATIONS. 
 
 Persons who perspire easily, and more than others under or- 
 dinary circumstances, rarely have either dropsy or renal 
 difficulties. 
 
 There is a singular difference in the character of cutaneous 
 transpirations in different persons, detected by the sense of 
 smell, but not by the individual from whom it escapes. It is 
 offensively unpleasant to the olfactories from most colored per- 
 sons, particularly when they have been exercising or in warm 
 weather. 
 
 That disagreeable odor is not without its use in the general 
 economy of things. Africa abounds with annoying insects, the 
 
150 THE WAYS . OF WOMEN. 
 
 torment of humanity, as of all animals. So particularly offen- 
 sive is the perspiration from the bodies of the natives, it pro- 
 tects them, like an invisible cloud, against attacks of swarms 
 of pestiferous flies, gnats, and winged plagues of indescribable 
 forms, which no life could resist, were it not for that curious 
 provision for defense. 
 
 Apiarians are familiar with what every body know, that 
 bees cannot tolerate the presence of some persons, while others 
 may handle their hives, extract sheets of comb, or swarm new 
 colonies with perfect impunity. 
 
 This is accounted for by the ignorant, on the presumption 
 that honey-bees recognize an enemy in the one or a friend in 
 the other. No doubt those who annoy them by their presence 
 to exasperation, give off an offensive vapor which the acute or- 
 ganization of the bees detects as a nuisance. Those who fear- 
 lessly explore the interior of a hive, and even suffer bees to 
 light upon them without being stung, exhale no vapor that 
 meets their disapprobation. 
 
 This is, probably, the whole secret and explanation of the 
 supposed friendship or hostility of honey-bees. The perspira- 
 tion of intemperate persons, as well as those excessively given 
 to the consumption of tobacco, is laden, unknown to them- 
 selves, with exceedingly offensive matter, which is quite as 
 disgusting to those brought within the sphere of its emanation, 
 as to the quick discrimination of honey-bees and wasps. 
 
 PROGRESSIVE DECOMPOSITION IN LIFE. 
 
 There is a constant, uninterrupted process of decomposition 
 going on in every organ and tissue of the body of every living 
 being. "When a new particle is placed in position, an old one 
 is removed. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 151 
 
 There, are but three ways of throwing off effete, dead 
 matter, viz., through the pores of the skin, the intestinal 
 tube, and the bladder. To do this, the blood holds immense 
 amounts of debris in solution. "When long retained, physicians 
 speak of a bad condition of the blood. Quacks, without 
 knowing anything about it, harp incessantly on its impurity, 
 and get rich on the sale of nostrums for its purification. 
 
 Such medications are absurdities. It is ridiculous non- 
 sense to prate, as these irresponsible speculators in health 
 do, about pretending to physic the blood. It is as impossible 
 to produce any such operation as it would be to bombard the 
 sun. Charged, as that vital fluid must be always, with worn- 
 out materials, which have served a purpose till all of value in 
 them had been exhausted, it is a natural process to be floated 
 away, and nature will take care of herself without the aid of 
 pseudo-medical specialists. 
 
 Tonics, properly directed, may assist a debilitated invalid 
 by giving vigor to some flagging organ, in this never-ceasing 
 process of receiving, appropriating, and then setting at liberty 
 that which ceases to be any longer of utility. 
 
 Avoid one probable cause of indisposition, as far as possible, 
 by breathing good air rather than foul, if just as readily 
 obtained. 
 
 Feather beds yield, in the atmosphere of a close room, a 
 peculiar' mephitic odor, traceable to a slow decomposition of 
 the tubes of the feathers. Years are required, if no artificial 
 efforts are made by severe kiln-drying or baking, before 
 feathers lose that offensive character. Even after various 
 expedients for airing them by drying, they re-imbibe mois- 
 ture, and the old odor is again given off. 
 
 Thus, the best directed efforts in purifying feathers are 
 only temporary, and, therefore, they should be abandoned. It 
 
152 THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 
 
 is just as injurious to be inhaling every night the impure air 
 of a room in which a feather-bed putrefaction is progressing, 
 as to have the decaying carcase of a dead animal under the 
 bed, from which sulphuretted hydrogen gas was escaping. 
 
 In northern climates, where the progress of feather decom- 
 position is slowly conducted, feather beds are common, and 
 less to be dreaded than where the summers are long and hot. 
 But they ought to be given up wholly and entirely, as they 
 probably will be, with a more general diffusion of the prin- 
 ciples of hygiene, the importance of which is happily 
 beginning to be understood. 
 
 Even when the weather is cold, the heat of the body 
 actually penetrates to the feathers, acting chemically in setting 
 free an unpleasant odor, if the room is not well aired. Under 
 any circumstances, those of delicate organizations, subjected 
 to severe exposures which affect the lungs, should avoid 
 'feather beds. So should asthmatic people. Emanations from 
 a feather pillow, even when the bed is of hair, or some other 
 common material, will sometimes bring on a stricture of the 
 bronchial tubes, so severe that the sufferer can scarcely draw 
 in sufficient breath for sustaining life. Asthmatics should 
 shun feathers in beds, bolsters, or pillows. 
 
 Wool beds are admirable. They are warm, soft, and elastic. 
 They have been objected to on account of being an animal 
 product, as well as feathers. But, admitting that decomposi- 
 tion must, of course, be the destiny of all animal matter, in 
 whatever form it may be utilized, there is really no such 
 cogent reason for rejecting wool as feathers. We like them, 
 and recommend them for invalids of a spare habit. 
 
 Next, hair-mattresses, in universal use, w r hile fresh and 
 new, are delightful beds. But they are an animal product also, 
 very likely to be preyed upon by minute insects which cut 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 15 3 
 
 the hairs into bits much sooner than suspected. An old hair- 
 mattress is a living sack of abominations, in which life, death, 
 and successive generations of mites, too minute to be seen 
 without a magnifier, undoubtedly give rise to eruptions, cuta- 
 neous irritations, and perhaps unpleasant conditions of the 
 mucous membrane of the lungs, from breathing air laden with 
 matter escaping through the tick. 
 
 Many a traveller has imbibed the seeds of death by sleep- 
 ing on such kinds of beds in hotels. They would be gainers by 
 sleeping on the floor, rather than recline on an old hair-mattress 
 which may have been soaked with the offensive sweat products 
 of a sick stranger the night before, or be in a state of slow 
 chemical putridity, from which gases are given off that may 
 generate disease which no medications could arrest. 
 
 Frequent opening of the sacks, repicking and drying in 
 open, brilliant sunlight, and thoroughly drying beds of all 
 kinds in hotels and boarding-houses, should be enforced under 
 police inspection, as a measure for securing public health 
 among other sanitary precautions so well received by the 
 public. 
 
 Cotton-wool beds have been introduced, but not very suc- 
 cessfully. They mat and become extremely hard, soon losing 
 all the elasticity they may have had at first. Besides, they 
 imbibe moisture which is difficult to expel in such a thick mass. 
 
 Within a few years, sponge beds have been introduced, 
 which have their friends, especially among those interested in 
 the sale of them. There has haidly been time to ascertain 
 their true merits. If their elasticity, when chopped or torn 
 into fragments, depends on being made supple with glycerine, 
 by and by objections will be raised against them. However, 
 they are not to be criticised unfavorably till more is known of 
 the advantages they present. 
 
154 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 One of the latest and best yet presented for acceptance, is 
 the metallic. In appearance it is a wire tick, woven, or made 
 of rings linked together, fastened by its edges to the inner 
 margins of the bedstead. 
 
 They are always clean and free from collections which 
 attach to other beds. Being galvanized, they neither rust nor 
 become dark-colored. Water beds, which were thought par- 
 ticularly valuable for hospitals, have not been in general use. 
 The metallic bed addresses itself to the cpmmonsense of a 
 very limited intelligence as valuable. A mattress is rarely 
 required on them. A few thicknesses of soft woolen blankets 
 are quite sufficient ; they are soft and yielding to the form of 
 the sleeper. In a word, they are admirable and appear destined 
 to be extensively adopted wherever large numbers of beds are 
 required in any one place as on shipboard, hospitals, barracks, 
 and hotels. Families ought to give them a decided preference. 
 
 There is immense economy in them. Beside all the prop- 
 erties found in other beds, of giving ease and comfort, they 
 present none of the objections cited in reference to feathers, 
 hair, wool, cotton, rattan, husks, or straw. No insects will ever 
 burrow upon them ; and when injured or broken, or they 
 become valueless for tke purposes for which they were made, 
 they may then be sold for old iron. 
 
 In fitting up a private dwelling, the economy of the iron 
 bed is apparent. They are the least objectionable; and the 
 very best for young persons, especially children, because they 
 would be perfectly free from moisture and vermin. They can 
 be set into any kind of bedstead, wood or iron, but iron should 
 take tjie place of wooden bedsteads. It is the bed for women 
 incomparatively superior to any other kind in use. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 THE FOOD OF WOMEN. 
 
 Dietetics of the World Everything Eaten Difference of Taste Habit- 
 Sugar a Necessity Economy of the Liver Pork By whom Avoided 
 Starch Experiment with Honey Bees Law of Life Illustrated Fruits 
 to be freely given to Children Open- Air Exercise for Girls A Bene- 
 volent Citizen of Boston Fish Excellent Food And Why ? 
 
 EVEKY creeping thing, even disgusting insects, vermin, rep- 
 tiles, lizards, and crawling ophidians, are used for human food. 
 Of course, they are not appropriated for that purpose in civil- 
 ized countries ; but, with savages and barbarians, whatever will 
 sustain life is greedily seized upon without reference to external 
 appearances, habits, character, or flavor. Necessity compels 
 many tribes to sustain themselves on food that would not have 
 been selected from choice or a depraved taste, if anything else 
 could be procured. 
 
 Under such circumstances, it has not been discovered that 
 those who feed thus promiscously and offensively, measured 
 by the standard of civilization, are any more prone to sickness, 
 or are shorter-lived, than gentlemen and ladies who dine 
 sumptuously on roast beef and pudding. 
 
 " Slay and eat," was a command to Peter, when the sheet 
 was let down before his eyes, filled with all manner of strange 
 forms. It is a maxim in law that circumstances alter cases. So 
 it is in respect to diet. Our impressions respecting the whole- 
 someness or unwholesomeness of particular kinds of food, are 
 formed from the remarks, or likes and dislikes of those with 
 whom, and among whom 3 our early associations were established. 
 
156 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 "We are influenced, without being able to explain why, by what 
 others say and are practising within the circle in which we are 
 moving. Our social education, which is entirely independent 
 of letters, books, or schools, is commenced and completed very 
 early in the family. What we learn there abides with us ever 
 after. We cannot emancipate ourselves from the errors thus 
 imbibed, nor free ourselves from the cordon of responsibilities 
 with which we feel ourselves surrounded, without violating 
 moral laws on which both safety and happiness seem to 
 depend. 
 
 Nearly all we know upon the subject of food comes from 
 the experience of others, and rarely from our own. Had we 
 been accustomed to swallows'-nest soups, a rich dish in China, we 
 certainly should have had no prejudices to contend with in later 
 years, were it served to us ; but, never having tasted it, the very 
 thought of such a singular preparation for the stomach is 
 nauseating. Precisely so, also, in regard to that still more dis- 
 gusting delicacy of almond-eyed races, ~beclie de la mer, a large, 
 slimy, soft, hideous-looking sea-slug, held in the highest es- 
 timation in aristocratic society throughout the whole of 
 China. 
 
 Sailors on a wreck have fed upon the decaying corpse of a 
 starved companion, without any of those painful results which 
 theoretically follow from eating putrescent food. Hungry 
 Bedouins feast upon dried locusts ; roaming savages of Africa 
 satisfy a voracious appetite with a roasted boa-constrictor, or a 
 baked monkey. A Mexican slaughters a cow for the sake of a 
 dainty morsel, the half -grown calf, throwing away the beef of 
 the mother, as too coarse and too common for a refined and cul- 
 tivated gourmand. Stewed puppies were a choice preparation 
 when Captain Cook discovered the Sandwich Islands. Fried 
 eels, boiled snails, five-fingered Jacks, oysters, prawns, clams, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 157 
 
 shrimps, etc., which belong to our catalogue of modern eatables, 
 are quite as objectionable, contemplated as awful-looking crea- 
 tures, as many things we exclude from gustatory favor, on ac- 
 count of their imagined bad qualities. 
 
 PUTRIDITY. 
 
 If chemical decomposition is not so far advanced as to de- 
 stroy cohesion, no unfavorable effects result from eating any- 
 thing that has once been alive. Those animals which have 
 sacks of poison in them are excluded, as well as those that 
 secrete an abominable fluid from particular glands, which, in 
 both cases, are defences against their enemies. 
 
 Pampered city gourmands keep venison till it becomes 
 partially decayed, before it attains that delicious flavor which 
 meets the approval of an aldermanic stomach. 
 
 To those unaccustomed to that delicacy a conversational 
 theme of officials, dieted at the expense of taxpayers such a 
 meal would seem freighted with death in the pot, especially 
 when a smoking quarter comes to the table, a perfect nuisance 
 to uneducated olfactories. 
 
 Overcome the pangs of hunger with whatever is of an animal 
 origin, there are properties in it which a stomach fashions to 
 meet the exigencies of the system. No carrion is too corrupt for 
 some carnivorous beasts and birds. Contact with the gastric 
 juice deprives it quickly of the taint, while the decaying softness 
 of flesh is thus prepared for rapid digestion. 
 
 Man has always been, and always will continue, to sustain 
 himself on a mixed aliment. 
 
 SALT. 
 The late Mr. Sylvester Graham was a prominent vegetarian 
 
158 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 fanatic. He was even extremely prejudiced against salt. He 
 could not abide it, and exerted his vocal skill in trying to con- 
 vince silly old women, of both sexes, that eating salt was about 
 equal to taking in death by grains. 
 
 How supremely ridiculous to be at war with the law of 
 necessity ! There is not a treatise extant on health, held in 
 esteem by competent scientific authorities, that does not admit, 
 unequivocally, that common salt is found in all our tissues and 
 fluids. 
 
 "We could not be what we are, or what we may be, without 
 it. Salt is found in almost every article made use of as food, 
 whether the newly-fledged school of ignorant physiological 
 reformers approve of it or not. By the introduction of salt 
 into the system, the blood globules are supposed to be sustained 
 in their form, and prepared for the purposes of life. Even 
 the tears we shed contain salt. We must be supplied 
 with it. Nature, therefore, in anticipation of the necessities 
 of all warm-blooded animals, w^as careful to introduce it 
 into vegetables, and from them the flesh and fluids are kept 
 supplied. 
 
 There are conditions in which the supply from that source 
 is not equal to the demands of the body. Where the quantity 
 secured by plants and grasses in some latitudes is too small, the 
 deficit is met for man by commerce. Buffaloes, deer, etc., in 
 the primitive state of this country, came in droves from great 
 distances in the far West towards the Atlantic where salt 
 springs abounded, to obtain what instinct compelled them to 
 seek ; or suffer and die, if not found. 
 
 Grass-feeding animals search for it in their wild state con- 
 tinually. Whenever they discover a saline quality in water, 
 that spot is not only remembered, but intelligence of its locality 
 is extensively propagated and transmitted from one generation 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 159 
 
 to another. How that was accomplished without articulative 
 language' will ever remain as much of a paradox as the propa- 
 gation of the intuition of birds to go South for winter quarters 
 which is understood by the youngest of the flock for the 
 first time leaving the neighborhood where they were reared, 
 for a flight of one or two thousand miles to an unknown 
 region. 
 
 The health of wild or domesticated animals imperiously 
 demands salt. Some are so organized that what they obtain 
 in their food is sufficient for them. The farmer feeds it 
 out at stated periods to his stock. Timid horses may be 
 caught with a handful, when nothing else would tempt 
 them to yield up their liberty to become the slaves of their 
 captors. 
 
 Carnivorous animals, flesh-eaters exclusively, obtain in their 
 prey just enough of the saline element to answer the physical 
 needs of their organization. 
 
 ANOMALIES. 
 
 No two persons are constituted so nearly alike as to perfectly 
 agree in their taste or appetency for food. One may object to 
 pastry, while another loves it dearly. A small amount of meat 
 suffices for some, others have no relish for it at all. Vegetables 
 are coveted exclusively by some individuals. In them are 
 provided sugar, starch, gelatine, etc., required in the re- 
 paration of their tissues. Thus, bread, in universal request, 
 contains some, if not all, of those elements, and, therefore, 
 each sustains himself on an article in which some, if not 
 all, the life-sustaining properties exist, necessary for his pre- 
 servation. 
 
 Bread, by baking, is prepared for being converted into glu- 
 
160 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 cose, soon after reaching the stomach. It is changed into a 
 sweetish paste by a vital chemical action. 
 
 Sugar is indispensable. If the supply is too small from 
 without, the liver, as set forth in another chapter, immediately 
 manufactures enough to supply the deficit necessary in the 
 economy of the individual. 
 
 AFFECTING THE TEETH. 
 
 A common opinion prevails that sugar is injurious to the 
 teeth. A grosser mistake was never propagated. Carious 
 teeth, denuded of enamel, ache when sweets are in contact with, 
 the decaying surface; but the cause of the caries is due to 
 other agencies, and not to sugar. 
 
 Children crave it, and the universal desire for sweets gives 
 employment to immense numbers of laborers in tropical coun- 
 tries to meet the demands of those parts of the globe where it 
 cannot be made. 
 
 Wherever civilization has raised its standard, sugar becomes 
 a staple commodity. How preposterous, then, to attempt turn- 
 ing back the current of trade, or interfering with the great 
 movements of commercial activity, because, forsooth, some ad- 
 dle-headed theorist wishes to immortalize himself by opposing 
 constitutional tendencies of improved and improving humanity. 
 
 SUGAR HAS IGNORANT ENEMIES. 
 
 Opposing the use of sugar and salt is simply to expose 
 one's imbecility, want of judgment, and limited views of na- 
 ture's unalterable laws. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 161 
 
 OMNIVOROUS. 
 
 Teeth, stomach, and their auxiliary appendages are con- 
 structed upon principles of relationship to secure perfect nutri- 
 tion. Because men can subsist on a mixed diet, is found their 
 ability for traversing the globe from the tropics to the frozen 
 regions of the poles. 
 
 We go with impunity from arctic ice-fields to the burning 
 sands of an African desert, through all extremes of climate, 
 without apprehension of not being able to sustain ourselves on 
 any kind of food which may be offered. No animal could be 
 transported through such diversified climates, and feed on 
 diversified products as they might present, without perishing. 
 They must have the element especially fitted to their organiza- 
 tion. If that is not to be had, they perish. 
 
 Swine, and some birds, to a limited extent, are omnivorous ; 
 still they cannot thrive when removed from their natural habi- 
 tat, unless provided with food analogous to that in which they 
 attain their highest development. 
 
 Feathered tribes feed largely on insects, larvae, seeds, etc., 
 which is a mixture of animal and vegetable food. Were it 
 otherwise, in their periodical migrations sad consequences 
 would follow. An omnivorous appetite can be accommodated 
 in 'different localities, where animal and vegetable products 
 abound, without impairing muscular force, or unfitting them 
 for returning to such food as they subsist upon a part of the 
 season JSTorth or South. 
 
 PORK. 
 
 Swine feed indifferently on flesh, vegetables, or garbage, 
 without reference to its composition, even in a state of putre- 
 factive fermentation. A knowledge of their habits may have 
 
162 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 led to a prohibition of pork under the Mosaic dispensation. 
 They have always been held as unclean, and, therefore, unsuit- 
 able for human food, from a remote antiquity, by both Jews 
 and Mahometans. 
 
 Shaker communities in this country have uniformly ab- 
 stained from pork. Trichinus spiralis, which affects men, wo- 
 men, and children, is traced directly to swine. Their minute 
 eggs taken into the human stomach, or, indeed, any stomach, 
 as far as we know to the contrary, resist the gastric juice ; 
 although it dissolves metals, their vitality resists its potency. 
 TrichLise reach the muscles, and the tapeworm keeps possession 
 of the alimentary canal. 
 
 Scrofula, which is an enlargement and tumefaction of 
 the glands, is also believed to be aggravated, if not produced by 
 pork. The term scrofula is derivtaed from a word indicating 
 filthiness. 
 
 Shakers are remarkable for their fair skins, clear complex- 
 ion, and exemption from scrofulous affections. They very 
 rarely have either cutaneous blotches, discolorations, moles, or 
 eruptions, which confirms them in the opinion, that they are 
 right in excluding pork from their tables, and living swine 
 from their farms. 
 
 When swine are fed, as they usually are in the vicinity of 
 eities, and populous towns, on offal gathered in carts, the back- 
 yard accumulations from kitchens, sour, decomposing, or offen- 
 sive, no pains ever being taken to preserve such collections from 
 passing into a stage wholly unfit for food, their flesh becomes 
 diseased, in consequence of being compelled to subsist on a 
 vile hodge-podge a perfect salmagundi of concentrated vileness. 
 
 Raised, as they are in back settlements of the West, on 
 mast, which they gather in their free rambles in the woods, or 
 when stall-fed on sound corn, the pork is less objectionable, and 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 not likely to be diseased. But it is safer never to use it, since 
 it is difficult to decide in the market from whence it came, 
 upon the quality. 
 
 Ladies who are anxious to preserve their fair faces free 
 from roughness, redness, eruptive pimples, and glandular 
 enlargements about the neck, must shun pork. They can- 
 not breakfast on sausages without running a greater risk than 
 with a pork-steak ; because they are usually made of scrapings 
 of bones, or the poorest quality of pork, so compounded with 
 pepper, lard, and pulverized herbs, as to conceal the objection- 
 able appearance or taint they would give out, were it not for 
 salt, and the deceptive skill of the manufacturer. 
 
 Smoked hams pass through processes which are thought to 
 destroy parasites burrowing in the best of them. By severe 
 boiling or baking, minute eggs deposited in them are effectu- 
 ally destroyed, so that in that form, if pork is at all allowable, 
 it is in a thoroughly cured and thoroughly cooked ham. Even 
 when a long while smoked, if taken in sandwiches, raw some- 
 times practised there is undoubted danger of being infected 
 with trichinae and tape-worm eggs. 
 
 DISCOLORATION OF THE SKIN. 
 
 Moth-spots, those irregular yellow patches that appear on 
 the chin, side of the nose, on the forehead, and near the ears of 
 middle-aged women ; irritable eruptions on the limbs, known 
 as salt rheum ; excess of dandruff on the head ; moles, and 
 spongy outgrowths, are each and all of them aggravated by 
 pork. 
 
 Cooking exceedingly modifies food for being more easily 
 and rapidly assimilated. Hard and unpalatable articles, in 
 a raw state, are quite savory when subjected to culinary 
 
164: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 operations. But of all laboratories, the stomach is the most 
 perfect. Yital chemistry is superior to art, and whatever 
 enters the stomach is subjected both to mechanical and 
 chemical influences, before the absorbents draw upon the 
 mass for nutriment. 
 
 FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON SUGAR. 
 
 Sugar is an ingredient of most plants, roots, fruits, and 
 grains on which animals subsist. So acute is the sense of 
 smell in quadrupeds, especially the wild ones and always 
 active in the domesticated, as horses, oxen, deer, sheep, and 
 goats they select, with extreme care and accuracy, only such 
 vegetables as yield it. 
 
 It is for our interest, as it is for the promotion of indi- 
 vidual and public health, to cultivate plants and roots for 
 our domesticated animals that contain the largest per cent 
 of saccharine matter. Hence, beets, carrots, and turnips are 
 excellent for them. 
 
 We have nothing to do with commercial interests in these 
 deliberations. Reference is simply made to those products 
 that have an influence on individual health. 
 
 Next to sugar, in the order of dietetic indispensables, are 
 the cereals. 
 
 Starch passes through several interesting stages before it 
 yields those elements on which its nutritive properties depend. 
 Flour is first made into dough, and by baking is changed 
 so materially, as to be wholly unlike its appearance either in 
 flour or dough. Both in sapidity and in quality for the sup- 
 port of life, the processes through which it passes from the mill to 
 leaving the oven, are remarkably curious; yet so common 
 and familiar, a thought is never bestowed upon the subject 
 except by teachers or writers on the phenomena of digestion. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 165 
 
 If compelled to subsist upon any one article exclusively, 
 even if it contains sugar, it ceases to be serviceable to man, 
 but most of the animals live in excellent health through their 
 whole allotted lifetime, as regulated by the law of limitation, 
 on one kind of food. 
 
 Our food must be frequently changed, or compounded 
 with different ingredients. Dogs, cats, and, indeed, all the 
 carnivorous animals, are quite independent of sugar from 
 plants or fruits, all that they require being manufactured 
 within their own bodies. If they are fed on sugar a little 
 time the relish for it soon subsides, and they lose flesh, 
 become feeble, and die. 
 
 The following table shows the amount of sugar in fruits and 
 grains, with which we are most familiar. Nature has made 
 ample provision for the necessities of those whose organization 
 requires it. 
 
 In one hundred parts, sugar is in the following proportion : 
 
 Figs 62.50 Wheat Flour 5.20 to 48 
 
 Cherries 18.12 Rye Meal 3.28 
 
 Peaches 16.45 Indian Meal 1.45 
 
 Pears 11.52 Peas 2.00 
 
 Tamarinds 12.50 Cow's Milk 4.77 
 
 Beets 9.00 Human Milk 5.50 
 
 Barley 5.21 
 
 Fruits abound more in sugar than grain, but the latter fur- 
 nishes starch. We cannot subsist on either alone, so well or so 
 long as when compounded with other materials. 
 
 There is an inborn love for sweets and oily food which can- 
 not be overcome by any system of discipline, so that the indi- 
 vidual will not indulge in them when opportunity presents. 
 
 Bees fed on pure sugar refuse, for a few days, to forage 
 among flowers. That, however, is only temporary, as we have 
 
166 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 often repeated the experiment, and found that, after the syrup 
 had been mixed in the honey-pouch of the bees, with the secre- 
 tions of that organ, it lost its fluidity by evaporation, and left 
 dry sugar in the cell. The bees immediately went earnestly to 
 work, with united force, on discovering the appearance of things, 
 and carried it all out of the hive, grain by grain, and then 
 resumed their accustomed avocation in the fields. 
 
 When pigs are fed exclusively on boiled potatoes, though 
 rich in starch, they fatten slowly, because no oily material is 
 present. By simply mixing milk with potatoes or corn-meal, 
 seeds or nuts, the fattening process is vastly more rapid. 
 
 COOKING FOOD FOE ANIMALS. 
 
 Nothing is gained for domesticated animals by cooking their 
 food. Cows, fed on warm swill, still-house waste, macerated 
 hay; or swine, urged on to excessive fatness by confinement and 
 cooked food, have ulcerations-of the liver, and a bad state of the 
 tissues. Meazly pork is a disease of the cellular texture, and, 
 therefore, wholly unsuitable for the table, however disguised by 
 pepper in sausage-meat, or bacon. "When Majendie rationed dogs 
 wholly on starch or sugar, they died unexpectedly soon. Butter 
 or lard, fed to them exclusively, was equally fatal. 
 
 A duck fed entirely on butter, at the rate of 1,350 to 1,500 
 grains daily, died in three weeks. On examination, the butter 
 was oozing from all parts of the bird's body. Even the 
 feathers were saturated with it, and the odor was excessively 
 nauseous and offensive. 
 
 WARNINGS AGAINST VEGETARIAN REFORMS. 
 
 The lessons taught in these experiments are detached evi- 
 dences of a fundamental law of life, which cannot be set aside. 
 
THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 
 
 Persevering attempts of vegetarian reformers to convert men 
 and women to their theories, propped up by the representations 
 of the saving to be realized by returning to acorns, never have 
 succeeded. Every little while a new aspirant for fame springs 
 into transitory notice, to melt away under the sunshine of rea- 
 son. There is no lack of converts when a new dietetic doctrine 
 is first announced. There is a kind of romance in subsisting on 
 next to nothing. Instead of needlessly wasting precious hours 
 of a short existence in roasting legs of mutton, making pancakes 
 and pudding, the whole twenty-four devoted to rejoicings over 
 a glorious emancipation from the restraints and refinements of 
 a burdensome civilization, is more poetical than profitable. 
 With all the enthusiasm which usually characterizes the ardor 
 of new disciples to any ultra proposition, the vegetarians fall 
 from grace, and ultimately sin against arguments that were 
 plausible enough at first, by returning to their former habits of 
 living like sensible beings, in conformity to the usages of society 
 in which their destiny is cast. 
 
 How ridiculous to attempt reasoning men and women 
 into a conviction that their five special senses are not to be 
 gratified, because it is displeasing to their Creator to indulge 
 in anything he has bountifully supplied, simply as temptations, 
 but not for consumption. 
 
 Of all modern reformers, vegetarians have the most dis- 
 couraging prospect of success. It is recorded that Paracelsus 
 prided himself in having discovered the true elixir of life. It 
 was an expensive preparation which only kings could purchase, 
 in expectation of living and ruling for ever on earth. While 
 glorying in his pride, that his researches in occult science had 
 terminated so favorably, he died with a bottle of his life-pre- 
 server in his pocket, at the age of forty ! 
 
168 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 OK WHAT SHOULD WE SUBSIST? 
 
 Not waiting for an echo to answer the question, reason 
 says, whatever relishes. Any arbitrary system that prescribes 
 positive rules and articles, to the exclusion of all others, must 
 be wrong. 
 
 Dyspepsia was never cured by a spare diet. The false but 
 fashionable direction for these whining, complaining, gaunt 
 appendages of society, who are dying of indigestion, is the sure 
 way of hastening their departure to that bourne from whence 
 no traveller returns. 
 
 Dyspeptic invalids, besides slowly starving themselves in 
 the midst of inviting plenty, pretty uniformly are all the while 
 under medical treatment which is not required. 
 
 Assisting nature instead of thwarting her behests, by faring 
 sumptuously every day on the bounties a kind Providence 
 provides, offers a far better prospect of relief and a speedier 
 restoration, than the slow, miserably wasting-away course 
 usually pursued by intelligent sufferers. 
 
 This method of treating dyspepsia, the disease of comfort- 
 able circumstances, is no violation of the rational laws of 
 health. Meet the malady with appropriate nutrition. Food 
 for dyspeptics must be neither too fine nor concentrated, but a 
 generous variety and of the best quality. 
 
 Those poor men and women who rarely gratify their 
 palates with rich preparations which greet the uncertain ap- 
 petites of the rich, are exempt from their peculiar sufferings. 
 
 Laboring people rarely ever have a symptom of that bane 
 ,of pecuniary independence, dyspepsia. They sleep soundly, 
 and awake refreshed. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 169 
 
 FRUITS. 
 
 Fruits should be more freely used. Apples, especially, are 
 exceedingly grateful to most persons. They may be cooked 
 in many ways for the table, contributing largely to good living. 
 Simply baked, they are excellent food, and, if eaten freely with 
 every meal, act very beneficially on the stomach. 
 
 Fruit-eaters have health. Apples, pears, plums, peaches, 
 berries, and, lastly, melons, may be eaten with impunity, if 
 fully ripe. Children should not be denied, but allowed to revel 
 in all the fruits in their season. They meet certain conditions, 
 and, if withheld, the danger is far greater by a denial than from 
 surfeit. 
 
 Parents are quite apt to limit children in the amount as 
 well as the kind of fruit, on a presumptive theory of their own, 
 that this or that would be injurious. 
 
 That is altogether a mistake. Crude fruits do derange the 
 bowels, and produce disastrous consequences. But from ripe, un- 
 less they engorge themselves beyond the capacity of the stomach, 
 no harm need be apprehended. Give children all the fruit 
 they want. If it were not proper for them, they would not 
 manifest an insatiable relish for it. 
 
 CIDER. 
 
 When cider was a table beverage all over the apple regions 
 of the Eastern States, forty or fifty years ago, there was a higher 
 standard of family health than in these temperance times. 
 When the temperance reformation was inaugurated, cider was 
 anathematized as vulgar ; besides, its tendency was to stimulate, 
 and, therefore, it must be dropped. It disappeared, and reap- 
 peared in the form of apple brandy. After the denouncement 
 of homely, honest cider, which facilitated digestion, and kept 
 
170 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 up the strength of those hardy men who laid the foundation for 
 the agricultural beauty and wealth of New England, dyspepsia 
 made its appearance. 
 
 In those good old times, when honest men dealt honorably, 
 cultivated their farms, paid their taxes, and brought up their 
 children to respect all laws, divine and human, physicians were 
 rarely called to their families. When the cider went, dyspepsia 
 came in at the opposite door. 
 
 Malic acid facilitates digestion, without leaving any of those 
 bad effects which follow the use of distilled liquors. Cider 
 refreshes without leaving a sensation of lassitude, or disturbing 
 the nervous system, taken, as was formerly the custom, with 
 dinner and in the field. 
 
 There were, occasionally, hardened old cider-drinkers, who 
 took it immoderately, so as to be remarked upon as simply 
 ridiculous, but drunkards are a later race. They came into 
 notoriety with the multiplication of distilleries and the un- 
 popularity of cider. 
 
 Physicians are guilty of a great moral wrong, by encour- 
 aging the use of whiskey, the curse of this magnificent country, 
 where man alone is vile. Were dyspeptics to adopt cider as a 
 diluent of their food, and totally abstain from tea, coffee, and, 
 above all, whiskey, brandy, and wines, they could not be worse 
 for it, and might regain their health. 
 
 There must be caution in the purchase of what is sold for 
 cider. It is now manufactured extensively out of anything but 
 apples. It is sold under the name of champagne cider, and 
 that, too, is an outrageous imposition, and a dangerous com- 
 pound for invalids. 
 
 The true medicinal cider that which a dyspeptic lady or 
 gentleman might take by the tumbler-full several times a day 
 should be such as is put up in barrels by the farmer in the inte- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 rior, who is ignorant of the cheating ways of trade. Drawn 
 from the barrel as it is to be used, and never permitted to stand 
 till it becomes stale and loses its effervescent smartness, it will 
 accomplish all that is claimed for it in this plea. 
 
 In these generalizations, in reference to a very common con- 
 dition of ladies of middle age, and sometimes in young ladies 
 whose lives have been too artificial, we have urged a new way 
 of meeting their thin, shadowy forms, pale faces, attenuated 
 arms, flat chests, hollow cheeks, and lassitude. Exercise on 
 foot, indulge in luscious fruits, take less tea and concentrated 
 food, and, by all means, patronize good, fresh, effervescing 
 cider. The farmer's daughter escapes dyspepsia till she resides 
 in a city where physicians are as plenty as lamp-posts, but not 
 always as useful in showing the way. 
 
 EXERCISES. 
 
 Proper exercise in the open air, which has been urgently re- 
 commended in these pages ; an elastic, light bed, in a properly 
 ventilated dormitory ; early rising, if the lady has no further 
 inclination for sleep ; occupation alternating with agreeable 
 amusements in the society of friends, or books ; and always 
 keeping physicians and drugs so distant as to be seen only 
 through a telescope, would bring feeble women, and pale, slen- 
 der, drooping girls into the fold of Hygeia. Women have 
 great need for making an effort, for they not only have very 
 much degenerated, but they are further deteriorating, especially 
 in cities. 
 
 Kesolve to rise above indolence ; and instead of reclining 
 in an easy chair, with an India shawl over the shoulders, occa- 
 sionally tasting with a teaspoon some delicacy, and when the 
 clock strikes, very punctually taking either drops or pills dis- 
 card the whole of them. 
 
172 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Arouse from the insidious lethargy that holds you in its 
 folds, and face the breezes on foot many times in twenty-four 
 hours. When fatigued by long walks, take a refreshing nap ; 
 next some substantial refreshment, and at reasonable inter- 
 vals, repeat the exercise ; when the weather is unfavorable, over- 
 see the house, look into the larder, calculate what will relish 
 for next day's dinner. 
 
 TIMING FOOD TO THE SEASON. 
 
 Fruits come to maturity at precisely the period when they 
 are most serviceable. In their perfection, when their juices are 
 fresh, and grateful to the palate, the system is immensely bene- 
 fited by a free use of' them. It is not material whether a peach, 
 a melon, or a cluster of grapes, is taken at break of day, with 
 breakfast, at noon, night or midnight. "When the stomach 
 craves them, it is the time to feast upon them. Still it is her- 
 alded from sources respected as oracular, by those who never 
 think for themselves, the eating of fruit should almost be regu- 
 lated by statute law. 
 
 Those persons for whom no one seems to care, those who 
 get what they can, and when they can, unrestrained by arbitrary 
 rules in respect to living, suffer none of the predicted evils from 
 satisfying their appetites at any hour. 
 
 It is simply convenient to have specified hours for meals, 
 because an orderly system is introduced into the arrangements 
 of a family. There is economy of time in having regular hours 
 for all employments. An established habit of dining or sup- 
 ping at any particular hour, educates the stomach for that 
 period. Any marked deviations from a habit disturb its func- 
 tions, simply because the digestive organs are not ready, or hav- 
 ing been so, and not being provided for, ruffles the temper, quick- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 ens the pulse, and thereby produces nervous irritability. Fruits 
 are of such inestimable value in the maintenance of individual 
 as well as public health, efforts should be made, particularly in 
 compact cities, to provide the poor with it on a scale of liber- 
 ality never yet inaugurated. 
 
 Poor children seize upon unripe and decayed remnants with 
 a ravenous desire for them, as the season approaches for their 
 appearance in market, which quickens the death record enor- 
 mously ; but ripe fruits correct and fortify the system just when 
 a summer atmosphere is charged with elements that require 
 counteracting agencies abounding in ripe fruits. 
 
 Benevolent schemes for ameliorating the circumstances of 
 the poor will not be complete till some kind-hearted Croesus 
 provides for supplying them with generous supplies from the 
 advent of strawberries to the gathering of grapes in autumn. 
 
 A benevolent Frenchman, Monsieur P. P. F. Degrand, left 
 a handsome sum at his death, in Boston, the interest of which 
 is to be annually expended in picture books for poor children. 
 Besides gratifying the curiosity of the poor little recipients, 
 who, otherwise, could never possess such a treasure as one of 
 those instructive works appears in their estimation, they de- 
 velop a love for reading, cultivate their taste, and bring out 
 the first desire for improvement. 
 
 Fruits are always dear in this very fruitful country. The 
 production has never been equal to the demand. Perhaps culti- 
 vators never wish to have them, as it would interfere with their 
 profits. It is certain, that an acre of ground devoted to the grow- 
 ing of almost any kind of fruit would yield a far larger revenue 
 than corn, potatoes, or grain, requiring a severe expenditure of 
 labor in ploughing, hoeing, and harvesting. Why are not hund- 
 reds of acres set with fruit trees where there is now not one ? 
 
 The poor long for fruits they cannot have, on account of the 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 price, disproportioned to their means. They barely procure 
 what are called necessaries which means beef, pork, etc. ; but 
 it may be positively affirmed that fruit is quite as necessary, and 
 far more important to them in their season. 
 
 A relish for fruits is not an acquired one, but born with us 
 and for the purpose of introducing acids, saccharine juices, 
 and delicious flavors into the system. 
 
 Farmers ! raise more fruit, and let the rich distribute it gener- 
 ously in tenement-house, cellars, shanties, indeed, everywhere, 
 in lanes and filthy streets, where the poor are doomed to reside. 
 It would arrest diseases, it would relieve sufferings, meet the 
 urgent demands of the sick -and feeble, and stimulate them to 
 efforts for improving their circumstances. 
 
 Many imperfections in our civilization might be corrected, 
 politically and morally. We are a confederacy of meat-eaters, 
 without much regard to its quality or quantity. We all con- 
 sume too much meat. Once a day is enough in this climate. 
 
 Fruit-raisers are vehement in their assertions that it is not 
 only an unremunerative branch of industry, but there is also a 
 danger of over-stocking the market. There is not the slightest 
 prospect of overdoing the business. Since the process of pre- 
 serving fruit is thoroughly understood, not a peach need be 
 lost, or a pear allowed to decay. The whole world over, they 
 are regarded as luxuries, and have a sure sale. If there is any- 
 thing to be apprehended unfavorable to the fruit-growers' in- 
 terest, it is that his avarice may urge him to ask more than they 
 are worth. Fruit-extortioners require rebuking. 
 
 To BE ENCOURAGED. 
 
 As eminently contributing to the stability of public health, 
 and to the every-day comfort and improvement of the people, 
 the use of fish and fruit should be encouraged and upheld by 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 175 
 
 special laws. In China, the consumption of fish is amazing ; 
 and nowhere is the public health, considering the denseness ot 
 the population, more satisfactory. If rice and fish, the staples 
 of life there, are reasons why neither plagues nor endemics are 
 common, they might enter more freely into our own dietary 
 with manifest advantage. The Chinese are strong, well de- 
 veloped, and possess extraordinary powers of endurance. 
 True, they require prodigious quanties of rice twice a day, 
 fish being scarcely more than a savory relish, although they 
 consider it essential to strength and vigor. 
 
 An educated Chinese brain, even under their objectionable 
 civilization, is abundantly able to cope with the best diplo- 
 matic skill of Europe. Much as they are underrated, their 
 government antedates the oldest in Europe by thousands of 
 years ; and many of the useful arts and important discoveries 
 pillars on which the proud edifice of modern institutions are 
 sustained of incalculable importance to progressive humanity, 
 actually originated among those Mongolians, whom we are 
 taught to believe our intellectual inferiors. We may not 
 drink as much tea, stow away as much rice at a meal, or be 
 as well satisfied with fish at every meal, yet they are by no 
 means to be undervalued for their attainments in art or 
 government. Both are venerable for age. 
 
 Too MUCH MEAT. 
 
 "Women with us consume too much meat the result of a 
 mistake in the beginning. Neither the severity of the climate, 
 nor the necessities of their systems, require it in large 
 quantities. 
 
 Their indoor employments, with few exceptions, are such, 
 a lighter and more easily digested food than meats would be 
 better for them. Farinaceous articles, including an abundance 
 
176 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 of fruit, fresh, cooked, or preserved, should be provided in all 
 well-regulated families, especially where there are female chil- 
 dren. Eggs and fish are proper, and avoiding pork always. 
 Mutton is the most wholesome next to good beef. Sparkling 
 eyes, an elastic step, elegant figures, a good temper, and 
 quiet deportment, depend essentially on the food we are 
 habitually consuming. 
 
 Irritability, a desponding, dissatisfied state of mind, which 
 gives a false coloring to nature, and makes women dissatisfied 
 with themselves, and with all with whom they associate, may 
 be often traced to their improper food. 
 
 It is their mission to keep man, who is prone to displays 
 of passion and outbursts of rage, in a bearable condition, by 
 their talismanic presence. They would not be bearable even to 
 one another, were it not for the magnetic influence of woman, 
 who is the agent of all civilization, and certainly of refinement 
 and morality. Even when silent, she rules the storms of 
 human fury, and calms the savage exhibitions of wrath in 
 men, by the charms of her character. 
 
 To succeed, she must neither dine on pork, nor inflame her 
 blood with heavy, indigestible aliments. 
 
 Finally, less animal food than is now customary ; abstinence 
 from all heating, fiery drinks, which are never necessary for 
 man or woman ; varying the diet, so as not to become weary 
 of any particular article or composition, would improve us. 
 It would give young growing girls a robust constitution, provided 
 there is no limitation to out-door freedom. With such simple 
 means, the women of this country may be regenerated ; and 
 their successors, the mothers of the coming men of renown, 
 would be sound in body and strong in mind. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF WOMEN. 
 
 Character of the Chest Compression of Blood-vessels Healthy Children 
 Their Management Scheme of the Circulation Effects of Anger 
 The Heart^Its Irritability Origin of its Power Sudden Death Be 
 Moderate Dropsical Effusions. 
 
 THERE is no apparent difference in the form or functions of 
 the viscera of the chest, or in the structure of the stomach and 
 its appendages, in men and women. 
 
 In consequence of the cramped position of the inferior ribs, 
 forced mechanically out of the line of natural incurvation by 
 stays, it is possible that the shape of the lower portion of the 
 lungs might give a clue to the sex to which they belonged, in 
 a judicial inquiry where that point was a question. 
 
 The chests of young ladies in our time, and in all Christian 
 countries in which there is an upper class, are trained with 
 quite as much care as gardeners bestow upon running vines to 
 give them direction. An experimental effort, to determine 
 from whence a pair of lungs were taken, might be decided by 
 the distortion of the bones about the cavity from which they 
 were detached. On the supposition that no interference with 
 the bones had ever occurred, neither exterior nor interior struc- 
 tural appearances would be any guide in reference to the sex of 
 the individual. 
 
 It is barely within the limits of possibility that a great crime 
 might require a decision in answer to a judicial question, Were 
 these the lungs of a man or a woman ? A key for unlocking a 
 
178 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 mystery is to be found by a simple examination of the inferior 
 margins of the lobes. 
 
 In a normally developed chest there is breadth at the base ; 
 whereas, in artificially shaped ones, the lower part, which should 
 be roomy, is contracted, which obliges the lungs to conform to 
 the cavity in which they are lodged. 
 
 The lungs must necessarily expand with each inhalation of 
 air. If the pulmonary cells are unnaturally small in one section 
 of the lobes, others beyond the sphere of restraint, by reason of 
 outside bands, will enlarge to abnormal dimensions higher up. 
 Surface is essential for the aeration of the blood. If that process 
 is imperfectly accomplished, vitality is either quickly reduced, 
 or may never have been fully developed after the body was 
 fashionably put into harness. 
 
 A pale skin, feebleness, unsound health, are the penalties 
 for tampering with such delicately organized tissues as enter 
 into the composition of the lungs. 
 
 Between the extremities of the superior ribs seven in 
 number on each side the breast-bone, in children, is made up 
 of several distinct pieces. Through all the early periods of 
 childhood, it may be readily forced from its normal relations 
 by keeping up a continual pressure in front. The sternum, or 
 breast-bone, is simply a front wall, while the ribs and spine are 
 lateral and posterior protections of the contents of the pleural 
 cavities. 
 
 MODIFYING THE CHEST. 
 
 Being never firmly ossified, even in advanced age, in females, 
 it is always in danger of being injured by their modes of dress- 
 ing. Women can be remodeled, on coming from the studios of 
 nature, under the plastic hand of the goddess of fashion, to 
 almost any pattern. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 1Y9 
 
 By lacing the chest in unelastic corsets the form is mate- 
 rially changed, always to the injury of the individual. But 
 that seems not of the slightest consequence, since to live, 
 breathe, and have a vulgar form, which the Divine Artist gave 
 to humanity, has been entirely ignored by our refined, chaste 
 conceptions of what female humanity should be, to meet the 
 approval of cultivated taste. 
 
 The lower pendant extremity of the breast-bone (zyphoid 
 cartilage) is quite flexible. If garments are tightly fitted to a 
 waist already warped inwardly, to diminish its transverse dia- 
 meter, the cartilaginous point is forced further inwardly, so as 
 to encroach on organs lying directly behind. 
 
 Some years ago, in the course of daily lectures in a school 
 of medicine, it was discovered, incidentally, that the skin wae 
 abraded and extremely red over the pit of the stomach of the 
 female subject upon the table. 
 
 Evidently, there had been severe blisterings, which indi- 
 cated some local difficulty that external irritants were in- 
 tended to relieve. A history of the case could not be obtained. 
 An exploration revealed the fact that the lower end of the 
 breast-bone had been so pressed upon by force from without, as 
 to bend it almost at a right angle. It was actually pricking, 
 as it were, perpetually. Internal inflammation resulted, and 
 no doubt the patient had suffered long and intensely from a 
 deep-seated pain which no treatment could relieve, it being, 
 literally, a thorn in the flesh. 
 
 Both the pancreas and considerable of a patch of the under 
 surface of the diaphragm had become diseased by being near 
 the engorged vessels. 
 
 This illustrates the danger that may ensue by interfering 
 with a living body regularly and harmoniously performing its 
 functions. 
 
180 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 It is quite familiar to surgeons that when an artery is 
 enlarged into an aneurism, if one side of it touches a bone, 
 gradually the solid structure will be removed by absorption 
 at the point of contact. 
 
 Bones will not resist continued pressure without exhibiting 
 disturbance. Therefore all appliances unfortunately imagined 
 to improve the female form, even when quite gently com- 
 menced on the chest, are positively reprehensible. Girding 
 the chest when the bones are imperfectly ossified, is extremely 
 dangerous. 
 
 Swathing the frail, imperfectly made bones of newly-born 
 children with bandages, rollers, or bands, a custom of almost 
 universal practice even among intelligent mothers, on the 
 mistaken idea that their backs require some support, is worse 
 than barbarism. 
 
 It is as absurd to swathe a new-born babe as the Indian 
 custom of lashing them to a piece of bark, to make them 
 straight. Civilized cruelty inflicted on an unresisting infant 
 is a crime, which, in a more advanced state of civilization, may 
 become an offence recognizable by the law. 
 
 Besides irritation of the skin, many a suffering child has 
 been sent screaming with torments into eternity through the 
 well-meaning intentions of an affectionate mother, who would 
 have felt herself guilty of the sin of neglect had she failed to 
 begin to make her child beautiful while its body was flexible 
 and yielding. 
 
 Elastic flannel bandages, especially made to be easy, are 
 abominable inventions. Cotton swathes, or any other band- 
 aging, is a dreadful source of annoyance and misery to a 
 nursing babe, of which they would loudly complain in tones 
 far louder than crying, if they could speak of their misery. 
 
 Swathed from their arm-pits to their hips compresses the 
 
THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 blood-vessels ; prevents the action of muscles that ought to be 
 continually exercised, and must in the nature of things be a 
 torment an adult would not submit to, even in stays, were it not 
 for the impression that those who are thus self-tormented, are 
 making their forms more agreeable objects for other eyes to 
 contemplate. 
 
 MUSCULAR FREEDOM 
 
 Perfect freedom of body should be granted the child from 
 birth. No restraints, not absolutely necessary for cleanliness, 
 should be imposed. Poor little things, they are dosed with 
 nauseous drugs, made to swallow composing-drops unwillingly, 
 and killed by well-intended measures for improving their 
 forms. All the anxieties and difficulties attending the rearing 
 of children, might be avoided by simply letting them alone. 
 The poor raise large families successfully, because they have 
 no time to spare in killing them by attempts to undo what 
 nature will do, if not meddled with while engaged in perfect- 
 ing her beautiful designs. 
 
 Children come into the world with all the machinery of 
 organic life new and perfect. The mother's milk, which is their 
 due, and not that of a hired nurse, contains precisely the 
 materials for increasing the dimensions of the whole system and 
 providing nourishment for each individual organ. Civilization, 
 however, is not satisfied with appearances, and immediately 
 commences schemes for improvement." 
 
 Like some unskilled artisans who, overrating their own 
 acquirements, often spoil what they vainly attempt to improve, 
 so children that would have lived are victims to rude attempts 
 to better what the Creator pronounced good when it left the 
 laboratory, where it was fashioned in marvellous beauty and 
 perfection. 
 
182 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Infantile bandaging, commenced when the bones are ductile, 
 is the beginning, oftentimes, of a narrow chest, which would 
 have had ample dimensions, had it not been tampered with 
 before the framework of the skeleton expanded into full pro- 
 portions. This civilized cruelty is the origin of an enfeebled 
 constitution. If no interference were practised with a deter- 
 mination to alter the shape which would have been developed, 
 the physical condition of woman would not be so generally 
 defective as it is now known to be. 
 
 Were children from the first permitted to breathe uncon- 
 taminated air, by being removed from the too frequently 
 vitiated atmosphere of an over- warmed nursery, nurtured on the 
 mother's milk, instead of that of another woman's, whose phy- 
 sical and moral condition are entirely different, the child would 
 present, in all its after-life, a very different condition. Milk 
 from another source, although secreted in the breast of a healthy 
 nurse, may introduce into the structure of the babe elements 
 that immensely modify its original constitutional circumstances. 
 
 A MOTHER SHOULD NURSE HER OWN CHILDREN". 
 
 Here is the gist of the whole matter. If we are to have 
 beautiful and healthy children, the mother must nurse her own 
 babes. Very many mothers who have no milk for days, or even 
 weeks after confinement, under the impression that no secretion 
 will take place, abandon attempts to promote it, too hastily. By 
 repeated solicitations, allowing the infant to draw, as though 
 the lactic flow were intact, stimulates the gland, so that milk 
 rarely fails to come by patient perseverance. 
 
 Fresh cow's milk, especially that from a young animal 
 having a calf, is safer to feed the infant upon till it appears in 
 the fountain prepared for its secretion, than to furnish it from a 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 183 
 
 wet-nurse, whose age, temperament, mental, physical, and even 
 muscular condition are totally unlike those of the mother. 
 
 Leave off all swathes and bandages : that is the second im- 
 portant lesson to be remembered. Trotting young children 
 violently, when they cry, to quiet them, is a fearfully repre- 
 hensible practice. Their frail bodies cannot bear such violence 
 without endangering internal organs, by actually tearing away 
 their attachments, and producing inflammations. Indeed, it is 
 always hazardous to throw them about in the lap, as customary 
 with nurses, without the slightest reference to their tender age 
 and unfinished anatomy. 
 
 By allowing infants to lie on soft beds most of the time, till 
 their spines are sufficiently strong to support them in a sitting 
 posture with their playthings, in very loose clothing, un- 
 smothered, in airy rooms, always sleeping alone, the next 
 generation of women in the United States would be such beings 
 as Nature intended, fair, sound, and intellectual. 
 
CHAPTEK XY. 
 
 OVER-WORKING THE HEART. 
 
 Value of Rest Heart's Irritabilty Arteries Circulation Influence. 
 
 SUDDEN emotions derange the functions of the heart. No 
 persons are more familiarly conversant with the effects of pain- 
 ful or pleasurable emotions, or the extraordinary influence of 
 sad or joyful intelligence, than woman. 
 
 Every one's experience furnishes conclusive evidence of the 
 reflex influence of good or bad news, and the varying pulsations 
 of the heart, resulting from mental impressions. When two 
 beats are made in consequence of some sudden emotion, the 
 contractility of the organ being quickened to perform twice the 
 service it usually does in the same measure of time, it obviously 
 tend to its injury. 
 
 In lesions, engorgements, abnormal depositions of fat within 
 the pericardium, or the valves becoming slightly ossified, so 
 that the auricles and ventricles are imperfectly closed, the ad- 
 ministration of medicine is nearly useless. 
 
 How is it possible that a drug in the stomach, however 
 potent in character, can remove a mechanical obstruction 
 within the cavity of the heart ? 
 
 Rather than retire from the turmoils of business, or fash- 
 ionable excitements, or striving for social or political positions, 
 diseases of the heart are multiplying. They are not produced 
 by ordinary circumstances, but are generally the result of ex- 
 cessive effort in some direction for the attainment of an object, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 185 
 
 worthy or unworthy, which accelerated the activity of the 
 heart, a forcing engine on which life depends, beyond its ca- 
 pacity. No permanent relief need be expected in the shop of 
 an apothecary. There is no balm in Gilead for an enlarged 
 heart, made so by compelling it to labor too much, or too long, 
 at a rate beyond the motion it has when no unnatural stimulus 
 has hastened its systole and diastole, a succession 'of relaxa- 
 tions and contractions, which are natural and safe. Unnatural 
 movements endanger its mechanism, especially if often re- 
 peated. 
 
 
 
 VALUE OF REST. 
 
 Rest is a far better remedy for any irregularity in the cir- 
 culation than medicine. Removal from the scene of excite- 
 ment, and being out of the way, and beyond the sphere of asso- 
 ciations or things which recall emotions that quicken the 
 heart's action, is the true way of giving relief when diseased. 
 
 Where there are no extraordinary occurrences, but each day 
 is a calm reproduction of the past where broad fields, grazing 
 herds, twittering songsters in the trees, and outgushing flow- 
 ers invite admiration, and the contemplation of nature in the 
 quietude of rural life, there should patients with irregularities 
 of the heart take up their residence. 
 
 It requires a nice power of discrimination to determine 
 whether a palpitation is caused by some interior difficulty, as 
 for example, a thickening of the margins of the valves, ossifi- 
 cation, obstruction in the coronary vessels, or arises from ner- 
 vous debility. 
 
 In the latter case, the muscular power runs on uncontrolled, 
 when the nervous power is weak, or nearly exhausted. Thus, 
 after great fatigue, cramp seizes the limbs, the muscles con- 
 tract spasmodically and irregularly, simply in consequence of 
 
186 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 nervous exhaustion. Sleep, food, friction, and stimulants re- 
 plenish the battery, and then the muscular force of the vol- 
 untary cordage is perfectly subservient to volition again. 
 
 THE HEART'S IRRITABILITY. 
 
 With an endowment of a kind of vitality peculiar, and, to 
 some extent, independent of all connection with the body, beat- 
 ing and throbbing when completely detached from the chest, 
 the heart is a wonder in itself. It is the first to live and the 
 last to die. 
 
 Laid upon a table, unconnected by either rterves or vessels, 
 the heart of a reptile will expand and contract by the touch of a 
 pin. Though blood is its appropriate stimulus, it dies gradually, 
 but may be partially revived by the introduction of air, or the 
 point of a needle. 
 
 The vital tenacity of the human heart is equally surprising. 
 It will withstand violent assault, deep wounds in its substance, 
 and eucroachments of disease, far longer than would be sup- 
 posed, were it not for revelations of morbid anatomy, which 
 occasionally demonstrate under what strange mechanical de- 
 rangements it can sustain life. Still it is a mortal machine, on 
 the regularity of which depend life and health. 
 
 When the heart fails prematurely under the pressure of 
 undue excitement, death is an inevitable consequence, which 
 neither skill nor science can avert. 
 
 To determine the amount of derangement in the system, 
 if any exists, physicians feel the pulse at the wrist, by pressing 
 the radial artery against the bone. The number of beats there 
 corresponds uniformly with those of the heart. Being tele- 
 graphed through the fingers of the examiner, intelligence 
 reaches the brain, where they are diligently compared with his 
 watch. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN 187 
 
 One large vessel carries all the blood forced from the heart. 
 By giving off branches, which ramify extensively and minutely, 
 the most distant fibre receives a proper amount of the vital fluid- 
 
 ARTERIES. 
 
 Those intricately ramifying tubes, finer than hairs in their 
 ultimate distribution, furnish blood from the centre to the whole 
 circumference, in which, held in solution, are properties for the 
 growth and reparation of whatever it passes through, over, 
 or among. * 
 
 When those soluble vitalizing elements have all been left 
 along the track, according to the needs of each and every part, 
 the blood then passes into the extremities of veins, by which it 
 is collected to be returned to the right side of the heart. 
 
 The blood goes out of the left venticle, from the left side of 
 the heart, of a rich red color, but it comes back to the other side 
 of the heart, of a dark bluish color. 
 
 When the ventricle is fully distended, the walls of the heart 
 suddenly contract with a twisting motion of its fibres, forcing 
 the bluish blood through the pulmonary artery into the lungs, 
 where it is brought in contact with atmospheric air, from which, 
 in the twinkling of an eye, it absorbs its oxygen, gives off car- 
 bonic acid gas, and then plunges into the left side of the heart 
 to repeat its rounds again. 
 
 CIRCULATION. 
 
 Thus the blood is going and coming unceasingly from the 
 first pulsation the heart ever made in its elementary, unfinished 
 condition in utero, till its last beat, a death-kell at the close of 
 life. 
 
188 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 When the heart pulsates too slowly, or too rapidly, the 
 physician forms an opinion, decides upon the character of the 
 disease for which his advice is sought. He ought to be so 
 thoroughly instructed, the least deviation from a normal stand- 
 ard of health may be quickly recognized. 
 
 In this climate, ordinarily, the heart beats from about sixty- 
 five to seventy-eight strokes in a minute. Some, with the aspect 
 of sound health, have only sixty, or even fewer, and there are 
 others in equally sound condition, whose pulse habitually exceeds 
 eighty. 
 
 A pulse, however, varying through the whole twenty-four 
 hours, according to the stimulant effects of food and drinks, 
 does not indicate sickness. There may be a sudden alarm, 
 through the acoustic nerve, the instantaneous apprehension of 
 danger through the optic nerves, by the sight of the edge of a 
 precipice, a falling rock, an approaching wave, or terrific explo- 
 sions of thunder, or the flashings of lightning in the sky, which 
 may instantaneously increase the action of the heart to more 
 than a hundred strokes. Through the nerves of sense, so 
 great has been the shock that the heart has burst. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF ANGEE. 
 
 Extreme paroxysms of anger are sometimes fatal by an ex- 
 plosion of life, as it were. The heart resists spasmodic demand 
 made upon it to empty its cavities, and bursts. Rents in its 
 walls, which are almost instantaneous death, have often been 
 found produced by extreme exhibitions of rage. It is always 
 dangerous to indulge in unrestrained wrath, especially for 
 women of a nervous sanguine temperament. 
 
 "With some, the pulse is preternaturally rapid. Others are 
 equally remarkable for the moderation of the heart, always 
 moving at a very nearly uniform rate. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 189 
 
 Blood, which is a vital fluid, is driven through the arterial 
 canals at an average velocity in health. It is neither hurried 
 nor retarded by trivial circumstances. When the heart beats a 
 hundred times in a minute, it is a sign something is wrong, if 
 it continues for a considerable time to throb and labor thus 
 actively. When by treatment that rapid action cannot be 
 moderated, death's messenger is in waiting. With all the 
 poetry with which the human heart is invested, it is simply a 
 forcing-pump of immense energy. Instead of being kept in 
 motion by exterior stimuli, it contains within itself contractile 
 fibres, which are obedient to the contact of blood. Its presence 
 in the interior of the organ calls into action a mass of winding 
 muscular threads, whose combined contractile force is equal to 
 the grip of a strong vice, in expelling the current that has just 
 arrived. 
 
 A relaxation succeeds the violent contraction of the walls. 
 For an instant, those ever-working muscular filaments rest, 
 then resume labor again. 
 
 THE HEART A DOUBLE FORCING-ENGINE. 
 
 More critically considered, we really possess two hearts. 
 One of them belongs to the lungs, while the other is for the 
 body. They are joined together, and, therefore, have the 
 appearance of a single organ. Nature invariably economizes 
 room. By uniting the two hearts, the necessity of having 
 separate apartments was obviated, when one would answer all 
 purposes. 
 
 In some reptiles, the two hearts have been found separated. 
 We have an indistinct recollection of having read of a case in 
 which the two hearts were at considerable distance from each 
 other, in a patient carried to an European hospital. 
 
190 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 One heart receives all the deteriorated blood, by which is 
 understood that gathered up and brought to the right heart, 
 having left its life-sustaining properties in passing through the 
 body. Being again forced into the lungs by an immensely 
 powerful forcing-pump, it there again imbibes oxygen from 
 air waiting for it in the cellular structure of those mem- 
 branous sacs. From thence it is again forced into the upper 
 part of the left heart, on the left side of the chest, and next 
 into its ventricle, more powerful as a forcing-engine than any 
 of the others, which drives the living current into a single 
 elastic tube, the aorta, to pursue its mission through the system 
 again. 
 
 The irritability of the heart, from the earliest embryotic 
 condition to one hundred years and in Henry Jenkins, one 
 hundred and sixty years is not well understood. 
 
 Two French physiologists have announced the discovery, 
 says report, of two nerves that have heretofore escaped the 
 inquisitive researches of anatomists, creeping out from the side 
 of the vertebral column, which ramify extensively in the 
 tissues of the heart, and through their instrumentality the 
 motor power is kept up. 
 
 A certain Dr. Cyon, of France, has sent forth a learned 
 dissertation on the heart's innervation, explanatory of the 
 function of those newly discovered cords. One of them is 
 recognized as the accelerator, and the other the motor nerve. 
 
 How it happens that a heart pulsates when severed from 
 its connections entirely, for more than half an hour, makes the 
 problem of its independent vitality more abstruse. 
 
 EXCITABILITY. 
 
 As a people, we have a reputation for being always in haste. 
 As a consequence of this hurrying propensity, both men and 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 women wear themselves out prematurely. Merchants are over- 
 anxious to be rich ; ladies, too, ambitious beyond reason, over- 
 work their hearts. 
 
 Sudden death from heart-disease is a common coroner's 
 report. Juries of inquests have not assumed the responsibility 
 they would be justified in taking, by a verdict of over-excite- 
 ment of the brain, or over-taxing the heart. 
 
 Competition in trade, deferred hopes, unexpected disap- 
 pointments, pecuniary losses, a reckless determination to carry 
 measures which are extremely hazardous, often resulting in 
 disastrous failures, shock the nervous system by a reflex action 
 upon an over-excited brain that recoils upon the heart. 
 
 A familiar expression broken heart is not inappropriate. 
 They do break. Mental emotions may be so intensified as to 
 produce paralysis of the heart. A fatal spasm of its muscular 
 walls is induced from a sudden painful impression or fright. 
 Sudden deaths from such causes cannot be reasonably doubted. 
 
 A fearful penalty of a violation of a law of health, is when a 
 person concentrates too much will-power suddenly. Revenge or 
 hate, while under the influence of stimulants or excessive politi- 
 cal excitement, may end in instantaneous death from a spasm of 
 the heart. When a contraction is accomplished under such 
 circumstances, it holds its grip, and death closes the scene. 
 Sometimes there is a rent in the flesh of the heart, through 
 which a gush of blood escapes into the heart-case, -pericar- 
 dium, and that is a death-lesion for which there is no relief. 
 
 Moderation in legitimate pursuits should be encouraged. 
 " Be not too ardent " is a caution to be remembered, especially by 
 youthful, sprightly, passionate young ladies. 
 
 Formerly, the heart was supposed to be the abode of moral 
 sentiments. It has the credit of being open to amatory impres- 
 sions, as the focus of the affections and the fountain of love. 
 
192 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 When that idea was taught as a truth, the bowels were 
 exultingly referred to as the real seat of compassion! Both 
 theories were found to be erroneous ; but the mistake had been 
 so long and extensively propagated in poetical fictions, in the 
 language of all nations, the heart and bowels have been per- 
 mitted to keep possession of those two attributes, and we con- 
 tinue to appeal to the deep feelings of the heart, and the 
 yearnings of the bowels. 
 
 Women are not quite so much prone to the development of 
 diseases of the heart as men, because they are generally less 
 exposed to violent turmoils which wreck the constitution. 
 They, happily, are removed from arenas of political strife, and 
 from dissipations that make the blood boil. They never haunt 
 drinking-saloons, those plague-spots of a city, nor carouse 
 through the night in boisterous hilarity. They cannot, how- 
 ever, bear up under assaults upon their reputation, nor heroically 
 defy slanders, without reeling under their crushing weight. 
 Innate pride, the strong power of innocence and a conscious- 
 ness of doing no wrong, sustains them awhile under such 
 assaults, but they give way at last. They have dropped dead 
 from a sense of injustice. 
 
 But women oftener rupture the heart by a paroxysm of 
 dreadful rage, than from other causes. They have a safety- 
 valve in a copious flood of tears. Under excitements that 
 would explode life in some men, a woman is instantly relieved 
 when the tears flow. They take off the tension. 
 
 When the brain is once charged with blood, by an in- 
 creased action of the heart, by reason of exasperation, carried 
 in faster than it is carried away by veins, an apoplexy 
 would probably follow, were it not for immediate relief 
 in a hearty cry. 
 
 Men breast a storm of passion better than women, but there 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 193 
 
 is no merit in it. ^They oppose whirlwinds with whirlwinds, 
 and yield at last at the sight of a woman's tears. 
 
 Death from ossification of the valves or coronary arteries, 
 those which immediately supply the heart for its own support, 
 together with sudden paralysis, are far more frequent among 
 men than women. Those maladies are on the increase. Mer- 
 chants, bankers, speculators, and radical political leaders, who 
 meet with damaging rebuffs just as they are expecting to win 
 the prize, are those who fall suddenly dead. 
 
 Women have hearts preternaturally enlarged. They also 
 are predisposed to have accumulations of fat around the organ, 
 that impede its motions and mechanical regularity. Enlarged 
 hearts may result from other causes, among which is excessive 
 grief. 
 
 Disappointments, in which the affections are deeply involved, 
 may be a cause of diminished vitality. 
 
 Dropsical effusions are apt to follow that state, accompanied 
 by functional derangements. 
 
 An intermitting pulse, with an occasional twinge in the 
 region of the heart, indicates, generally, in women, nervous 
 debility, which may be aggravated by mental excitements or 
 continued apprehensions of a calamity. 
 
 The reticence of women, their secretiveness, and the tenacity 
 with which they conceal the causes of their unhappiness, when 
 their pride is wounded or their preference slighted, obliges a 
 physician to guess at causes very frequently. His prescriptions, 
 under such circumstances, are random shots in the dark : 
 
 "Earth hath no rage like love to hatred turned, 
 Or hell a fury like a woman spurned." 
 
CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 THEIR LUXGS. 
 
 Hereditary Consumption Ventilation Tobacco Origin of Pulmonary 
 Consumption Not safe to doctor one's self Gymnastic Exercises 
 Changing Location Contracted Chests Resuscitation What to Do and 
 what to Avoid Violation of General Laws of Health Pleurisy Sus- 
 pended Not Cured. 
 
 WOMEN, oftener than men, do violence to their lungs. It 
 may not be agreeable to be told they are habitually abusing 
 those very essential organs. 
 
 It is a melancholy reflection that the progress of pulmonary 
 consumption in this beautiful country is largely due to a vice in 
 dress, which interferes with the development of the chest. 
 
 A residence in a crowded city, .or, indeed, wherever there is 
 a dense population, is attended with some degree of peril in 
 respect to the purity of the air. If it is mixed, and charged 
 with noxious vapors, or there is a deficiency of oxygen, ani- 
 mals breathing it cannot be in the good condition they would 
 be in, in localities where no such vile elements were inhaled. 
 
 Consumption is alarmingly hereditary. Sporadic cases are 
 also increasing, induced by causes which might be avoided to 
 some satisfactory extent, if the demands of fashion were not 
 so extremely arbitrary. 
 
 A sense of smell warns us of the bad quality of air in the 
 vicinity of certain manufacturing establishments, such as gas- 
 works ; bone-boiling nuisances ; slaughter-houses ; putrefying 
 carcases ; decomposing vegetables, or other sources of impurity 
 that would be injurious if inhaled. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 195 
 
 Our olfactory nerves are special sentinels, promptly announc- 
 ing sources of offence, and giving timely warning that they may 
 be avoided. 
 
 HEREDITAEY CONSUMPTION. 
 
 Hereditary consumption is a hopeless form of that dreadful 
 malady. Those influences, or agencies which bring on inflam- 
 mation of the lungs, are comparatively few, compared with the 
 annual devastation of human life from transmitted sources, 
 propagated in families from one generation to another. 
 
 No sensible physician admits that pulmonary consumption 
 is either infectious or contagious ; while those knowing the 
 least about the laws of disease firmly believe, as in Cuba, that 
 it may actually be communicated by a touch of the furniture, 
 or air of an apartment in which a patient with that disease has 
 died. Hence, a theory sometimes assumes the dignity of a fact, 
 and ignorance is better received as authority than scientific in- 
 telligence. 
 
 Medical authors assume it to be a firmly established opin- 
 ion, that pulmonary consumption is a concomitant of modern 
 civilization. While our ancestors, in the United States, occu- 
 pied ruder dwellings, through which the air traversed freely, 
 and they subsisted on plainer and coarser food, consumption 
 was rare. With the advent of warm houses, coal furnaces, 
 heated apartments, luxurious tables, and a tainted atmosphere, 
 made so by imperfect ventilation, increase of population, domes- 
 ticated animals, and manufactories of every imaginable de- 
 scription, the death rate has increased to an appalling degree. 
 
 Proofs are not wanting to show, also, that modes of dress- 
 ing, imperfectly adapted to the varying temperature of the 
 climate, is another prolific and very certain source of lung 
 difficulties in females, which terminate in the ulceration and 
 
196 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 destruction of those organs. Indian habits at the West furnish 
 abundant materials for determining many propositions respect- 
 ing the development of thoracic diseases. 
 
 Those who are surrounded by domestic comforts, protected 
 from atmospheric humidities, or chilling blasts ; who sleep in 
 properly ventilated apartments, and are warmly clad at seasons 
 when the weather demands special attention that perspiration 
 shall neither be excessive, nor suddenly checked by exposure, are 
 also subject to the same class of pectoral inflammations as 
 those who repose on the ground in the smoke of a wig- 
 wam. 
 
 The diet of the Indian is mostly animal, and simple enough 
 as far as it goes to meet the approval of an exacting stickler 
 for plain food ; and yet they die frequently of pulmonary 
 consumption. 
 
 Dr. Bush assured his readers it was unknown to the aborigi- 
 nes of this country. He was eminent in his day ; but more 
 extended intercourse with tribes all through the interior of the 
 continent since that distinguished author passed away, demon- 
 strates the existence, and the melancholy ravages, too, of that 
 plague among savages, quite as severe in proportion to their 
 numbers, as where the resources of civilization are un- 
 limited. 
 
 PREVALENCE AMONG SAVAGES. 
 
 Red Jacket, the famous chief, whose name is interwoven 
 in the web of modern American history as a wild man of extra- 
 ordinary intelligence and political sagacity, assured a Buffalo 
 physician about the year 1823, that no less than seventeen fatal 
 cases of consumption had occurred in his own family, including 
 ten of his children. 
 
 Other memoranda of a similar import might be given, con- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 197 
 
 clusively establishing the fact that the disease has always been 
 regarded by the Indians as incurable. 
 
 The reason why it is incurable, in its advanced stages, is 
 because there has been a destruction of portions of organs, 
 without which life cannot be sustained. 
 
 Aboriginal habits, customs, privations, and their brave 
 darings in the chase, in war, and their ardor in feats of strength, 
 must expose them to severe colds when heated or in a glow 
 of perspiration. Lying down on the damp ground to sleep ; 
 wading through jungles, and shaded from the life-giving prop- 
 erties of sunlight by wide-spreading branches of trees in those 
 forests where they prefer to roam, must lower their vital tem- 
 perature and predispose them to the development of many 
 painful and fatal maladies. 
 
 Sporadic pulmonary consumption, therefore, on reflection, 
 seems to be most frequent with the Indians ; while hereditary 
 forms of it predominate in civilized society. 
 
 VENTILATION. 
 
 Apartments may be satisfactorily ventilated by the latest 
 patented contrivance, without essentially modifying the condi- 
 tion of the air in them, if it is laden with the products of low 
 lands, noxious gases, or the putrid decomposition of animal 
 remains. There is room for improvement in the management 
 of wool and cotton mills, dye-houses, and gas works, so that 
 they shall not interfere with the health of operatives. 
 
 Where large numbers of females are employed, further 
 efforts should be made for giving them pure air for respiration. 
 
 In manufacturing establishments, especially in those where 
 several hundred women are congregated, the messengers of 
 death soon approach them in all imaginary forms, if ventilation 
 
198 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 is neglected. Females thus associated suffer more than men 
 placed under similar circumstances. 
 
 Private residences, school-rooms, basement apartments, and 
 stables are too much neglected in respect to fresh air. Where 
 windows are not frequently opened and fresh currents allowed 
 to displace those accumulations of dust, invisible spores of 
 minute vegetations accumulate in an undisturbed atmosphere. 
 Eggs of insects and impurities of various kinds destructive to 
 health, generate also numerous diseases. In such conditions of 
 air we oftentimes breathe, without being conscious of the exist- 
 ence of such subtle agencies. A lodgment of these microscopic 
 irritants in the lungs are met by nature^ only means of de- 
 fence, an extra secretion and pouring out of a fluid from a 
 mucous surface to wash away offensive irritants. 
 
 TOBACCO AN OFFENCE TO THE SALIVARY GLANDS. 
 
 On that principle tobacco is an unwelcome injurious ex- 
 citant, and the salivary glands pour out an immense amount of 
 saliva to float off the obnoxious quid. When the effort is first 
 commenced to chew or smoke, the quantity of saliva is more 
 copious than after the individual has schooled his salivary 
 apparatus to bear the presence of a terrible narcotic with some 
 degree of acquiescence ; but the glands never, at the end of fifty 
 years, cease to manifest a dislike to tobacco in any form, by an 
 increased activity of all the buccal and sublingual secretory 
 organs at the instant it is introduced into the mouth. 
 
 Both smokers and chewers are constantly expectorating and 
 spitting, to the disgust of those in their company, and certainly 
 to the manifest injury of themselves. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 199 
 
 A COMMON ORIGIN OF PULMONARY IRRITATION. 
 
 In consequence of the lodgment of tiny particles of matter 
 in the lungs, they produce a very slight irritation at first. A 
 cough, however, is generally sure to follow, and that is simply 
 a mechanical effort to throw off the irritant. 
 
 If the adhering atoms cannot be removed by a spasmodic 
 blast of air from the lungs, then the next effort to overcome its 
 offensive presence is by pouring out a large amount of adhesive 
 mucus to entangle them, as it were, affording a better chance 
 of expelling the intruders by acting on a larger mass. Thus 
 there is a hacking expectoration. 
 
 Thus a settled cough may be produced. By constant repe- 
 titions, convulsive throes actually lacerate the air-cells, and 
 ultimately involve the whole respiratory organs in disease. 
 
 When lesions become extensive, and one air-cell is ruptured, 
 so that two, or three, or dozens become one cavity, the thick 
 mucus collects in such quantity, besides being exceedingly tena- 
 cious, that a cough cannot raise it. The collection finally dis- 
 tends those delicate receptacles, more and more deranging con- 
 tiguous cells, and that is the formation of a pulmonary abscess. 
 
 By its weight and purulent character, respiration becomes 
 not only painful, but hardly surface enough remains in the 
 contiguous respiratory cells to oxygenate the blood sent to 
 them to be vitalized. 
 
 This is the last and hopeless state of pulmonary consump- 
 tion.* 
 
 * It is a well-recognized fact that the colder the climate, the higher the 
 latitude, and the drier the atmosphere, the less liable the inhabitants are to 
 suffer from consumption. In Iceland, from 1727 to 1837, there was not a single 
 case, and Sir R. Parry, in his history of his northern explorations, noticed the 
 rarity of throat and lung affections among the inhabitants of Greenland and 
 Labrador. 
 
200 
 
 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 It is not the object of this publication to provide a guide for 
 the practice of medicine, nor attempt to persuade those who 
 may honor it with a reading, that they can prescribe for them- 
 selves when sick. 
 
 In the two British stations of the Mediterranean, Gibraltar and Malta, 
 long known as favorite resorts for the consumptive, we find the disease to be 
 actually more prevalent than in Canada, with its long cold winter. 
 
 In Canada, six men per thousand of the British army are attacked by, and 
 half that number die of consumption. 
 
 In Malta there are nine per thousand attacked, and four per thousand die 
 of the disease. In Gibraltar the number attacked is seven, and the number 
 of deaths three per thousand men. 
 
 In the Bermudas, where the climate is uniform, eight men per thousand 
 become -consumptive, and five of that number die. But in Newfoundland, 
 the mortality from this disease is but four in ten hundred. 
 
 In tropical countries, the progress of consumption is more rapid than 
 where the climate is temperate. Deaths from this ailment are more numer- 
 ous in Brazil than in Russia. Owing to the extent of territory, and the 
 different latitudes and climates embraced in the United States, there is, as 
 might be supposed, a corresponding variation in the prevalence of consump- 
 tion. We find the mortality from this malady to be greater in the New 
 England States than in any other part of the Union. 
 
 The death rate by consumption in the States and Territories of the Union 
 is shown in the following table : 
 
 Alabama 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 25 
 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 18 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 22 
 
 Missouri 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 96 
 
 California 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 100 
 
 New Hampshire . . . 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 4 
 
 Columbia District 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 6 
 
 New Jersey 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 iy 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 5 
 
 New Mexico 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 79 
 
 Delaware 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 10 
 
 New York 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 fi 
 
 Florida 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 21 
 
 North Carolina. . . 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 18 
 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 35 
 
 Ohio 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 11 
 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 13 
 
 Oregon 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 q 
 
 Indiana 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 11 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 8 
 
 Iowa 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 11 
 
 Rhode Island 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 4 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 .. .1 
 
 death 
 
 ill 
 
 11 
 
 South Carolina . . . 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 30 
 
 Louisiana 
 
 . l 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 13 
 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 13 
 
 Maine 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 6 
 
 Texas 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 87 
 
 Maryland 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 8 
 
 Utah 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 ?,0 
 
 Massachusetts 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 5 
 
 Virginia 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 11 
 
 Michigan 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 6 
 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 4 
 
 Minnesota. . . 
 
 1 
 
 death 
 
 in 
 
 29 
 
 Wisconsin. . 
 
 1 
 
 death in 
 
 10 
 
 The small proportion of mortality from consumption in California was 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 NOT SAFE TO DOCTOR ONE'S SELF. 
 
 It is a maxim with lawyers, that he who pleads his own 
 case has a fool for a client. Those who expect to he their own 
 physicians, on the self-complacent notion that they understand 
 their own constitution better than those who have been labo- 
 riously studying the morbid conditions to which humanity is 
 incident, make a mistake which cannot be readily rectified. 
 
 To show how incipient forms of disease may be avoided, as 
 well as caused, with plain suggestions respecting the mainten- 
 ance of health, is of more importance to non-professional 
 readers than a volume of recipes. 
 
 MEDICAL IMPOSITIONS. 
 
 Beware of medical impostors. This country is an active 
 theatre for the display of their peculiar talents. It is a profit- 
 able specialty to trade in advertised falsely-called remedies for 
 consumption. 
 
 By baiting the trap, as a hunter would say, which is nothing 
 less than encouraging a forlorn hope, those who have sought 
 relief without finding it, purchase liberally and pay dearly for 
 stun that cannot accomplish cures when the substance of the 
 lungs, or portions of them, are actually destroyed. 
 
 accounted for by the fact that the greater part of the population was com- 
 posed of miners and emigrants from other parts, who were over 25 years of 
 age, and not so liable to its attacks. More recent statistics have confirmed 
 the assertion, that consumption is much more prevalent on the Atlantic coast 
 than in California. 
 
 Daily variation in the temperature is believed to be the great cause of the 
 excess of mortality in the Eastern States. 
 
 In proportion to the population, the number afflicted by this " destroyer 
 of mankind," is frequently greater in small cities than in large ones. 
 
202 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Treat with contempt advertised certificates constructed for 
 encouraging hopes that never can be realized. Shun consump- 
 tion doctors as you would seventh sons, clairvoyant seventh 
 daughters, pickpockets, and professed swindlers. 
 
 Indian doctors ! those hypocrites and ignoramuses who an- 
 nounce themselves as having been taught by savages to do 
 what men of science cannot do, is an absurdity. No person of 
 common intelligence believes one person can see further into 
 a millstone than another. 
 
 If those who have studied the minute anatomy of the body, 
 and have watched the operation of drugs in every possible 
 phase in great hospitals, under the critical instruction of dis- 
 tinguished clinical professors, cannot arrest the destructive 
 march of pulmonary consumption, is there any good reason for 
 supposing that ignorant, vulgar pretenders, half of whom can 
 neither read, speak, nor write their mother-tongue grammati- 
 cally, possess knowledge superior to such as are educated under 
 all the advantages of the age ? 
 
 There are consumption curers entirely ignorant of the 
 mechanical structure of the lungs, as they are of other viscera 
 in the cavities of the body, who seem to magnetize those falling 
 within the sphere of their operations, so that some very sensible 
 people become their victims. 
 
 Consumption is an exhaustless theme. Weak lungs or 
 strong lungs are subjects for discussion when no such expres- 
 sions are scientifically allowable. Susceptibility to certain 
 influences as sources of irritation to those delicate organs, is 
 what is to be understood, and not that in the sense of a strong 
 muscle, or a strong rope, or a strong beam, are they to be re- 
 presented. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 203 
 
 CONTRACTED CHESTS. 
 
 Women, far more commonly than men, have contracted 
 chests, which mechanically prevent a full inflation of the 
 lungs to the extent .they would be filled in a chest of larger 
 capacity. 
 
 When air is simply inhaled, there is taken from it oxygen, 
 an element that sustains life. That being accomplished, the 
 waiting air, thus deprived of one of its constituents, is forced 
 out through the same tubular passage by which it was drawn 
 in, carrying with it carbonic acid gas. 
 
 Such is the process and the object of breathing. By respira- 
 tion, blood meets air in the lungs, where the exchange is made 
 of something that cannot be safely retained, for that which 
 maintains life. 
 
 Carbonic acid gas is taken up largely by growing vegeta- 
 tion, which they exchange for oxygen, that supports animal 
 life. 
 
 With the cessation of respiration, the pulsations of the 
 heart gradually terminate, and then unconsciousness follows. 
 In drowning, those phenomena succeed each other in rapid 
 succession. 
 
 KESUSCITATIOK". 
 
 Left thus, an individual is popularly considered dead. 
 But if quickly taken from the water, when all the functions of 
 life are apparently forever ended the heart no longer beating, 
 the lungs collapsed, and consciousness gone vitality may be 
 recalled by persistent efforts. 
 
 Artificial inflation, the application of warmth, and the 
 pursuance of directions extensively disseminated by humane 
 societies, for the express purpose of informing people how to 
 
204 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 proceed for the recovery of drowned persons, often recall the 
 apparently-dead to life again. 
 
 Such restorations are splendid triumphs of science. Alter- 
 nately filling and pressing out the air from the lungs, by work- 
 ing the intercostal muscles, enlarges first the pleural cavity, 
 then it is as suddenly diminished by the expulsion of the air, 
 imitating natural respiration. 
 
 The air-cells are thus expanded to their full capacity. By 
 continuing the process perseveringly awhile, the blood begins 
 to absorb oxygen. As soon as that takes place, the heart feels 
 the stimulus and contracts. 
 
 Through the agency of muscles thus manipulated, a reflex 
 power is transmitted to both heart* and lungs, and they then 
 continue to act without assistance. The soul is recalled. 
 
 Where was the soul during suspended animation ? Whence 
 came it, by carrying on this mechanical effort, to bring the dead 
 to life again ? 
 
 VALUE OF GYMKASTIC EXERCISES. 
 
 Reasonable gymnastic exercises are exceedingly serviceable. 
 The inner capacity of the chest may be very considerably en- 
 larged by systematic exercise of the exterior pectoral muscles. 
 The further an individual advances in age, the more difficult it 
 is to overcome rigidity, or spread bones held closely by inelastic 
 ligaments. 
 
 By commencing seasonably^ before that condition is estab- 
 lished, the conformation of the thorax or chest, which may be 
 too narrow and too flat for a full development- of the lungs, 
 may be very considerably expanded. Robustness and vigor 
 may be attained, of the highest importance in regard to health 
 and longevity, by simply compelling motor cords and strap-like 
 tissues to pull back, out of the way of the swelling lungs, those 
 
THE WATS OF WOMEN. 205 
 
 too much incurvated ribs that prevent a full inhalation of air 
 for filling the air-cells. 
 
 Ladders, inclined planes, swinging at arm's length in slings, 
 climbing suspended ropes, pitching quoits, driving a ball, or 
 following out the directions of acknowledged experts and 
 public benefactors, who teach hygienic laws, to the saving of 
 thousands of valuable lives that otherwise would long since 
 have been entombed, had it not been for their valuable lessons, 
 is far more agreeable than emetics, blisters, tonic tinctures, or 
 other products of a drug-store. 
 
 When lesions exist, there may be hemorrhages, or a ten- 
 dency to expectoration of blood from a continued inflammation 
 of the lining membrane of the bronchial tubes, indicating a 
 condition that forbids gymnastic exercises. It is then best for 
 a person thus circumstanced, with graver symptoms to be appre- 
 hended, to change location. 
 
 CHANGING LOCATION. 
 
 Avoid medicines, then, which are not decidely tonic, it being 
 impossible to bear up under the action of drugs which have a 
 sedative influence, or those which, like active cathartics, sud- 
 denly reduce the vital force. 
 
 In making a removal, it is essential to seek a residence 
 where the atmosphere is dry. Humidity is the bane of con- 
 sumptives. 
 
 Sleeping over stables, with an expectation that evaporating 
 filth from fermenting manure will heal ulcerated lungs, or 
 strengthen feeble tissues in air-cells, is quite as unphilosophical 
 as a residence in the Mammoth Cave for the same purpose. 
 
 St. Paul, Minnesota, has a reputation for being a hopeful 
 temporary abode for consumptives, provided the patient is 
 
206 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 prompt in going there before the disease has made that destruc- 
 tive progress which a change of climate cannot arrest. 
 
 It has been questioned by some medical men whether St. 
 Paul really does work the change which has been claimed for it, 
 as a resource for consumptives. Possibly the journey from any 
 considerable distance contributes more directly to their benefit 
 than may have occurred to those who warmly recommend a 
 dry, elevated position. 
 
 Florida, also, has its advocates for the same class of invalids. 
 Many have been exceedingly benefited by a residence of a few 
 months there. Avoiding the harsh, cold, damp winds and 
 easterly w r eather, of New England particularly, when the in- 
 clement winter of the Atlantic shores sets in, by escaping to 
 the mild regions of the South, must certainly afford relief to 
 diseased lungs, and give the general system some chance for 
 recuperation from that extreme debility which follows in the 
 train of a protracted cough. 
 
 Two miles from the mouth of that celebrated cave just re- 
 ferred to, remains of huts may still be seen, roofless of course, 
 where numbers of emaciated strangers in all stages of consump- 
 tion resided in thick darkness, if their lamps happened to 
 go out. 
 
 Constant coughing and the repeating echoes of those sepul- 
 chral sounds that were forerunners of approaching dissolution, 
 together with smoke, which were as unendurable as their in- 
 dividual pains, soon destroyed the romance or hallucination, 
 whichever it may have been, and those who survived those 
 isolated trials in search of health in the gloomy bowels of the 
 earth, were glad to return to their inviting homes. 
 
 The theory which influenced consumptives to wend their 
 way to the great Kentucky cave, was that the saltpetred at- 
 mosphere in the interior was a remedy for ulcerated lungs. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 207 
 
 Pulmonary consumption is everywhere. It is quite as well 
 to remain at home, under certain forms of the malady, as to 
 seek relief in other latitudes. 
 
 The little that may be temporarily gained by long and ex- 
 pensive journeys to some imagined place of restoration, is not 
 a compensation for deprivations of society, and those friends 
 and associations, devoted relatives and sympathizing acquaint- 
 ances, medical attendants and familiar scenery, which are en- 
 hanced in value the farther we are removed from them. 
 
 WHAT TO Do AND WHAT TO AVOID. 
 
 Horseback exercise ; all forms of gymnastic feats which 
 give a wide range of play to the pectoral muscles, together 
 with a generous diet, are always first to be tried in incipient 
 forms of this particular disease. 
 
 Avoiding a free out-door exposure when the weather is clear 
 and dry, is a mistake. Humidity, heavy dews, rain and cold, 
 give activity to those processes of derangement in the lungs 
 which hasten a fatal termination of life. Therefore it is im- 
 portant to sleep warmly protected, while there is a free circu- 
 lation, or, at least, a free admission of air into the apartment, 
 without fear of inhaling dangerous elements from that source. 
 
 Eating whatever relishes is not to be overlooked in a desire to 
 tako advantage of all available circumstances for promoting the 
 comfort of a consumptive. There should be no restrictions in 
 regard to food. The appetite is exceedingly capricious, there- 
 fore whatever is coveted may be taken with impunity. If oily 
 food, butter, cream, fat meats, etc., agree with the individual, 
 the more freely they are taken the better. 
 
 Systematically, that is, at regular periods, at suitable inter- 
 vals, take cod-liver oil. Its value has not been overrated. For 
 
208 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 a time there was danger of its utility being undervalued in 
 consequence of the general repugnance of patients to taking it 
 on account of the disagreeable fishy smell, and the nausea in- 
 duced by it in some irritable stomachs. 
 
 Happily for the reputation of modern pharmacy, cod-liver 
 oil is now so admirably prepared, its objectionable taste is 
 overcome, so that it may be taken without hesitancy, all its 
 unpleasant taste and odor being taken away without impairing 
 its medicinal properties. 
 
 Cod-liver oil is not considered medicine, in the common ac- 
 ceptation of that term, but nutritious animal food that furnishes 
 materials for repairing a wasted form. 
 
 Abstain from whiskey and similar heating stimulants. 
 Physicians who have urged such treatment have done the 
 country an irreparable wrong. 
 
 Unintentionally, they have made drunkards, by developing 
 a morbid inclination for ardent ' spirits, which cannot always 
 be overcome, when the discovery is made that the remedy is as 
 bad as, if not worse than, the disease for which it was pre- 
 scribed. 
 
 One of the simplest precautions for preventing inflamma- 
 tory attacks of the lungs, is to be shod and clothed suitably. 
 Ladies, particularly, invite death's doings, by being in extremely 
 thin shoes, and light dresses that conduct off the caloric of the 
 body, which should be retained by non-conducting clothing, 
 when they find themselves threatened with a cough. 
 
 Thinly dressed, with the chest half exposed to direct blasts 
 of cold air ; standing at open windows in a current, or sitting 
 out-door in a damp atmosphere, leaving a warm room for a 
 cold one ; dancing till heated by exercise, and then stepping 
 into a carriage in a glow of perspiration, half protected by a 
 silk cloak, a thousand dollar gossamer shawl, instead of a wool- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 209 
 
 len blanket, are so many ways of inviting conditions of health 
 which no medical skill is competent to manage. 
 
 The mucous passages, especially those leading to the lungs, 
 are the first to suffer under such courses of imprudence. The 
 lungs become engorged with blood when the lining membrane 
 is flushed with a commencing inflammation, which rarely fails 
 to be accompanied by a hectic cough. 
 
 VIOLATION OF GEXEKAL LAWS OF HEALTH. 
 
 Happily, women are beginning to discover the dangers that 
 surround them, in conforming to the wild caprices of fashions. 
 Those who escape pulmonary consumption by their violation 
 of sanitary laws, are frequent sufferers from pleurisy, usually 
 originating in the same kind of imprudence which generates 
 other formidable evils. 
 
 PLEUKISY. 
 
 Instead of being confined to the lining membrane of the 
 cells within the lobes of the lungs, pleurisy means an inflamma- 
 tion of the pleura, or living membrane of the chest in which 
 the lungs play. 
 
 Whenever the inflammation becomes acutely painful in 
 pleurisy, the attempted full inflation of the lungs must neces- 
 sarily press against the inflamed surface. A stitch in the side, 
 a common expression, simply means that the outside covering 
 of the lungs has become attached or glued, as it were, to the 
 membrane next the ribs and the stitch is but tearing them 
 apart or rather, bridles of adhesive serous fluid, put upon the 
 stretch, cause that acute sensation, a pain always attended 
 with danger. 
 
210 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Instead of patronizing shoes, the soles of which are scarcely 
 thicker than paper, it is quite as proper for females to wear 
 them of sufficient thickness, as for men. 
 
 When the feet are cold and kept so for hours, in conse- 
 quence of the waste of warmth through thin soles, the circu- 
 lation of blood in minute vessels at such a distance from the 
 heart, is partially interrupted. That cannot be habitually 
 practised without deranging the general circulation. Swelled 
 feet are the result of cold and compression. 
 
 The torture of tight shoes does not wholly consist in the 
 development of corns and bunions, but in the production of 
 conditions in the mechanism of the circulation that may de- 
 generate into actual organic lesions. 
 
 Ladies should have their feet and ankles as completely pro- 
 tected as men w T ho would soon be incapacitated for active pur- 
 suits were they put into the frail shoes and gossamer stockings, 
 which are the pride of a well-dressed woman. 
 
 SUSPENDED, NOT CURED. 
 
 Hereditary consumption cannot, with certainty, be averted. 
 It may be suspended, as it were or rather kept at bay by 
 changing residence to a propitious climate. But all such 
 measures are regarded as temporary. Nothing is more difficult 
 than to stop the progress of a disease which destroys the organ 
 by which life is positively sustained. 
 
 Sporadic, or that form of pulmonary consumption, in- 
 duced by carelessness or unfortunate exposure to influences 
 that could not, or would not, be avoided at the time, is to be 
 managed differently. 
 
 By an imprudent exposure to cold and humidity, an impetus 
 is given to the development of quiescent tubercles. They are 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 211 
 
 suddenly inflamed, and suppurate. In hereditary consumption, 
 tubercles are actually found imbedded in the lung tissues of 
 new-born infants. They may remain many years perfectly 
 indolent, if those precautions are taken which are pointed out 
 in the foregoing observations, that have a tendency to awaken 
 them from a long slumber into activity. 
 
 We do not believe hereditary consumption can be arrested 
 permanently, so that it may not be transmitted to the children 
 of such unfortunates. But it is quite certain life may be con- 
 siderably prolonged by a judicious reference to latitude and 
 longitude, before grave symptoms indicate an ulceration of the 
 air-cells. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 Digestion and the Functions of the Liver Opinions of the Profession 
 Disagree Indications Ancient Doses Modern Indication Illustrations 
 Intricate Mechanism Demand for Sugar Diseased Livers. 
 
 IT may be surprising intelligence to those who importune 
 physicians as to what they should eat and drink, or what they 
 might take into their stomachs with impunity, to assure them 
 that medical practitioners are no better judges on that subject 
 than themselves. 
 
 Because medical men are supposed to be laboriously inter- 
 rogating Nature for information that may be of service to those 
 who employ them, they are held accountable to a certain extent 
 by a confiding public, in regard to the health of those who 
 seek their advice. 
 
 Unfortunately, medical Solomons disagree among them- 
 selves. There is no standard by which to regulate the sanitary 
 condition of society. They entertain theories enough to perplex 
 all the universities on the globe ; but the facts which always 
 have precedence over speculations, are comparatively few, and 
 not much relished by those who are ambitious for establishing 
 theories as substitutes. 
 
 Digestion is a familiar topic, especially with persons pro- 
 foundly ignorant of their own organization, and indigestion is 
 still less understood by many who assume to be extremely wise. 
 There is no definite system to be pursued, that will insure im- 
 munity from indigestion, by recourse to drugs. 
 
 Were we to say let medicine alone entirely, it might be 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 213 
 
 thought a selfish purpose was in view. Unhappily for those 
 seeking reliable information respecting the course to be pursued 
 to insure the highest standard of health, medical philosophers 
 strangely disagree, so that invalids are perplexed, and, on the 
 whole, derive about as much benefit from one source as another. 
 
 ~No one set of stereotyped directions meets every case of in- 
 digestion. There are no specifics for dyspepsia. Treatment 
 that has been efficacious for one person, is of no service to 
 another. 
 
 It is curious to examine the rules laid down by different 
 doctors in reference to the kind of food that should be taken, 
 under certain conditions, and that should be avoided, on the 
 score of being non-digestible. 
 
 Many of the wise decisions on that point are from non- 
 scientific sources. But they exercise an arbitrary influence over 
 the minds of those who conceive it necessary to select a diet 
 with express reference to its speedy, or rather easy, assimilation. 
 And yet, gross mistakes are made, not through the false indica- 
 tions of science, but through ignorance of the first principles of 
 chemical science. 
 
 For example, one recommends soft-boiled eggs; another, 
 hard-boiled. "Without being conscious of it, our likes or dis- 
 likes exert an arbitrary control over the judgment, and we think 
 we are guided by scientific principles, when, in fact, we are 
 managed by no principle at all in matters that purely concern 
 the stomach. 
 
 Physicians differ exceedingly on the worn-out subject of 
 diet. The various schools of medicine have their hobbies, while 
 the representatives of each have their eccentric advocates. 
 
 Allopathies charge their patients as artillery officers load 
 cannon, with all the gun will bear without bursting ; therefore, 
 ten grains of calomel, fortified with ten more of jalap, the prac- 
 
214: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 tice of twenty years ago repeated, was the sheet-anchor of the 
 old-fashioned practitioners. 
 
 Reforming homoeopathies go to the other extreme. Struck 
 with compassionate horror at the magnitude of incompatible 
 compounds, they prescribe attenuated dilutions of something 
 that can be neither smelt, tasted, nor felt. The one hundred 
 and forty-ninth part of a grain, in forty gallons of water, is fear- 
 fully potent, administered by skilful hands. 
 
 Men of honor have never agreed in politics. It would be 
 miraculous if there were no diversity of opinions in medicine. 
 Each party is honestly impressed with the value of the dogmas 
 they profess. Thus, inquiry is kept alive;, otherwise there 
 would be a stagnation of intellect, and another dark age. New 
 and important truths are developed, in consequence of a differ- 
 ence of opinion among men equally honest and equally desirous 
 of arriving at definite conclusions. 
 
 EVANESCENCE OF THEORIES. 
 
 Theories have been repeatedly advanced from opposite direc- 
 tions touching the mooted question of what kind of food is best 
 for human beings. 
 
 Civilization cannot settle the question. Savages give them- 
 selves no concern about it, devouring whatever is attainable that 
 assuages the demands of hunger. 
 
 Notwithstanding the inculcations of physiological scholars, 
 that certain modes of living tend to longevity, while others 
 interfere with vital laws, and abridge the natural duration of 
 life, both savages and barbarians live as many years on the 
 average, even less molested by the invasion of disease, than 
 the most favored of mortals who fare sumptuously every day 
 on viands that meet the approval of the soundest medical 
 scrutineers. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 215 
 
 We require a proper mixture of animal and vegetable food, 
 it being of little consequence whether the first is roast beef, 
 canvas-back ducks, sea slugs, roasted rattlesnake, boiled crabs, 
 shark's fins, dried grasshoppers, fish, fowls, or turtle's eggs. 
 
 Some of all these usually considered disgusting, but largely 
 consumed articles, actually nourish the body as completely as 
 artistic dishes prepared according to the highest gastronomic 
 authority, every one of them containing nutritious materials. 
 
 Science and civilization refine, but the empty stomach 
 obeys an imperious law, eat or le eaten, making no apologies 
 for dining on whatever satisfies the urgent demands of 
 hunger. 
 
 The benefits derived from animal or vegetable food are to 
 be measured by the results in respect to growth and repro- 
 duction. 
 
 MECHANISM OF THE STOMACH. 
 
 A stomach is a receiving sac, into which food is taken, from 
 which, by a series of extraordinary vital processes, materials are 
 elaborated that enter into the composition of solids and fluids 
 of which every living body is composed. 
 
 Every animal, small or large, except in the most rudimentary 
 forms of life in particular families of infusoria, possesses a 
 stomach, modified in structure to meet the peculiar conditions 
 of each species. Some have two, some three, and the peaceable, 
 patient ox has four, the food passing from one to the other 
 before reaching the intestinal canal, where nutriment is sepa- 
 rated from the useless matter with which it was united before 
 digestion commenced. 
 
 All food requires a preliminary preparation before being 
 6 wallowed. Thus, chewing, grinding, and lubricating it by 
 being mixed with saliva, a product of glands in the mouth and 
 
216 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 throat, facilitates its descent down the oesophagus, and fits it 
 for being more readily acted upon by the gastric juice. 
 
 The presence of food in the stomach stimulates its inner 
 lining membrane to pour out a thin, bland fluid, which is a 
 powerful solvent. 
 
 By alternate contractions and elongations of the fibres of 
 that marvellously constructed organ, the mass is rolled to and 
 fro, so that, being thoroughly mixed with the gastric juice, it is 
 changed in appearance and consistence, preparatory to further 
 vital processes. 
 
 Digestion is due largely to a succession of muscular move- 
 ments commenced at the base of the tongue. One set of fibres 
 takes up the action where those above leave the morsel, and 
 thus it is propelled from point to point, till it falls, by its 
 gravity, into the receiving-pouch, for such is the stomach 
 in one of its functions, being quiescent till the cardiac orifice 
 closes. 
 
 Teeth deserve a more extended consideration in this con- 
 nection, than can be bestowed upon them at this stage of 
 investigation of the laws of digestion. 
 
 As soon as they have ground down masses, and rendered 
 them pulpy, soft, and easy for deglutition, they pass through 
 uplifted arches at the top of the throat, not unlike a portcullis 
 in their office. Fairly through, the gate closes, and next they 
 are passed between two spongy bodies, the tonsils, the use of 
 which is to oil them, as it were, to prevent friction or hindrance 
 on the passage down the tube which leads to the stomach. 
 
 Finally, the circular and longitudinal muscular threads of 
 which the oesophagus is constructed, contracting behind, urges 
 morsels, assisted by gravity, till they fall into the membranous 
 receptacle, where active chemical action is commenced. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 217 
 
 PKOGRESS OF DIGESTION. 
 
 In a few hours, the food thus treated mechanically at first 
 passes from the stomach through a narrow orifice, controlled by 
 a sphincter muscle, which relaxes or spasmodically closes the 
 orifice according to the sensation it receives from the approach- 
 ing mass waiting to pass through the pylorus, into the upper 
 portion of the duodenum, the first section of the intestinal tube, 
 spoken of by old writers as a second stomach in man. 
 
 When a bit of bone, for example, has been accidentally 
 swallowed, a nail, a metallic button, a piece of money, or, 
 indeed, anything that might produce irritation, or do violence 
 in the intestines, it is not allowed to proceed, but is arrested as 
 a prisoner in the stomach, where it is acted upon by the gastric 
 juice till reduced to dimensions suitable for traversing the 
 whole distance, nearly thirty feet, without injury to the delicate 
 walls of the canal, then it is permitted to proceed. 
 
 The circular controlling muscle watching over the safety of 
 parts beyond, is a vigilant sentinel that rarely ever fails of 
 doing faithful duty. 
 
 Indigestible articles, or rather those which for a very long 
 while resist the decomposing action of the gastric juice, move 
 up to the pylorus in the mass waiting for exit through the 
 gateway, but the never-sleeping watchdog the sphincter 
 muscle detects the effort, and invariably drives it back. 
 
 Unless ejected by vomitation, an unwelcome traveller, 
 urgent to go on the journey that he has commenced, may be 
 thus retained for one or two years, and then be found in the 
 stomach, if composed of elements on which the gastric solvent 
 acts very slowly, or not at all. 
 
218 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 SWALLOWING AETICLES ACCIDENTALLY. 
 
 Pennies, thimbles, ivory and small glass balls, marbles and 
 similar articles, the playthings of children, are often swallowed 
 by them. When smaller than the ordinary diameter of the 
 pylorus, such bodies are permitted to pass through unmolested, 
 and they are soon voided without producing any disturbance 
 or injury. 
 
 If, on the contrary, they are too large, they are detained till 
 they have been so much reduced in size by the gastric secretion, 
 as to pass with impunity. 
 
 Balls of hair are frequently found in the maws of cattle, 
 when slaughtered, which must have been detained there a very 
 considerable time, and which never could have been removed 
 on account of their size, nor melted down to smaller dimensions, 
 because their composition resisted the otherwise powerful 
 chemical energy of the gastric juice. 
 
 They are of various dimensions, in cabinets from half an 
 inch to four or five in diameter, and usually perfectly globular, 
 as though they had been constantly rolling about to acquire 
 that symmetrical form. 
 
 In the season of shedding their hair, cattle are in the habit 
 of currying each other with their tongues. The surface of that 
 flexible organ is covered with projecting eminences, called 
 papillae, which point towards the gullet. In raking off loose 
 hair, it accumulates on them as it does on a currycomb. Not 
 being able to dislodge such accumulations, and eject them from 
 the mouth, they are swallowed. While detained in the first 
 stomach, additions are made to the mass 'from time to time, 
 w r hich are matted on and felted there by mucous fluids, and, 
 finally, the ball becomes not only large, but exceedingly com- 
 pact, and hard as wood. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 219 
 
 When a cud is raised to the mouth, those imprisoned balls, 
 unquestionably, are also carried to the cardiac orifice, through 
 which the cud ascends, but they are refused a passage. The 
 same refusal is met at the other outlet towards the intestine. 
 This, then, explains the origin and detention of such bodies in 
 the stomach of ruminants. 
 
 .CHEMICAL POTENCY OF GASTEIC JUICE. 
 
 One of the most remarkable cases on medical record, demon- 
 strating the irresistible solvent properties of the gastric juice 
 quite as intense in man, and nearly as concentrated as in sharks 
 and serpents occurred in Boston over fifty years ago, in the per- 
 son of a sailor by the name of Cumings, who actually swallowed 
 several pocket-knives. About one year after the event, two of 
 the knives had entirely disappeared. The third was more than 
 half gone when the patient died of gastritis. 
 
 Had the exact character of the case been understood, the 
 surgeons and medical gentlemen in attendance at the hospital 
 where Cumings had been admitted, not believing his constant 
 assertion that he had penknives in his stomach, a course of tonic 
 treatment might have been pursued that would have sustained 
 him till Nature had completed the grand process of dissolving 
 them, and thus relieving the poor sufferer, who was considered 
 a lunatic. 
 
 When food arrives at the intestine from the stomach, it 
 meets there with several peculiar secretions from small glands 
 imbedded in its coats, each of which performs a specific chemical 
 action on what is passing over the tract of their location. 
 
220 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 BILE OR GALL. 
 
 About twelve inches from the stomach, gall is poured into 
 the moving mass, and various fluids from ducts opening into the 
 interior of the intestine. A little lower, pancreatic fluid is in- 
 troduced into the common avenue, which converts butter, fat, 
 oils, etc., in an incredibly short time into an emulsion, which 
 prepares them for digestion. Otherwise, without that particular 
 fluid, those aliments would pass the whole length of the 
 abdominal tube, and be ejected without having been essentially 
 altered, or imparting any nutrition to the body. 
 
 LACTEALS. 
 
 Still lower in that same membranous tube, minute ori- 
 fices are discoverable in its walls, opening into it. Those are 
 extremely numerous, and extend through the entire length, but 
 are more aggregated into clusters in some places than others. 
 Those are the mouths of lacteal vessels. There are millions of 
 them scarcely larger than fine needles. The outer extremity 
 running back, ultimately terminates in fleshy bodies, known as 
 mesenteric glands. It is the office of those lacteal mouths to 
 suck up, from the mass passing by, chyle, a sort of milky-look- 
 ing fluid, the product of digestion, which is carried directly into 
 the mesenteric glands. 
 
 After remaining a little while there, probably mixing with 
 a secretion peculiar to themselves, the fluid passes out through 
 minute tubes on the opposite side, which finally empty their 
 contents into a mealy-white tube lying on the side of the spine. 
 
 The mesenteric glands are way-stations, where the milky 
 fluid, or chyle, undergoes chemical modifications before taking 
 a departure for the thoracic duct, a reservoir into which the 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 221 
 
 rich product of digested food, that which alone is nourishment, 
 is conveyed. 
 
 Lying partly in front, but inclining to the left side, is a 
 white ascending tube, under the name of thoracic duct, which 
 finally makes a graceful curve, and enters into the great jugu- 
 lar vein at the root of the neck, at an angle formed by the junc- 
 tion of the subclavian vein from the arm with the jugular. 
 
 WHEKE THE CHYLE GOES. 
 
 A small, gentle flow of that milky fluid is constantly mixing 
 with venous blood from the left arm and the brain, at the point 
 described. From thence the new white fluid unites with blood 
 that is on its way to the heart to be revivified, and loses its 
 original color or whiteness. 
 
 Thus tracing the chyle from its origin, we ascertain the 
 manner in which nature provides materials for sustaining and 
 keeping in repair a living body. 
 
 Although material for making blood is thus explained 
 mechanically, one further process must be completed to vitalize 
 the mixture and fit it for the purposes of life. 
 
 Being carried to the right side of the heart, the auricle into 
 which it is received contracts and forces it down through an 
 orifice into the ventricle, a strong chamber. 
 
 That next contracts, it being a forcing-pump of prodigious 
 power, and drives the new blood up through the pulmonary 
 artery into the lungs. 
 
 When in the lungs, the blood thus driven in is distributed 
 into unnumbered millions of fine tubes which ramify and 
 spread round small air-cells. Next, we inhale air, which dis- 
 
222 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 tends those cells into air-balloons. In the act of swelling with 
 the inhaled air, the waiting blood imbibes from it oxygen, and 
 then the lungs expel the air, thus deprived of an essential ele- 
 ment, and, in expiration, throw off carbonic acid gas. 
 
 The blood is now vitalized and ready to fulfil its mission. 
 For that purpose, being collected, it is again forced into the 
 auricle of the left side of the heart. From thence it is forced 
 into the ventricle of that side, and from thence driven into the 
 aorta, a tube about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. That 
 is ultimately subdivided into smaller and smaller arteries, by 
 which the blood is freely distributed over and completely 
 through every portion of the body, as already described on 
 a preceding page. 
 
 A DOUBLE HEART. 
 
 The right and left sides of the heart are quite independent 
 of each other in function. There have been cases recorded 
 where the two halves were separated at considerable distance 
 from each other. Nature invariably pursues a system of eco- 
 nomy in all her beautiful works, and this union of the heart of 
 the lungs with the heart of the body is an illustration of the 
 principle. By joining the two, less space was required, while 
 muscular power was gained for both. 
 
 Such are some of the complicated processes on which life 
 depends. A brittle thread, at best, is vitality, but without just 
 so many cords, tubes, and tissues, there would be neither motion 
 nor consciousness. 
 
 There is no difference in the anatomical appearance or struc- 
 ture of the digestive organs of males and females. They are 
 precisely alike. The secretion of nutriment and its final diffu- 
 sion in no respect differ in the two sexes. Their food, there- 
 fore, should be the same. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 223 
 
 Women, in the higher social walks of society, oftener 
 deprave their digestion than men, by subsisting on aliments 
 too concentrated. This important fact is purposely repeated 
 many times in this volume. 
 
 In the relation to which these remarks are applied, their food 
 is not bulky enough, and consequently the alimentary canal is 
 not as fully distended as it should be. 
 
 Some take food in too small quantities, for fear of obesity, 
 and hence the abdominal region is gaunt and contracted, thereby 
 compressing the hollow viscera too closely. 
 
 Those who by free exercise in open air have excellent health, 
 also have an active digestion and a vigorous appetite. There 
 is a better development of their frames ; and both strength, 
 beauty, energy of character, and those qualities which distin- 
 guish those who attain distinction, are due to perfect nutrition 
 and freedom of body and mind. 
 
 The foregoing propositions may be considered trifling to 
 those who have given no special thought to the philosophy of 
 digestion. But the soundest, brightest, and most promising 
 children are born of mothers who have a good digestion. 
 
 Feeble, sickly, peevish children, who live to become men and 
 women, are always complaining and taking medicine. They 
 had mothers from whom they inherited most of their physical, 
 to say nothing of their moral and mental disabilities. 
 
 t/ O 
 
 Numerous functional derangements, together with grave 
 indispositions, are popularly charged to the liver. It is an organ 
 uniformly supposed by those totally ignorant of its offices or 
 construction, to have a controlling influence under circum- 
 stances where it probably has none at all. 
 
 Some physicians, especially those the least qualified by their 
 anatomical acquirements to give a correct diagnosis, find it a 
 convenient retreat for concealing their ignorance, to refer to 
 
224 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 that organ as the seat of many morbid conditions, which cannot 
 be readily refuted if they happen to be wrong, on account of 
 its locality. 
 
 The liver is a gland of gigantic size, weighing in a woman 
 of medium stature about four pounds. Before birth it is vastly 
 larger and wholly disproportioned to other organs in the abdom- 
 inal cavity, as they appear in adults. 
 
 A reason why it necessarily has such dimensions is in con- 
 sequence of having nearly all the circulating blood from a 
 maternal source sent directly to it. At birth, with the first 
 breath of the infant, one half the blood that went to the liver 
 before is instantly diverted from it by the closing of a valve in 
 the middle of the heart. 
 
 In consequence of being thus suddenly deprived of so much 
 vitalizing fluid, the liver hardly maintains its volume. Certain 
 it is, it remains stationary in size for a long while. In the 
 meantime, other parts which were somewhat rudimentary, as it 
 were, or imperfectly developed, grow into their predestined 
 proportions and assume more active labors. 
 
 From blood sent into the liver, gall, that intensely bitter 
 fluid, is secreted. One of the specific uses of the liver is to 
 elaborate that extraordinary product from venous blood. Arter- 
 ies convey florid, vitalized blood to the intestines and digestive 
 apparatus, where it leaves its vitalizing influence. When that 
 is extracted, the remainder flows through another set of vessels, 
 veins, which carry it to the lungs, to be recharged with oxygen 
 from inhaled atmospheric air. On its way there it is compelled 
 to pass through the liver, and from it certain vessels take out 
 of it bile, and, as we shall learn in the sequel, some other 
 products. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 225 
 
 INTRICATE MECHANISM. 
 
 No mechanism, on the whole, is more intricate than the 
 network of tubes by which bile is separated from the passing 
 current of venous blood. When detached or drawn aside by 
 itself, a transfer of it to the gall-bladder, where it is stored 
 for after occasions, is one of the great curiosities of animal con- 
 struction. 
 
 Physiologists, with all their ingenuity and indomitable 
 perseverance, have not yet definitely settled the question 
 of the use of bile in the economy. That it is of importance 
 in digestion can hardly be doubted, and yet there are 
 more theories extant than facts to show where it goes, or what 
 it is for. 
 
 Bilious affections, bilious stomachs, a bilious habit, and such 
 like expressions, are flippantly banded about by medical practi- 
 tioners as they are by persons who learn them as parrots do 
 from hearing repetitions of the same phrases, without attaching 
 any meaning to the words. It is an evidence of ignorance 
 rather than scientific attainment, when guessing passes for pro- 
 found pathological acquirements. 
 
 Too much is charged to the poor liver, and tons of pills 
 and useless prescriptions are directed to the correction of 
 faults it never had to the cure of diseases in which it had no 
 agency. 
 
 Regarded by non-professional persons as performing offices 
 which it does not perform, their deductions are, of course, 
 as crude as those who pretend to more knowledge without 
 being a whit wiser. Bile is considered a terrible foe to health 
 in common parlance, a disorganizing bugbear, a maker of 
 melancholy, a breeder of low spirits, jaundice, and a host of 
 other misfortunes that beset mankind. 
 
226 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Allusion has already been made to the sugar-making ser- 
 vices of the liver, coupled with observations on its complicated 
 functions before and after birth. It being a comparatively 
 recent discovery that man and all the lower families of terres- 
 trial animals carry within their bodies a sugar-mill, we cannot 
 pass over the natural provision for meeting the demands of 
 organic life, without dwelling particularly on that remarkable 
 function* on different pages of this work. 
 
 DEMAND FOR SUGAR AND BILE. 
 
 Sugar must be provided from some source. If it does not 
 exist in sufficient abundance in the food of each day, the 
 deficiency is supplied by the liver, 
 
 Attached to its largest lobe, lying underside of the dia- 
 phragm to which it is attached, is a small bag, about the size 
 and form of a small pear, into which bile is stored for future 
 use. A slender duct leads from it to the first portion of the 
 small intestine some twelve or more inches from the stomach. 
 In the process of digestion the bile flows into the upper end of 
 the intestinal tube, and, undoubtedly, there performs an active 
 part in chemically preparing the passing food for yielding up 
 its nutritious elements ; but what becomes of it afterwards has 
 not yet been positively ascertained. 
 
 Carnivorous animals secrete more bile than graminivorous ; 
 and ferocious fishes, as sharks, torpedoes, wolf-fish, etc., require 
 far more than social dwellers of the sea. 
 
 Admitted to be indispensable to perfect digestion, how it 
 acts, or what becomes of the quantities secreted, since it does 
 not pass off with waste materials in the ordinary manner, very 
 much exercises the inquiring minds of physiologists. 
 
 That noble servant of man, the horse, feeding exclusively 
 on vegetable food, as those animals do which chew the end, has 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 227 
 
 no gall bladder. His liver is of ordinary appearance exteriorly. 
 If bile is secreted in the horse's liver, where are the excretory 
 ducts that conduct it to the food ?. But that an organ of such 
 magnitude and weight, occupying so much room, has no ser- 
 vice to perform after birth, is hardly probable. Naturalists 
 have the mortification to acknowledge the impossibility, at 
 present, of explaining its true function in the horse. 
 
 Ignorant as we are, and humiliating as is the confession, 
 that many guess at much they do not understand, the diseases 
 of the liver are of a character to perplex and baffle the most 
 experienced physicians. 
 
 In certain climates it becomes indurated, enlarges enor- 
 mously, and besides, scirrhosity, abscesses, and ulcerations are 
 common in all climates, as a penalty for violating sanitary 
 laws, which can never be pursued for any great length of 
 time without a fearful constitutional reckoning. 
 
 Malarious influences emanate from the ground in warm, 
 moist regions, where vegetable decomposition tills the air with 
 something neither seen nor tasted, but which, nevertheless, 
 when inhaled, produces extraordinary disturbance in the liver 
 of man. Thus, fever and ague are derived from that source, 
 while another condition of the atmosphere in the East Indies 
 gives rise to various enlargements and hardness, which defy 
 the ordinary resources of medicine. 
 
 Authors have not sufficiently investigated the effects of 
 certain kinds of food in the production of anomalous disorders 
 of that viscus. That the profligate use of curry in the East 
 Indies a fiery hot powder made of red pepper, mustard, 
 turmeric, and perhaps a dozen other ingredients, which would 
 excoriate the skin, externally applied, about as quickly as a 
 burning coal, taken into the stomach at every meal for years in 
 succession, must, in the nature of things, derange not only the 
 
228 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 stomach, but associated organs. So it may be admitted, inas- 
 much as curry-eaters have indurated livers, that peculiar appe- 
 tizing compound has some agency on the organ. 
 
 Whiskey, rum, or, indeed, any of the fiery strong liquor dis- 
 gracefully in request in this whiskey-smitten nation, acts bane- 
 fully on, the liver. Those who keep themselves stimulated by 
 the needless use of distilled spirits, must break down under its 
 undermining tendency. Medicine furnishes no cure for an en- 
 larged or schirrus liver. 
 
 When it becomes diseased in any way, then there is a failure 
 to perform the office for which it was mainly designed, 
 and, consequently, the whole body quickly betrays its need 
 of something it formerly had, in a yellowish, or rather, a 
 deadly hue of the skin, loss of flesh and strength, and waning 
 health. 
 
 Next, that which is required is a sufficiency of saccharine 
 matter, from which are elaborated, by vital processes, elements 
 to be distributed for the benefit of the whole body, and perhaps, 
 too, for the mind. 
 
 The liver, in short, manufactures sugar. It is not exactly 
 sugar of the shops in appearance, but a sweetish paste, that 
 takes the name of glucose. 
 
 The mass of the liver appears to be made up, in bulk, of an 
 immense congeries of arteries, veins, nerves, lymphatics, bile- 
 tubes, ligaments, and a semi-elastic tissue, which serves as a bed 
 to keep all those different parts from interfering with each 
 other. 
 
 When this natural sugar-mill turns off more sugar than the 
 system requires, it is recognized as a disease known as diabetes. 
 Nature has but one convenient way of carrying off the excess, 
 and that is by dissolving, and floating it away to the kidneys. 
 Those organs separate the sugar from the blood in which it 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 229 
 
 arrives, and forwards it to the bladder to be voided. By boil- 
 ing the urine, the sugar may be collected, very much resembling 
 ordinary brown sugar. 
 
 DISEASED LIVERS. 
 
 Severely as the liver suffers from over-excitation by drink- 
 ing ardent spirits, an instructive article might be written on the 
 unnecessary medication to which the whole system is subjected 
 by the mistakes of physicians, who blindly pursue a course of 
 practice based on a theoretical condition of the liver, for which 
 the poor stomach is intolerably dosed. There is no more direct 
 means of reaching the liver in any of the morbid conditions to 
 which it is predisposed from climate, abuse, or from dissipated 
 habits, than through the circuitous route of the circulation. 
 
 Mercury was formerly prescribed immoderately, on the sup- 
 position that the liver was answerable for at least half the ills to 
 which humanity is incident. Salivations, ulcerated tonsils, 
 loose teeth, inflamed gums, and even caries of the bones were 
 the result of that one-idea practice now obsolete. But the liver 
 was too frequently the focus to which nauseous preparations 
 were directed, when it was, perhaps, in no way involved. 
 
 It is impossible for any medicine to reach the liver directly. 
 There is no tube or avenue opening between the stomach and 
 liver. Therefore, it is ridiculous to suppose the latter can be 
 acted upon in any other manner than through the blood. 
 
 Some persons, more .distinguished for general intelligence 
 than their knowledge of anatomy, speak of ulcers, or abscesses 
 of the liver, which discharge into the stomach. That is 
 positively impossible, unless an opening has been ulcerated 
 through various tissues, and lastly, through the walls of the 
 stomach, before any such imaginary communication can be 
 established. 
 
230 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Hastily fattened cattle, stuffed with rich food faster than it 
 can be appropriately digested, or fed on warm slops, become 
 singularly disordered in their liver. Bed spots, ragged, ulcerated 
 patches on the upper surface, and enlargement, evidently show 
 that properties may be introduced into the circulation, which, 
 on arriving at the liver, are arrested, and stopping there, throw 
 the organ into a morbid state of action. 
 
 Hypertrophy, induration, and abscesses are conditions of the 
 liver in men who have no mercy on themselves by excessive 
 indulgence in strong liquors. Women rarely have diseased 
 livers. Happily, they have a nicer sense of propriety. Their 
 livers seldom become disorganized, or suffer from those hepatic 
 woes that beset tipplers. 
 
 But women induce hepatic difficulties by a custom in dress, 
 indicated by a yellowish, tallowish complexion, usually asso- 
 ciated with a depraved appetite. 
 
 Tight-lacing compresses the right lobe, lying just behind the 
 short ribs ; if the waist is closely girded, that part of the organ 
 is pressed into close quarters, which must interfere with a free 
 circulation of the various fluids which it secretes, independently 
 of arterial, venous, and biliary currents. 
 
 If the bile is impeded in its progress to the gall-bladder, or 
 from thence into the intestines, in consequence of ligating the 
 waist, very serious consequences are liable to follow. 
 
 Here is found an explanation of an often asked question, 
 Why young ladies are so frequently tinged with yellow, accom- 
 panied by indigestion ? The bile is obstructed by compression 
 of the liver, by waists of dresses and belts, and being taken 
 back into the system by absorbments, is diffused over the body, 
 and escapes through the skin. Jaundice is simply that 
 condition, the bile not flowing off through the pipes 
 in which it should go, owing either to exterior mechanical 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN 231 
 
 compression, gall-stones, or an inflammation which closes 
 them. 
 
 A celebrated manufacturer of corsets, having satisfied her- 
 self that women will wear them which is admitting there is 
 no necessity for that kind of abdominal support has invented 
 a substitute. It may be worn with comfort, as it neither com- 
 presses the chest, ribs, nor the sternum. Her object is simply 
 to hold up the bowels, so that they cannot be forced down upon 
 the pelvic viscera. Having the confidence of physicians, the 
 inventress has extensive patronage, because the contrivance 
 actually relieves the pelvic organs from invasions which ordi- 
 nary stays produce. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 THEIR GROWTH. 
 
 Men Taller than Women Male Animals Physical Aspect Length of 
 Lower Extremities Osseous Development Suspension of Growth 
 Inner Capacity of the Chest, Broad, Narrow Short Necks. 
 
 EVERY circumstance in the history of an individual life, in a 
 physical aspect, must be influenced by laws which govern all 
 organized bodies. Even inorganic forms are regulated by fixed 
 laws also, since there is nothing transpiring by chance. 
 
 There is a law of limitation in the growth of men and 
 women, operating infallibly in the formation of each and all 
 tissues, by which proportions are established. 
 
 Men ordinarily are taller than women, and stronger. Males 
 of all orders are usually superior in size, and muscular force in 
 them is also proportionately superior to that of females of their 
 kindred. Such is particularly the case with quadrupeds and 
 birds. They are more beautiful, too, more imposing in their 
 physique and bearing. Females are smaller, and destitute of 
 those markings or colorings which are distinguishing beauties, 
 including manes, fringed limbs, brilliant feathers, and other 
 exterior appointments that give character to the males. 
 
 Woman, however, transcends in beauty of form, facial ex- 
 pression, and in the impression she makes on the spectator. 
 
 Among reptiles, usually, the female is the largest. A law 
 of positive necessity operates in favor of that oversize above the 
 male. The enormous number of eggs some of them extrude, 
 or the number of young incubated within their own bodies, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 233 
 
 requires room for the expansion of oviducts in which they are 
 carried. 
 
 Thus there are oviparous and viviparous reptiles. Some void 
 their eggs to be incubated by the solar rays, while others have 
 them hatched in the abdominal cavity. 
 
 Birds, being of a higher type, have their eggs developed so 
 that one is voided daily, or once in two or three days, ripening 
 so orderly and rapidly too, that a larger pouch is not needed. 
 If their eggs all matured at once, as in a turtle, a fish, or in 
 thousands of insects, in parcels, which are extruded at intervals 
 of one or two weeks, the bulk of the eggs laid in twenty days 
 would equal, if not exceed, in bulk the body from which they 
 were extruded. 
 
 Some tribes of fishes have amazing fecundity, actually pro- 
 ducing millions of eggs in a single season. Were they brought 
 together, their combined weight would exceed the weight of 
 the individual in which they were formed by twenty-fold. 
 
 The rapidity of development of some insect eggs in a single 
 day, from mere specs scarcely discernible, into fully distended 
 globes almost as large as peas, illustrates in another form the 
 extreme activity of vital force when aided by light, heat, and 
 moisture. 
 
 TALL OR SHORT. 
 
 Why a man ceases to grow taller on reaching six feet, six 
 feet four inches or more, or why growth is ever arrested in 
 the process of osseous elongation, is quite beyond the ken of 
 modern philosophy. Theories prove nothing, while facts cannot 
 be jostled out of sight. Speculations on this point, therefore, 
 are to no purpose. 
 
 Admitting that men rarely exceed six feet in any country, 
 if *a few happen to exceed that ordinary standard of limitation, 
 
234: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 they are called giants. Why women rarely reach the same 
 measure, is quite as difficult to explain as the other proposition. 
 A difference in height depends almost entirely on the length 
 of the lower extremities in both sexes. 
 
 From the crown of the head to the ischiatic knobs, two 
 points on which we sit, there is not much variation in the 
 measure. Males and females have an equal number of bones, 
 and the distance between these two starting-points is about the 
 same. Below, however, the length of the thigh-bones deter- 
 mines the stature of the individual. 
 
 Some singular anotiialies are noticed occasionally, which 
 seem at first view to contradict a received opinion respecting 
 the laws of growth. 
 
 George W. Crawford, of Sciota county, Ohio, fifteen years 
 of age, in the autumn of 1869, was six feet and one inch tall, 
 measuring around his shoulders three feet eleven inches; 
 around his hips, forty-two inches ; around the chest, forty-one 
 inches ; and he weighed two hundred and eight pounds. 
 
 Benjamin F. Kiplinger, of Rush county, Indiana, about the 
 same period, who was fifteen years old September 20, 1869, 
 stood six feet eight inches, measuring around his shoulders 
 fifty-seven inches, forty- six around his chest, forty-six around 
 the hips, and weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds, 
 wearing number twelve shoes ! 
 
 Seated at table, on the same level, men and women, taken 
 indifferently, appear to be about equal in height, there being 
 only a slight deviation from a horizontal line passing above 
 their heads. On rising, some are exceedingly tall and others 
 remarkably short. The difference is found in the femoral 
 bones. From the knee to the instep, the tibia and fibula, or 
 leg-bones, are correspondingly short also, to conform to propor- 
 tions above the articulations. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 235 
 
 At birth the lower limbs are very short and small, quite 
 disproportioued to the scale of development of tlie upper ex- 
 tremities, which is explained by the well-known fact that they 
 receive but a limited amount of blood while in utero. Imme- 
 diately after birth, blood which circulated in the placenta, 
 diverted from the iliac arteries, is then sent into the legs. But 
 they seldom attain in females the length of the lower ex- 
 tremities of males, even when the nutrition is increased by an 
 increased flow of blood. Hence, women are generally below 
 the stature of adult males. Exceptions to the rule are con- 
 sidered anomalies. 
 
 Blood is circulated very nearly alike in both sexes, but the 
 extension of bones is more actively carried on in boys than in 
 girls, in bones below the pelvis. 
 
 This law of osseous development presents matter for con- 
 sideration in regard to life-insurance investigations. Physical 
 signs of longevity in man was a prize essay a few years since, 
 published by a Life Insurance office of New York, abound- 
 ing in very curious facts not very generally known in relation 
 to life limitation. Some of them were as follows : 
 
 First, Brothers and sisters of the same parentage, reared 
 under precisely the same circumstances as regards food, clothing, 
 ventilation of apartments, etc., have different statures when they 
 arrive at adult age. Yet at birth, and through the developing 
 periods of childhood and adolescence, they were apparently in- 
 fluenced, physically, precisely alike. 
 
 Unquestionably, therefore, there are causes operating dis- 
 advantageously, at times, for the growth of parts, if not of the 
 whole body. In dwarfs, the deposition of ossific material stops 
 suddenly. It may happen soon after birth, or at any period 
 between the second and third year. Occasionally the process 
 of growth ceases in a single limb, or it may in both so exactly 
 
236 THE WAYS OF WOMEX. 
 
 at the same time as to leave them of the same length. From 
 some unknown cause, essential elements cease to be any longer 
 deposited. 
 
 "While there is a progressive development in the system, 
 and all the mechanism is being enlarged in volume and per- 
 fected, there is intense activity. By and by, however, the 
 law of limitation puts a stop to those long-continued internal 
 operations. 
 
 Ossification is then completed, the muscles are full and 
 strong. The future secretion and deposition of lime and other 
 earthly components of bones, instead of being gathered in such 
 abundance as formerly from food, are only just enough to keep 
 those solid parts in repair. 
 
 STRENGTH OF BONES AND THEIR DECAY. 
 
 An impression is entertained that bones of tall persons are 
 more easily fractured than those of short people. Cylindrical 
 bones, as the thigh and arm, when particularly long, are less 
 in diameter than the same bones in those of short stature. 
 
 As individuals advance in age, gelatine the mortar that 
 holds the bony particles together like bricks in an edifice is 
 secreted less actively, and its adhesive properties are also en- 
 feebled. Finally, the quantity is so much diminished, the 
 bones of aged persons are easily broken. A sparseness of that 
 natural glue explains why their fractured bones unite slowly, 
 or sometimes not at all. 
 
 If, as some surgeons suggest, broken bones of short patients 
 unite quicker than those of tall ones, all other circumstances 
 being equal in respect to age, attentions, etc., it must be due to 
 a more rapid circulation in the first, in whom the pulsations are 
 quickest and most energetic. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 237 
 
 It is a fact that vital force is strongest in short people. The 
 blood has not so far to move, and ther,e is less retardation of the 
 current from friction, admitting that curves and short angles in 
 arteries and veins offer some resistance. 
 
 A general impression is entertained among close observers, 
 that longevity appertains to persons rather under size than to 
 the tall. 
 
 A broad, full chest does not always belong to a tall man or 
 woman. On the contrary, those under size are rarely fragile in 
 form, or narrow across the thorax. 
 
 When the inner capacity of the chest admits of a perfectly 
 full inflation of the lungs, the prospect of life is greater than 
 in a constricted cavity where the organs cannot have play 
 enough to oxygenate the volume of blood sent to them. 
 
 SHORT WOMEN". 
 
 When solidification of the leg bones progresses slowly, there 
 is commonly an active ossification taking place in the spinal 
 column. Harmonious architectural proportions are not main- 
 tained in women as in men. There are more short females than 
 males. Perhaps it may be there is a predominance of short 
 men in a thousand, but whether tall or short, the scale of pro- 
 portions is superior in the tall. 
 
 Among a thousand females of all conditions of life, the 
 short immeasurably outnumber the tall the upper parts of their 
 bodies being generally better developed than the lower, which 
 are not in exact proportion with the scale above the pelvic arch. 
 
 A lady may have a finely-developed chest, a round full 
 bust, well-set shoulders, and a beautiful neck, while the thigh 
 bones are so very imperfectly developed that she is dispropor- 
 tionately short. 
 
238 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Every internal organ, embracing the entire contents of the 
 thorax, abdomen, and pelvis, are quite as large and perfect in 
 function as in those ladies who are tall. The only anatomical 
 difference is to be found in the length of the bones in the infe- 
 rior extremities. 
 
 A lady distinguished for a particularly long neck, swan-like 
 in gracefulness, may be considered to have an imperfect chest, 
 and, therefore, her life expectation is not as good as that of one 
 of the same age and physical condition whose neck is an inch 
 shorter. 
 
 An explanation of this law of probability is found in the 
 osseous structure. All men and women have twenty-four bones 
 in the vertebral column, seven of which are usually in the neck. 
 Those twenty-four blocks, which, collectively, are called the 
 spine, are singularly locked together to prevent them from 
 sliding out of place. 
 
 Occasionally an anomaly is recognized in the distribution of 
 these bones. There should be alwavs seven in the neck, twelve 
 
 t/ 
 
 in the back, and five in the loins. But when the neck is un- 
 usually long, it has eight blocks. That takes one from the 
 dorsal range, leaving only eleven in the back. 
 
 That circumstance necessarily makes the chest just the 
 depth of the missing bone smaller, in its vertical direction, 
 than it would have been had it remained where it is usually to 
 be found. 
 
 CAPACITY OF THE FEMALE CHEST. 
 
 The lungs and heart, as a natural consequence, are compelled 
 to act in a smaller cavity. That being the actual condition, 
 those vital organs, on which the preservation of life depends, 
 are cramped, and their expansion limited in the performance of 
 their functions. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 239 
 
 Thus, if the lungs have not room enough for full inflation, 
 nor the heart for its diastole, the consequences are unfavorable 
 for long life. 
 
 Here, then, is a plain mechanical demonstration of the 
 anomaly of a long neck, and the consequences resulting from 
 diminishing the capacity of the chest. 
 
 When the neck is remarkably short, it may have seven bones 
 in its composition, but they may be so thin as to be a deviation 
 from the type which nature in most cases prescribes. 
 
 Thus, the chest may be full and broad, while the physician 
 recognizes in that kind of short neck a tendency to apoplexy. 
 Irregularities or excesses of any kind, including sudden excite 
 ments, pain, stimulants taken into the stomach, excessive 
 paroxysms of rage, hatred, love, or joy, drive blood into the 
 brain faster than the veins conduct it away, and sudden death 
 ensues. 
 
 With a short neck and large chest the heart acts with great 
 energy, forcing blood into the brain and deranging it, on 
 account of the inability of the veins to carry it away fast 
 enough. This is apoplexy. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THEIR EYES. 
 
 Force of Ocular Expression Wearing Glasses Desiring to Appear Near- 
 lighted Fashionable to have Defective Vision Abuse of the Organ 
 Eyesight of Animals in General Do without Glasses if Possible. 
 
 FOR brilliancy, no gems compare with the eyes of a beautiful 
 woman. 
 
 Examples are unnecessary for establishing the truth of this 
 declaration. There is a fascination, a bewildering influence in 
 a pair of bright eyes that moves and, indeed, electrifies the 
 roughest specimens of manhood with undefined emotions. 
 
 Fine eyes are potent engines. When the features are sym- 
 metrically moulded, eyes of some hues are irresistibly powerful. 
 Set off advantageously by long silken lashes, a sweet expression 
 is the highest type of female loveliness. 
 
 Men cannot explain, even to themselves, how or what it is 
 that moves them so mysteriously in coming into the presence 
 of a handsome woman. It is admitted there is an irresistible 
 force set in motion, but in what manner it takes such hold is 
 not of easy explanation. 
 
 That magnetism an unseen agent is the instrumentality 
 with which women are made more potent than the strongest 
 men, cannot be questioned. It is more than an equivalent for 
 large bones and elephantine muscles. 
 
 Men -brave tempests, dare enemies in bloody combats, look- 
 ing destruction in the face with unflinching energy. Woman 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 241 
 
 shrinks back in timid consciousness of being unable to battlo 
 physically for her rights. In the very posture she assumes, the 
 expression she exhibits, and the delicacy of her organization, she 
 is more than a match for giants when they offer violence. 
 
 When an incensed woman fixes a withering glance on a 
 wretch who threatens to do her WTong, or calls her honor in 
 question, the weight of her scorn is unbearable. Such a villain 
 suddenly cowers beneath her searching indignation, and wilts 
 away from her heroic presence. J/ 
 
 Regardless of color, the eyes singularly harmonize with the 
 features. Complexion and general corporeal expression is a 
 study gifted artists have not yet mastered, although they have 
 been pursuing their investigations since the days of Apelles. 
 
 VISION. 
 
 Perfect vision is marred, and, indeed, the eyes that were 
 perfect, and would have remained so through the ordinary cir- 
 cumstances of life, are seriously injured now-a-days by the ca- 
 price of fashion. 
 
 INFLAMED EYES. 
 
 Inflammation of the conjunctiva, the first membrane over 
 the front of the globe, delicately thin and transparent, is kept 
 slightly inflamed by too much light. The pupil a round win- 
 dow through which light reaches the posterior wall of the eye 
 cannot escape injury, if the outer membrane becomes either 
 thickened or clouded. Both of those conditions may be induced 
 by applying preparations with a view to making the eyes more 
 brilliant. It is a weakness of a very extensive class of ladies, 
 who, in their desire to make them piercing, or, as they imagine, 
 more captivating, cannot be convinced those preparations they 
 
242 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 use are lamentably injurious. An irritant that inflames any 
 surface extends its influence beyond where it is applied. Any- 
 thing that directly offends the irritable anterior surface of the 
 eye, instantly brings a flood of tears to wash it away. Streaks of 
 blood are simply an engorgement of minute vessels, which, un- 
 molested, are invisible behind the conjunctival membrane. 
 
 Inflammations thus exhibited conclusively prove there has 
 been some wrong-doing, or incidental exposure to causes which 
 produce that condition. 
 
 When an inflammation is established, and the vessels under 
 the conjunctival membrane lying on the selerotica, or white of 
 the eye, become strongly defined, if not subdued, they may 
 shoot across the pupil, forming a veil that would obstruct the 
 passage of light. 
 
 When there is a sensation under the lids like particles of 
 sand, it indicates the development of projecting fleshy granules 
 on the under surface, which chafe, and still further increase in- 
 flammation by the movements of the eye. The friction is 
 intolerably painful in some cases, accompanied by an intolerance 
 of light. Improper applications to the organs, in the form of 
 washes or unguents, keep up a continued irritation that may re- 
 sult in the production of granulation or other equally severe 
 afflictions. 
 
 Some persons are predisposed to a preternatural irritability 
 of the margins of the eyelids. They have a red, inflamed ap- 
 pearance, generally aggravated by a sudden cold, a particularly 
 strong light, or exposure to winds laden with dust. 
 
 A peculiar ferreted appearance of the lids, which is a chronic 
 inflammation of their most exposed mucous surface, is attended 
 by another inconvenience that may degenerate into a formidable 
 malady, if too long neglected. It is a gluing together of the 
 edges of the upper and lower lids by the flow during sleep of 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 243 
 
 an adhesive secretion, slowly soluble in cold water. Tepid 
 water separates them pretty readily. 
 
 A continued use of cosmetics, apparently perfectly harmless, 
 not un frequently do great injury to the eyes of ladies who 
 indulge in that reprehensible practice of attempting to improve 
 upon Nature. 
 
 Eyes are constructed upon philosophical principles, so per- 
 fect with reference to the laws of light, that they cannot be 
 tampered with, nor readjusted easily when once disordered. 
 The refractive power of the lens may be altered by violence 
 inflicted on the exterior of the globe. 
 
 So much of our knowledge, happiness, and every-day com- 
 fort depends on a sound, perfect condition of our eyes, we can- 
 not be too choice of them. They are too precious to be jeopard- 
 ized under the treatment of ignorant, self -announced oculists. 
 
 WEARING GLASSES. 
 
 Many charming faces are completely bereft of the expres- 
 sion they would have had, unmolested by the silly desire of 
 otherwise sensible ladies, for wearing glasses. An unaccount- 
 able disposition to have it supposed that they have defective 
 vision, is another strange phase in the vagaries of fashion. 
 To be near-sighted is a coveted grace. 
 
 In some departments of elevated society, nothing is more 
 common than to see young ladies harnessed in spectacles, or 
 peering through an eyeglass at their familiar acquaintances on 
 the side-walk, as though it were extremely difficult to see 
 them at all. 
 
 None but fops or idle pretenders of both sexes, who ape 
 the artificial manners of some polar star in fashionable circles, 
 think of making themselves ridiculous in that particular way. 
 
244: THE WAYS OF WOMEN 
 
 It is conclusive evidence of their vanity and mental weakness. 
 An eyeglass dangling from a splendid chain is a coveted 
 ornament for a drawing-room. To be squinting through it at 
 wall-pictures, or closely examining an object that a blind man 
 might almost see, by those who have no imperfection of vision, 
 is a common folly. 
 
 Everything, near or distant, must be scrutinized through an 
 eyeglass. Not because they cannot see, but simply because 
 it is extremely genteel to be purblind. 
 
 To gaze with profound attention through an eyeglass at a 
 horse passing the window, with an avowed inability to deter- 
 mine what creature it may be by the unassisted eye, is an 
 immense recommendation, indicative of polished manners. 
 If a lady is ingenious in striking attitudes at the same moment, 
 she may consider herself a queen of fashion. 
 
 No vulgarity is rated lower in the tablet of exquisite 
 refinement, than having good sound eyes. Examining those 
 to whom one has an introduction, with an eyeglass, as an 
 entomologist would scrutinize a bug under a microscope, passes 
 for extreme refinement. 
 
 Young misses, fresh from a boarding-school, are in ecstasies 
 when they first have possession of an eyeglass set in a chased 
 gold rim. They then cannot see those they do not wish to 
 recognize which is a decided step in their education. 
 
 PROGRESS OF GENTILITY. 
 
 On the whole, it is deplorable that civilization delights in 
 blindness. Possibly a sentiment prevails that one can see 
 enough with half an eye. But this, absurd as it is, is as- 
 sociated with another equally ridiculous habit, that has even 
 got possession also of men of the no-brain order. To lisp 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 245 
 
 divinely, and be in poor health, is the climax of perfection 
 in the constitution of a modern lady of unexceptionable social 
 position. It gives a finishing perfection to a belle of the 
 period. 
 
 These are follies that amuse people of sense for a while ; 
 but it is, nevertheless, lamentable that folly should have such 
 prominent ascendency where genuine good-breeding and worth 
 of character are at a discount. 
 
 Those who cannot afford to be blind voluntarily, like those 
 who articulate their words distinctly, have no influence where 
 near-sightedness and lisping are the criteria of social ex- 
 cellence. 
 
 Near-sightedness is most appreciated in circles distinguished 
 for opulence. In the country, remote from the baneful influ- 
 ences and innovations of fashionable folly, the ladies have 
 eyes keen enough to discriminate between affectation and 
 malformations. 
 
 A real necessity for glasses appertains to advanced age, but 
 rarely as necessary as those who have them to sell would have 
 the world believe. 
 
 There is another unrebuked exhibition of vanity or self- 
 esteem it is difficult to determine which viz., having por- 
 traits and photographs saddled with lunettes at the expense of 
 a silly unmeaning expression. Artists dread them, knowing by 
 experience of the impossibility of giving any character to the 
 picture of a face marred by bows and glasses. 
 
 Portraits of men and women with strongly moulded 
 features, full, animated eyes, in harmony with their other 
 physiognomical attributes, are deprived of an essential part of 
 their force of expression when painted in spectacles. 
 
 It is quite surprising with what tenacity some young, newly- 
 fledged clergymen cling to glasses, whose eyes never had a 
 
246 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 defect in them, on the presumption, it is theoretically pre- 
 sumed, that an audience associate with such toggery, profound 
 scholarship, and deep theological explorations in the dust 
 of ages. 
 
 No orator "who moves the multitude by the power of his 
 eloquence, wears glasses. To touch the hearts with fitting 
 words, to arouse the deepest feelings of sympathy, or excite 
 ferocious indignation by a recital of real or imaginary wrongs, 
 the full, unshackled face of the speaker must be seen. Sen- 
 tences that roll along the aisles like avalanches from the lofty 
 summits of mighty mountains, would lose their effect if enun- 
 ciated in the dark. An orator must not only be seen as well as 
 heard, to accomplish the highest results of his burning lan- 
 guage, but his face, and particularly his eyes, must not have 
 their electrical energy intercepted by non-conducting glasses. 
 
 Each one of the special organs of sense is a faithful sentinel 
 till the hour of death, if it has not been impaired, even 
 beyond a hundred years, in vast numbers of instances. 
 
 Taste and feeling rarely ever flag in a prolonged longevity. 
 When three other senses are destroyed, there is consciousness. 
 
 Through the instrumentality of nerves, the mind receives 
 intelligence of impressions, of whatever kind or character. 
 
 Yision ought not to give out till the lamp of life goes out in 
 old age. Were we to treat our eyes with as much tenderness as 
 they deserve, we should have distinct vision till the hour of 
 death, at the most advanced period of human life. Our eye- 
 sight would be nearly as perfect when we have reached seventy 
 years, as when we were young, were it not for the abuse of 
 them by intense light, gas-jets, and the fatigue to which they 
 are subjected by reading small type-books, and continuing the 
 labor too long at a time. 
 
 Wild animals have perfect vision as long as they have ability 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 to forage for food. Birds, too, have distinct vision till they 
 die of old age. A goose lives to upwards of eighty years in a 
 state of domestication, with no failure of vision. Probably, 
 reptiles and fishes also have perfect and accurately distinct 
 vision at all periods through their long lives. If whales reach 
 a thousand years, and sharks an extended longevity, their vision 
 is, unquestionably, perfect and unimpaired all the days allotted 
 them. 
 
 Tortoises have been repeatedly found with dates inscribed 
 on their shells, indicating almost a century from the date of 
 the marking, and they may have been ancient settlers when 
 those dates were inscribed ; yet their eyesight was keen enough 
 for perceiving an enemy, or discovering appropriate nourish- 
 ment. 
 
 Man, alone, has defective vision prematurely, and usually 
 from neglect or over-working his eyes. Domesticated dogs, 
 cattle and horses in the service of men, are subjected, to con- 
 siderable extent, to conditions of exposure, which impair our 
 own sight. A dog reposing in the corner, occasionally gazes 
 into a blazing fire. Horses and cattle are approached with 
 caution in the stall, or placed where artificial light acts directly 
 upon their eyes. When, under the guidance of their own in- 
 stincts, they retire, as the fowls go to roost, with the approach 
 of night, and open their eyes early, as the sun gradually rises, 
 so that no sudden glare impinges to their injury. 
 
 All animals avoid light, after evening shades set in, unless 
 compelled to change their habits. That is the secret of their 
 excellent and distinct powers of perception. 
 
 Were we to do as they do, we should have no complaint to 
 make of waning vision. 
 
248 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 CHANGING Axis OF Vision. 
 
 The convexity of the eye undoubtedly varies so that 
 scarcely any two persons have the same curve, and hence the 
 focal distance of distinct vision must necessarily vary. One 
 sees accurately at ten inches, another at twelve or fourteen, and 
 another at eighteen or twenty inches from the eye. The scale 
 of distance varies exceedingly in that respect, in the small num- 
 ber of a dozen persons. 
 
 In examining the moon, it rarely happens that twenty ladies 
 and gentlemen agree in their estimate of its apparent diameter. 
 To one or two it may seem about two feet across its face. 
 Others are quite sure it is all of a yard, and possibly, it scarcely 
 appears much larger than Venus to another. 
 
 By practice, beginning, for example, in early childhood 
 with the alphabet, and gradually learning to read with facility 
 the visual organs are trained so systematically, that we usually 
 all have a focal point of clear and distinct vision at the ordinary 
 distance at which a book is held for reading. Our eyes are 
 systematically educated, as our legs for walking, or our tongues 
 for articulating words. 
 
 Beginning in childhood, we insensibly instruct our organs 
 of sense and our muscles, and finally they all harmonize at last ; 
 and judgment, which distinguishes man above all the races 
 below him, is perfect or defective, according to the develop- 
 ment of all the powers which belong to his physical organiza- 
 tion. Perpetual repetitions of the movement give to each and 
 all those parts controlled by our volition, the perfection which 
 they may attain. 
 
 In early youth there may be some rigidity of the cornea, 
 which does not readily yield to the training. If the curvature 
 is too prominent for seeing at ordinary distances, most con- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN 249 
 
 venient for looking at a page, and practice in trying to see at 
 that convenient distance is not successful, there is near-sighted- 
 ness. 
 
 When just that condition has been ascertained, parents and 
 the near-sighted child too hastily resort to concave glasses. If 
 they would resolutely insist upon an unremitting effort to do 
 without them, their eyes would gradually accommodate them- 
 selves to the task imposed, and vastly improve. 
 
 Prematurely putting on glasses arrests the progress of 
 adaptation, which would very certainly take place, although in 
 every instance it might not become entirely satisfactory. The 
 experiment, however, is worth trying. 
 
 Avoid glasses as long as possible, whether short or long 
 sighted, and thus allow the instrument to adjust itself to 
 circumstances. The eyes of all land-seeing animals are con- 
 structed upon the same principle as our own. Light is admitted 
 into the back region through the pupil, and there produces the 
 same impression as it does in men and women. There is very 
 little, if any, real difference discoverable in the anatomical 
 structure in day-seeing eyes. But those of wild animals wear 
 longer without becoming impaired, than the eyes of domesticated 
 animals or man, simply because they act in conformity to natural 
 laws. Daylight, while they are ranging over fields carpeted in 
 green, or forests in which dazzling rays cannot act directly upon 
 them, favors them exceedingly. 
 
 Oculists and spectacle-manufacturers are reluctant to admit 
 the existence of this law of ocular adaptation, which is quite as 
 readily demonstrated as many other problems of less importance. 
 
250 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Vision OF AGE. 
 
 Before spectacles were invented, there is good reason for 
 believing that people had better eyesight than since. Historians 
 speak of the blind, but nowhere is there a lamentation over the 
 waning vision of old age as in modern times. 
 
 When, in consequence of advancing age, glasses are resorted 
 to, they must afterwards be continued. The eye seems to lose 
 its power of adaptation to varying circumstances, whenever arti- 
 ficial aid is provided. In other words, if glasses are prematurely 
 worn and they generally are prematurely put on, according to 
 our theory they cannot afterwards be laid aside without in- 
 convenience. 
 
 When the time comes, as it does in the life of each of us, 
 that the eye is less prominent than it was in youth, vision is 
 less distinct than before, and we meet that flattening of the 
 cornea by convex glasses, which apparently enlarges the letters 
 of a book, and therefore they are more distinct. 
 
 That is precisely the period to resist the aid of glasses. Have 
 patience, and regularly exercise the eyes to reading at the same 
 convenient distance they were formerly used, and they will, 
 after a while, return to their primitive convexity. 
 
 Will-force produces extraordinary results. Even pulsations 
 of the heart have been suspended by it, and the organ again set 
 in motion by the same agency. . It is even claimed that it is 
 possible to exert that mysterious nervous energy, so as to posi- 
 tively control the volitions of others. 
 
 With the approach of old age, there is a gradual relaxation 
 of all the tissues of the body. Those of the eye lose their 
 former tension, and the secretion and removal of the fluids 
 within the globe on which the refraction of light depends, as 
 also the chromatic perfection of the picture on the retinal can- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 251 
 
 vas, is sluggishly performed. But if we urge them to the 
 performance of their office, they begin to receive more vital in- 
 fluence, and readapt themselves to the work demanded of them. 
 In short, the determination and persistency of effort may be 
 crowned with success. 
 
 Without burdening these pages with narratives of eminent 
 success by pursuing this .course, it is quite sufficient to say that 
 failures would be few in making the experiment, if those who 
 are making it would on no account deviate from the direc- 
 tions proposed. 
 
 After weeks of hope, without apparent amelioration, two- 
 thirds of those who may have commenced with a strong reso- 
 lution to be thorough in their attempt at visual restoration, 
 become impatient and fly to glasses, and then doubt the possi- 
 bility of seeing without them in after periods of life. 
 
 Professed oculists are the bitterest foes with which the ad- 
 vocate for having nature consulted first, comes in contact. To 
 a man, they recommend glasses number one, two, three, and so 
 on, with a farago of nonsensical reasons for favoring the eye 
 when it requires no such aid. 
 
 DUBATIOtf OF VISION. 
 
 Our eyes were designed to last as long as the sense of hear- 
 ing, taste, or our fingers and toes ; and they would, were they 
 not culpably abused and overworked by the customs and 
 habits. 
 
 Blue eyes are thought best adapted for all climates. Black 
 predominates in tropical and semi-tropical countries. The 
 farther north, the lighter the blue shade ; and it is among the 
 blue-eyed that the fewest glasses are worn, according to the 
 observation of travellers. Such eyes possess qualities for a more 
 distinct vision, all other things being equal. 
 
252 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Black eyes are lustrous, and carry with them an intensity of 
 facial expression superior to gray, or any of the lighter shades 
 of color. Black, hazel, etc., if not quite as liable to cataracts, or 
 less formidable opacities, fail earlier than blue, subjected to the 
 same treatment of brilliantly-illuminated rooms, bright blazing 
 firelight, gas jets, and similar sources of injury. 
 
 There are beautiful blue-eyed ladies with blonde hair. The 
 iris and hair generally are alike in color. When eyes are too 
 light-colored to be sparkling, the hair is ordinarily yellow, 
 and the brows thin and colorless. 
 
 "With heavy dark eyebrows and black eyes, the expression 
 is strong, and not unfrequently imposing. 
 
 Pretty female faces, with small eyes, cannot be roused into 
 a look of majesty, although capable of inspiring poetical 
 sentiment. 
 
 A tragic face must have full black eyes. A tragedian with 
 light eyes must rely more upon costume for success than on his 
 features. A grand, imposing actor, male or female, must either 
 possess dark eyes, or divert the attention of the theatre by arti- 
 ficial devices voice, dress, and gesture being the handiest 
 instrumentalities. 
 
 There are actors whose faces alone, without the utterance 
 of a single word, set an audience in ^a roar of laughter. And 
 there are also players of another grade, who command a spon- 
 taneous burst of applause the moment they come in sight upon 
 the stage, before they have uttered a word. 
 
 With a continuance of the present fashion, raging among 
 young ladies, to be peering through eyeglasses, not in any 
 respect necessary, and universally known to be for the purpose 
 of giving the wearer an imagined improved personal appearance, 
 twenty years hence there will be some singular anomalies in 
 female vision. There will be elderly ladies whose two eyes 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 253 
 
 will not agree in focal axis. One eye will be long and the 
 other short-sighted, the effect of squinting through a glass with 
 one while the other is closed. 
 
 Possibly the difficulty may then be met by wearing glasses 
 whose convexities are segments of spheres of different 
 diameters. 
 
 It is for the future comfort, as it is for the preservation of 
 their good looks, for ladies to use their eyes as they were 
 intended to be used, together and not one at a time. 
 
 This unaccountable propensity for glasses, and to use them 
 on the most frivolous pretences, has been a direct cause of 
 thousands of defective eyes. 
 
 Since the introduction of gaslight in dwellings, various 
 inroads upon vision have been recognized that were unknown 
 in the days of candles and lamps. Oculists find their support in 
 cities, particularly where gas and glasses are in the ascendant, 
 and not in the country, where primitive customs still prevail in 
 respect to lighting apartments. 
 
 Reading or sewing by gaslight, which is too brilliant, requir- 
 ing protecting apparatus for shading the eyes, is far more trying 
 to them than the old-fashioned lights. The oxygen of the room 
 is rapidly consumed by gas-burners, leaving a sort of smarting 
 sensation and a more rapid evaporation of the tears. We rub 
 them, unconsciously, which promotes a more copious lachrymal 
 secretion, which is temporary relief. 
 
 Drummond lights, gas reflectors, or a profusion of mirrors, 
 gilded frames, and other reflecting surfaces in gas-lighted apart- 
 ments in common family occupancy, are* extremely injurious. 
 Such continued stimulus of concentrated luminous rays produces 
 internal inflammations of delicate tissues, and engorgements of 
 vessels, which culminate in defective vision. All these sources 
 of derangement give importance to ophthalmic surgery. 
 
254 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Gazing at grates of red-hot coal, as many do in their 
 moments of mental abstraction, examining pictures by a vivid 
 light through a strong magnifier, sitting in rooms habitually 
 draped and carpeted in bright scarlet colors, and reading in 
 rapidly moving cars, are all of them destructive to distinct 
 vision, and should be carefully avoided. 
 
 Furniture upholstered with dark colors, and carpets and 
 curtains in which those shades predominate, are of far more 
 importance where there are children, than has been suspected. 
 Weak eyes, and even severe maladies, are sometimes due to 
 such unsuspected sources. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 THEIK TEETH. 
 
 Hereditarily Good or Defective Hot Food Smoking Use no Dentifrices of 
 a Doubtful Character Those most Useful Quack Dentists Employ 
 Men of Science Cause of Caries A National Characteristic, etc., etc. 
 
 MANY allusions and cautions have already been given in 
 regard to the preservation of the teeth. But some more ex- 
 tended observations may be of service to those who have not 
 given much attention to the subject. 
 
 A hereditary tendency to an early loss of those important 
 organs is quite common ; and when it does exist, no course of 
 medication is of much value in arresting the progress of decay. 
 It is possible to retard their early destruction by precautionary 
 measures, but they cannot be saved in their original appearance 
 of strength and beauty of structure. 
 
 It is within the course of general observation that defective 
 teeth are more common in towns than the country. Different 
 systems of cookery, condiments, and seasonings, together with 
 the custom of taking coffee, tea, chocolate, and almost every 
 dish that comes upon a table very warm, if not really hot, are 
 just so many agencies acting directly upon the enamel, till 
 openings are made through it to the bony structure of the body 
 of the teeth. 
 
 Hot food, ravenous haste in eating under the plea of urgency 
 of business, and hot drinks habitually, are unfavorable to the 
 health of human teeth. If by their organization they resist 
 such influences ' through a long life, as they do with some 
 
256 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 persons, it only proves their powers of resistance are stronger 
 in some than in others. 
 
 The tendency of hot food and table-drinks is to disease the 
 gums rather than the teeth themselves, in those in whom they 
 remain sound, but seem to rise slowly out of their sockets in 
 elderly persons. They are also thrown off by the absorption 
 of the bony cell in which the fangs are imbedded. 
 
 Each root has a minute orifice at its extreme point, through 
 which enters a nerve, an artery, and by their side, a vein to 
 bring back the blood sent in by the artery. 
 
 In the body of the tooth is a cavity in which the nerve ex- 
 pands in a delicate plexus, which is the seat of exquisite pain 
 when invaded, in consequence of the crumbling away of the 
 walls which protected it. 
 
 DESTKUCTION OF THE ENAMEL. 
 
 No branch of the dental profession has exercised the mechan- 
 ical ingenuity of operators more than devising methods for 
 preventing that calamity. If consulted early, when the first 
 approaches of caries are discoverable, the arrest of the disease 
 should be tried. Gold-fillings have the approval of the most 
 experienced dentists. Yarious substitutes have been prepared 
 and had a trial, but gold holds its reputation for superiority, 
 and is not likely to be superseded. Why it is better than amal- 
 gams, artificial bone-paste, tin, or any other metallic filling, 
 must be sought for in the publications and teaching of dental 
 associations and colleges. 
 
 Through those decayed openings, sugar, cold water, etc., 
 cause excruciating misery. When the pulp has been once in- 
 vaded, it is rarely ever afterwards so secured as not to give fre- 
 quent intimations of its sensitiveness. 
 
 Cracking nuts with the teeth, by no means an uncommon 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 257 
 
 vulgarity, is an abuse that may derange their connection in the 
 sockets. There are so many ways of impairing the utility of 
 teeth, it is quite hopeless to attempt enumerating them. 
 
 Domesticated animals fed on warm slops at distilleries, on 
 kitchen refuse warmed and thickened with meal, with an ex- 
 pectation of increasing the quantity of milk quite common 
 with families keeping a single cow do their pet incalculable 
 injury. Cracks and exfoliations of the enamel follow such 
 feeding. The perpendicular chisels that stand up in their 
 teeth, of pure hard enamel, crumble and become black. Cold 
 food is safest for them. 
 
 TOBACCO. 
 
 An unfortunate opinion prevails extensively, that chewing 
 tobacco preserves teeth. It is a popular error that has made 
 many a toothless jaw. Grit, inseparable from the weed in 
 curing, gradually wears down the teeth by the constant grind- 
 ing motion, so that some men are met with in whom the tops 
 of the teeth are nearly level with their tumid gums. 
 
 Women, happily, are not prone to that abominable, filthy 
 vice of chewing tobacco ; but they occasionally indulge in some 
 of the Southern portions of this country in habits as reprehen- 
 sible and obnoxious. They rub their gums with pulverized 
 tobacco till it produces an agreeable sensation something like 
 inhaling a few inspirations of chloroform. It is applied artist- 
 ically with a brush, quite frequently when the habit has been 
 established. Ladies smoke in Cuba. Some dilapidated females 
 practise the same disgusting custom with us, but that circum- 
 stance does not lessen the objections that might be arrayed 
 against it. 
 
 Tobacco-chewing is exceedingly offensive to those who do 
 not use it. Chewers are nuisances everywhere, and especially 
 
258 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 in public conveyances and private houses. Floors saturated 
 with saliva, charged with tobacco and spittoons an American 
 contrivance for protecting carpets are sources of disease. 
 Breathing air in apartments where evaporation of such narcotic 
 filth is going on, must be exceedingly prejudicial, and, if care- 
 fully investigated, no. doubt, would be found to be the im- 
 mediate cause of strange effects upon individuals of delicate 
 organizations. 
 
 There are women who virtually unsex themselves by copy- 
 ing the habits of men of low degree, in the use of tobacco. 
 Taking snuff is one of their bad imitations. It is considered 
 unfortunate not to be handsome ; and old age with its wrinkles, 
 is dreaded by all women. But that a homely one should take 
 to snuff is perfectly surprising, as she thus forfeits all hope of 
 being an object of interest, even to a Hottentot. 
 
 DENTIFRICES. 
 
 Place no confidence in dentifrices, the composition of which 
 is a secret. In this age of science it is a privilege to know 
 precisely what we use as food, in food, and for medicine. It is 
 prudent to know too, what we are using for our teeth. 
 
 When preparations for cleaning teeth are secret composi- 
 tions, beware of them. Probably they contain an acid that 
 would gnaw into the enamel, or discolor the teeth beyond the 
 possibility of restoration to their primitive whiteness. 
 
 Teeth should not be brushed either with pulverized char- 
 coal or pumice-stone, yet both are largely sold for that purpose. 
 They insensibly wear away the enamel. To file off* dark spots 
 would be precisely analogous, only the latter would be quickly 
 accomplished, while the other would be a gradual process. 
 Thus fluids would reach the bony structure, followed by dis- 
 coloration, decay, and tooth-ache. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 259 
 
 Detergent soaps are allowable, being soft and free from grit. 
 With a soft, flexible brush, soap, with cold water, removes ad- 
 hering particles of food, and prevents the accumulation of tartar 
 about the margin of the gums. 
 
 Immediately on leaving the table, it should be an estab- 
 lished habit to cleanse one's teeth in that manner. Spasmodic 
 attentions are to no purpose. Doing it when the thought 
 occurs that they have been neglected, does but little good. It 
 is by daily care that they are preserved. 
 
 When omitting to brush the teeth, even for a few days, with 
 some persons, parasites actually barrow about their necks, and 
 build up strong domiciles of calcareous matter, which destroys 
 the periostic connections between them and their alveolar 
 sockets. 
 
 Tartar, as it is called, a product almost as hard as coral, 
 inhabited, too, by minute beings, which, under a microscope, 
 exhibit active habits, should not be permitted to establish colo- 
 nies in the mouth. 
 
 DENTISTS. 
 
 When caries appears, consult a dentist, and be careful to 
 employ no second-rate one, because his charges are low. There 
 are dental institutions and colleges where the whole art and 
 science of dentistry is taught thoroughly. Allow no cheap 
 operator to prescribe or place an instrument on the teeth. 
 Neither permit amalgams of mercury, copper, lead, or indeed 
 any filling, to be pressed into a hollow tooth, which has not the 
 approval of the magnates of the profession. 
 
 There are quack dentists, who rank next to quack doctors. 
 Risk neither health, teeth, nor purse with either. Strange as it 
 may appear, there are thousands who place themselves at the 
 
260 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 mercy of medical and dental pretenders, who would trust 
 neither with their wallets. 
 
 A gentleman of New York, a little time since, consulted a 
 medical gentleman on account of sore, inflamed gums, tongue 
 and fauces. They had resisted a variety of medications till the 
 gravity of the case alarmed the patient, and almost destroyed 
 his confidence in the science of medicine. 
 
 After examination, shocked at the raw, inflamed appearance 
 of the patient's mouth, looking as though burned, the doctor 
 inquired whether he had any defective teeth. On reflection, 
 he remembered that he had never discovered but a single decay 
 in one of the back teeth, a long while before, which was 
 promptly filled, so that his teeth might be considered perfectly 
 sound. 
 
 The physician at once suspected the cause of such extensive 
 disease of the mucous membrane had its origin there, and 
 advised the immediate removal of the filling, and refilling with 
 gold. His recovery and perfect restoration was immediate, 
 showing there was a metallic poison in the first filling that had 
 caused him so much inconvenience and suffering. 
 
 NATIONALITIES IN REGARD TO TEETH. 
 
 Dr. John Allen, a learned, skilful dentist of New York, 
 has collected an immense amount of valuable information 
 respecting the history of teeth. 
 
 The body of a man, says Dr. Allen, with all its different 
 parts, is composed of only a few simple materials combined in 
 certain proportions to give strength and utility to the whole 
 structure. Those materials are component parts of the food, 
 and, although nutrient substances used by the inhabitants of 
 different parts of the globe, appear quite similar, yet the food 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 261 
 
 provided for them in various countries possesses the same general 
 constituents everywhere essential to human organism. 
 
 Albanians of lesser Asia live principally on milk, cheese, 
 eggs, olives, and vegetables. Sometimes they bake bread, but 
 often eat their corn or maize boiled. Hippocrates says they 
 were very strong in his day. Muscular, with oval faces, ruddy 
 cheeks, and an animated eye. They had well-proportioned 
 mouths and fine teeth. 
 
 In Central America, north of the Equator, the Mandingos 
 have a barbarous custom of filing their front teeth to a point. 
 The same extraordinary operation is extensively practised 
 among tribes in various parts of pagan Africa. 
 
 In Eastern Africa, particularly, the Abyssinians have beau- 
 tiful teeth, white and regular. Nubians, and residents of 
 countries between Abyssinia and Egypt, distinguished for per- 
 sonal symmetry, having a dark-brown complexion, also are 
 remarkable for their sound, white, strong teeth. 
 
 In "Western Africa, and also in parts of Southern Africa, 
 including Congo, the negroes are well made, extremely black, 
 but noted for their superior teeth. 
 
 A people of that same vast continent, known as Khonds, of 
 a dark color, straight and well-proportioned, are also remarkable 
 for teeth of a pearly whiteness. 
 
 Turkish tribes of Kiptschak, the Tartars of Kasan, and 
 all through that extensive region in the occupancy of bold, 
 warlike, indomitably active men, are quite as celebrated for 
 fine teeth as for their martial energy and determination of 
 character. 
 
 Travellers represent the inhabitants of Eastern Arabia as 
 being above the average stature of Europeans of a temperate 
 zone. They are robust and active. With oval faces, copper- 
 colored broad foreheads, black, bushy eyebrows, dark eyes, 
 
262 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 quick and restless, their sound white teeth are a remarkable 
 national characteristic. 
 
 Arabs generally have sound teeth, even in the jaws, and 
 rarely irregular. Unless addicted to chewing betel, they wear 
 through a long life unimpaired. 
 
 Between China and Hindostan, the Siamese blacken their 
 teeth, and also redden the inside of their mouths with a masti- 
 catory of lime, caoutchouc, and betel, which (says Dr. Allen), gives 
 them a disgusting appearance. 
 
 Betel-chewing is practised extensively among the fellahs of 
 Upper Egypt. Their lips and gums look as though they had 
 been recently burned with a hot iron. Their teeth wear down 
 level with the gums in a few years. 
 
 Tahitans have splendidly developed teeth, but they have an 
 abominable custom of interfering with them, under certain cir- 
 cumstances such as extracting some of them. If unmolested, 
 they endure white and perfect to extreme old age. 
 
 New Zealanders do not exceed the common stature of , 
 Europeans, and, in general, are not so well made about the 
 limbs. Their color is of a different cast, varying from a pretty 
 deep black to yellowish, with tolerably regular features. Their 
 faces are round, with full lips, large eyes, black hair, straight 
 and strong. Like most barbarians, their teeth are broad, fully 
 developed, and white. 
 
 Capt. Fitzroy says of the New Zealanders, they are like 
 those of the Tangians in regard to their dental apparatus. In 
 old age they are either all worn down, or present an anomalous 
 appearance. 
 
 Those natives residing near hot sulphurous springs or sul- 
 phur waters, on the borders of the lake of Roturna, have enamel 
 on their front teeth yellow, although that does not impair their 
 soundness. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 263 
 
 To the eastward of the Society Islands, in the South Pacific, 
 are the Gambier Islands. They are inhabited by a people fairer 
 than the Sandwich Islanders. The average height of the men 
 is about that of Englishmen, but they are not very robust. In 
 their muscles there is a flabbiness, and in old men a laxity of 
 integuments : their skin hangs in folds on different parts of the 
 body. They have Asiatic countenances, with extremely white 
 teeth ; but they are represented to fall out at an early period. 
 
 In Easter Island, the most remote from the continent of all 
 inhabited islands on the earth, there are finely developed in- 
 habitants, with excellent features. The women are particularly 
 handsome. Such beautiful teeth are nowhere else to be found. 
 In the San War group of islands, all the natives have superb 
 teeth. The Tarawan Islands, abounding in cocoanuts, fish, 
 guava, banian trees, and sugar cane, the people have sound, 
 white teeth. 
 
 The Great Yita, one of a group of islands between the 
 fifth and nineteenth degrees south latitude, the inhabitants 
 are celebrated for their sound teeth. So are the Feejeans. 
 In fact, it has been the remark of voyagers generally, that 
 the teeth of those distant islanders are always sound, white, 
 and nearly as perfect as such organs can be, and remain so to 
 extreme old age. 
 
 Yanikora, another cluster of islands, is inhabited by a 
 black race, who cultivate taro, iguanas, and kava. Although 
 small in size, they approach the negro in general physical 
 appearance and organization, with countenances singularly 
 resembling the ourang-outang, their eyes being large, deeply 
 set, and very much like those of the genuine negro of the 
 tropics. Their lips are large and their hair crisp. An in- 
 veterate use of betel destroys their teeth early, which would 
 last as long as those of the islanders of whom we have been 
 
264: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 speaking, were it not for the vice of chewing that abominable 
 product of the vegetable kingdom which destroys them. 
 
 The natives of Australia differ from every other race of 
 men in features, complexion, habits, and language. They have 
 black hair, a cinnamon colored skin, and a dilated nose, with 
 high cheek-bones often an elongated upper jaw, with large 
 sound teeth, very rarely defective in any respect. 
 
 Throughout South America, and everywhere on the Pacific, 
 all tribes which have been met with from the earliest period of 
 Spanish exploration, are distinguished for sound teeth. Ex- 
 humed skulls exhibiting a condition of the ancestors of all the 
 tribes for more than a thousand years before any of them were 
 known to European navigators, show what perfect teeth they 
 had when living. Even after a lapse of ten centuries, they are 
 still white, sound, and powerfully strong. 
 
 All aborigines of North America had sound, white teeth. 
 Natives of Eastern Patagonia, according to Dr. Allen's memo- 
 randa, are a tall, extremely stout race of men. They are of a 
 rich brown, rather of a reddish tint, with broad heads, rather 
 flat on the top, a large mouth, thick lips, and prodigiously 
 strong teeth. In one of the islands in the Magellanic archi- 
 pelago, where the men are not more than five feet tall on an 
 average, they are quite as remarkable as any race yet dis- 
 covered, for white, sound, well-proportioned teeth. 
 
 In such estimation are sound teeth among some South 
 American Indians, that they actually wear collars ornamented 
 with them. Those strange appendages of humanity are called 
 Botacudos. The Chaymas, another wild race, very analagous 
 in physical appearance and similar in the practice of rites and 
 ceremonies, in the estimation of Humboldt, leading a very 
 simple life, have fine white teeth. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 265 
 
 CIVILIZATION IN KEFEBENCE TO TEETH. 
 
 Civilization has been destructive to teeth. A few, out of 
 many, resist those influences which bring on premature decay ; 
 but a majority of the population throughout the United States 
 have either lost some or the whole in both- jaws. Where are 
 we to look for a cause of such universally defective teeth ? 
 
 Dr. Allen is emphatic in denouncing the flour of which our 
 bread is usually made, as the reason why teeth fall into decay. 
 If flour were not bolted, but baked as it comes from between 
 the stones in grinding, elements essential to the growth and 
 reparation of the teeth would be disposed of in the system for 
 their benefit. But the phosphate of lime, existing alone in the 
 bran, is completely taken out in the process of bolting, leaving 
 nothing for the teeth. That is fed to horses, swine, and cattle, 
 whose teeth get the benefit of it, while we seek assistance of 
 dentists, which would not be necessary, had we subsisted on 
 food that had not been deprived of elements introduced in it 
 to keep the teeth in sound working order. 
 
 Dr. Allen, closing his valuable researches on the anatomy 
 and general economy of the teeth, expresses himself as 
 follows : 
 
 " According to our national statistics 1860 there were in 
 the United States, 13,868 milling establishments for the 
 manufacture of flour and meal, requiring 27,626 men, at an 
 annual cost for labor of $8,721,391. Thus you see the number 
 of men, mills, bolting-cloths, and dollars, that are employed in 
 this great improvement devised by man for changing the pro- 
 portions of one of the most important constituents in the 
 country. 
 
 " The result of ignoring this mineral element from the staff 
 of life is, undoubtedly, to a great extent, one of the most pro- 
 
266 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 minent causes of this national calamity (poor teeth), that 
 sweeps from the population 20,000,000 of teeth every year. 
 
 " The potter cannot make the bowl without the clay, neither 
 can good teeth be formed without a due proportion of lime, 
 which is abundantly provided for our use upon the outer portion 
 of the grain ; and in rejecting 'that portion of the cereals, we 
 virtually refuse to use the requisite materials of which the teeth 
 are formed. We also deprive ourselves of a due proportion of 
 atmospheric constituents, especially in our crowded cities. And 
 also of the requisite amount of exercise to promote vigorous 
 health and good constitutions. If we would be instrumental 
 in doing more good in our profession, let us do all in our power 
 to diffuse these important truths among the people." 
 
 In order to form good teeth, the proper materials must be 
 used to make them ; otherwise they will be defective in 
 their structure, and liable to early decay. 
 
 The materials of which good teeth are formed are as 
 follows : 
 
 Phosphate of lime, with traces of fluoride of calcium 67.72 
 
 Carbonate of lime 3.36 
 
 Soluble salts 0.83 
 
 Cartilage 27.61 
 
 Fat 0.40 
 
 The enamel or external covering of the teeth has a still 
 larger proportion of the phosphate and carbonate of lime. 
 These different constituents are furnished us in the food de- 
 signed for our use. Other constituents are also thus provided, 
 of which the soft tissues are formed. Although there are 
 traces of the mineral element in other articles of diet, yet the 
 largest supplies are found in the cereals, in the following 
 proportions : 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 267 
 
 In 500 Ibs. of whole grain (wheat) there is 
 
 Muscle material 78 Ibs. 
 
 Bone and teeth material 85 " 
 
 Fat principle 12 " 
 
 500 Ibs. of fine flour contain muscle material 65 " 
 
 Bone and teeth material 30 " 
 
 Fat principle 10 " 
 
 The Creator has not only provided the proper materials for 
 building up the human system with all its parts, but he has 
 also given us a fixed standard of proportions for each material 
 to be used, which we should recognize as correct ; but instead 
 of doing so, we change the proportions of the mineral element 
 (which is deposited in the outer portion of the grain) by bolting 
 out nearly two-thirds of it from every barrel of flour, and dis- 
 carding it from the staff of life, simply because it is the fashion 
 to have our bread made of the finest flour, that it may be white 
 instead of dark. 
 
 Now, it is estimated that a healthy child consumes half a 
 barrel of flour in a year ; and if this be fine, white flour, the 
 child is denied twenty pounds a year of that portion of the 
 grain which contains the proper materials for bones and teeth. 
 This deficiency of the mineral element in the food causes the 
 teeth to be comparatively soft and chalky in their structure ; 
 and the result is, in this country, where fine flour is principally 
 used for bread, there is not one in twenty without more or less 
 decayed teeth before they have passed the morning of life. On 
 the other hand, those nations who do not change the proportions 
 of the mineral constituents in their food, do not lose their teeth 
 from decay. This fact is well established by various writers 
 upon the physical history of man, in different parts of the 
 world, and is a recognized principle of physiology ; and yet, as 
 a nation, we are regardless of the consequences, and sacrifice 
 
268 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 many millions of teeth annually. This national calamity can 
 be prevented to a great extent by simply popularizing a change 
 of fashion. Let the bread of this nation be made from un- 
 bolted flour. Let us cease to change the fixed standard of pro- 
 portions in the constituents from which the teeth are made, and 
 then we may expect these organs to be well formed, and to 
 last as long as the other parts of the system. If this love of 
 fashion has too strong a hold upon the public mind to do this, 
 let parents, who regard the welfare of their children, ponder 
 well this subject, and decide which is best for their little ones 
 fine flour or fine teeth. 
 
 The essence of all arguments advanced to prove that our 
 teeth decay prematurely, in consequence of the ill-treatment 
 they receive, has been printed and promulgated from so many 
 reliable sources, that it is lamentable no heed is given to 
 such important information. 
 
 Phosphate of lime, which is essential to the good condition 
 of teeth, is carefully sifted out of flour that bakers may have 
 white bread to sell. The bran contains it. That being con- 
 sidered of no real value, though a little better than nothing, is 
 given to swine, cows, and horses. Therefore there is fed out 
 to domestic animals the most important element in grain, 
 which, if used in human food, would insure better teeth and a 
 higher development of many silly brains. 
 
 Because this important fact is of immense consequence to 
 remember, that parents may pursue a course that might secure 
 sound teeth for their children, the statement, like some other 
 physiological lessons, has been often repeated in the foregoing 
 pages, at the risk of being considered unnecessarily tauto- 
 logical. 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 THEIR HAIR.' 
 
 How it is Abused Desquamations Depilation Excessive Growth Bald- 
 ness Coverings for the Head Luxuriant Hair Preservation Hair- 
 Dyes Objections to them Effects of Lead Preparations Sulphur. 
 
 WOMEN have fewer vices than men, but they have stronger 
 prejudices. "Whoever or whatever is liked they love ; and when- 
 ever they hate, it is with the spite of a demon. 
 
 The opinions of women in regard to propriety and personal 
 appearance allow of no interference ; and in doing that which 
 is actually detrimental to themselves, if satisfied it is the custom 
 of a majority of the sex, they cannot be easily persuaded to 
 change their sentiments. Reasoning is of no use with those 
 who cannot be moved by arguments when they run counter to 
 their wishes. 
 
 Women bear misfortune with heroism, but ridicule cannot be 
 endured. Hunger, thirst, and innumerable privations are borne 
 with becoming fortitude ; but when they are objects of jest, in 
 the way of derision, if no other way of escape presents, suicide 
 is boldly perpetrated. 
 
 Nothing quite so completely engrosses their thoughts as 
 dress. It is an idol of their adoration, and, therefore, an ever- 
 present subject of contemplation. A woman unfashionably 
 clothed had better be in a tomb, if she has aspirations for posi- 
 tion. They also worship jewelry, especially in the form of 
 rings, bracelets; and, above all, diamonds take such hold of 
 
270 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 them, that they are fashionably considered anchors which will 
 hold a ship at her moorings through all the storms that threaten 
 the stability of social life. 
 
 One of the first thoughts of a woman, whether a queen or a 
 chambermaid of a second-rate hotel, is to have her hair taste- 
 fully dressed. "Were the house on fire, or an enemy sacking 
 the city, a true woman would flee with reluctance from impend- 
 ing ruin, if her coiffure were unfinished. 
 
 A woman's hair is an ornament which serves her longer 
 than the flushes of health, and it would remain beautiful, thick, 
 strong, and ornamental quite into advanced age, were it not 
 badly treated. Because they are perpetually doing something 
 to injure it, it is spoiled. As in the practice of other violations 
 of sanitary laws, some individuals have such a fountain of 
 vitality as to resist influences which destroy others ; so in 
 respect to the human hair. Some ladies are remarkable for its 
 profusion and fine color late in life, while most of the sisterhood 
 contrive to thin it out and destroy it, unknowingly, of course. 
 
 A woman's hair is an ornament, independently of an im- 
 portant service it performs in her vital economy. 
 
 How INJUKED. 
 
 Because they are always endeavoring to improve its appear- 
 ance by unremitting attentions, they are exceedingly apt to 
 deprive themselves of the full development of a thickly-set 
 head of hair by too much manipulation. 
 
 Some of the self-imposed cares which contemplate an im- 
 provement of their personal appearance, medicated washes, 
 pomatums, etc., to their hair, do it an injury. Such violent 
 discipline as it is subjected to with combs, not only breaks 
 individual hairs, but inflammations are induced in the scalp 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 271 
 
 which impair the office of the bulbs by raking the cuticular 
 surface too severely. 
 
 Females so circumstanced by their low state of civilization 
 as to rarely dress their tangled locks, have an immense growth 
 of it. Squaws, particularly, who are habitually bare-headed in 
 all conditions of weather, not only have a profusion of hair, but 
 it is strong, long, and so well set, that even combing, a process 
 only occasionally undertaken, neither loosens nor breaks it. 
 Exposure, therefore, to the open air is exceedingly conducive 
 to a healthy condition of that natural covering of the head, 
 which performs an office in relation to the brain of which 
 physiologists have as yet a very imperfect knowledge. 
 
 Not satisfied with giving a parallelism to hairs in combing, 
 when masses are twisted into cords or closely braided, the strain 
 given at the roots not only injures the cell from whence each 
 hair springs, but the hair itself is maimed, and, its connection 
 so disturbed, it becomes brittle, breaks easily, or falls out 
 entirely. 
 
 This explains how the comb becomes laden with hair at each 
 repetition of combing. Ladies are alarmed at it, and puzzle 
 themselves for a reason of such a phenomenon. But nature 
 would rarely be at fault, if its processes were not grossly inter- 
 fered with by ruthless hands. 
 
 Women would become bald like men, were their bonnets as 
 badly contrived as hats for excluding air. Being light, gener- 
 ally of open work, which gives a free ventilation, perspiration 
 escapes, and an increased temperature of retained air is pre- 
 vented. Then, again, they seldom cover the head, even with 
 their light feathery gear, more than a few hours at a time in 
 the course of twenty-four hours. The materials of which their 
 bonnets are fabricated are of a texture far more favorable 
 for the protection of hair, or rather non-interference with it. 
 
272 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 than felt or stiffened glazed pasteboard, made impervious by a 
 coating of gum-shellac in all kinds of modern hats. 
 
 HATS. 
 
 A few manufacturers, having become enlightened in regard 
 to the importance of having the same temperature within the 
 hat as outside, have small orifices made in the top or sides, 
 which no waj mar its beauty. Yentilation, secured by small 
 apertures, is philosophical ; and had hats been so constructed 
 from boyhood, they would probably have saved many from 
 baldness whose heads have not a hair on the top. 
 
 DESQUAMATIOKS. 
 
 Desquamations of the scarfskin, in a mealy, white sort of 
 powder, under the common name of dandruff, is wholly due to a 
 protracted chronic inflammation of the scalp. Successive crops 
 are thrown off, and they continue to be, just as long as the hair 
 is kept too much on the strain, by being pinioned with side- 
 combs and firmly-fixed pins. 
 
 Whenever the slow state of inflammation continues 
 for a considerable time, patches of hair come out, leaving 
 bare, bald spots which are rarely ever reclothed with another 
 crop. There is a vital tenacity in the bulbs which holds out so 
 that thin solitary hairs, short and sickly, give a hope of a 
 restoration, but they possess but little strength, and seldom 
 have much color or vigor. 
 
 Cases are cited, when, after partial baldness, new and vigor- 
 ous hair shoots forth ; but that depends more on the constitu- 
 tional vigor of the individual than on drugs, pomatums, or other 
 miscalled hair-restoratives. 
 
 "When hair does reappear, it is certain the cells which, in their 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEX. 273 
 
 aggregation, constitute a bulb, are intact. If they begin to secrete 
 good hair, of a quality which was raised in youth, it must be a 
 gratification, and the secret of it is the vital energy of the system. 
 Such bald places as have been described peculiar to women 
 who bestow the most care upon their hair, a reason for it is 
 theoretically imagined to be the growing propensity of invisible 
 parasites. But it is quite doubtful whether such mites are 
 operating as extensively as supposed. In fact, whether any 
 such destructive invisibles infest hair that is so often combed, 
 brushed, and otherwise variously treated, is questionable. ' 
 
 A BALD WOMAN. 
 
 A perfectly bald woman is extremely rare ; still, there are a 
 few. Those partially so are common. Wigs are so ingeniously 
 fabricated, that it would be difficult to determine which has suc- 
 ceeded best. Nature or Art. A system of hair-dressing, com- 
 mencing with the day, leaves it roped, cabled, and pinioned, as 
 though each mass were a prisoner. 
 
 With such a condition of the head, an arrest of depilation 
 could hardly be expected. The first step towards improving 
 the secretion of hair, is to abandon severe tension, and the next 
 measure should be to dispense with caps night or day. 
 
 A coarse net, merely sufficient to keep the hair from falling 
 into disorder, is the only covering that should be worn. No 
 tonic application will compare with pure cold water, next to air, 
 which holds the first place. Its value is demonstrated in the 
 immense development of hair on the heads of those who wear 
 neither hats, caps, nor bonnets. 
 
 Some ladies are deluded with a theory that hair is kept soft, 
 pliable, and glossy, by being covered with oiled silk. 'With 
 that expectation, those more than usually solicitous for its pre- 
 
274 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 servation, on the appearance of deterioration, fly to that perni- 
 cious course, and thus actually hasten a catastrophe they are most 
 anxious to avoid. 
 
 When a luxuriant growth of hair floats about so much un- 
 heeded by young misses as to be troublesome, the extent of 
 confinement to which it should be subjected is the use of a net. 
 Exhalations are not then impeded. If not as freely evaporated 
 from the cranial surface as from the neck, face, and hands, of 
 the roots of which such frequent mention has been made, will 
 surely take on a morbid action. 
 
 EXTRAORDINARY GROWTH. 
 
 Yery tall, slender, fragile young ladies, who develop prema- 
 turely, that is, present all the physical signs of perfect 
 womanhood from thirteen to fifteen, are generally distinguish- 
 ed for a profusion of long, soft hair. It is related that one of 
 those delicate, and certainly too quickly-made w r omen, who 
 leaped, as it were, from, childhood into the full proportions of a 
 woman, without possessing a corresponding mental development, 
 had such an unnatural growth of hair as to cause her death. 
 It grew several inches in twenty-four hours, and consequently 
 exhausted the vitality of her system in an unprecedented man- 
 ner. Such examples are rare, but occur frequently enough to 
 become matters of physiological record. 
 
 "When it is apparent the development is in excess, the 
 quantity and growth of the hair being wholly disproportioned 
 to the rest of the body, and, therefore, self-evidently diverting 
 nutrition from other channels, medical counsel is advisable. 
 
 Advice from old women, just because they are old, is not 
 prudent. Hundreds of them in large communities are plethoric 
 with receipts for human afflictions ; but neither their opinions, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 275 
 
 nor their ointments, commonly farragos of incompatible, chem- 
 ically considered, should be accepted. They may succeed in 
 making water-gruel, spreading mustard plasters, or understand 
 the way of preparing catnip-tea ; but if health is a boon, never 
 trust to any for prescriptions for preserving it, who are not con- 
 versant with the law of life. 
 
 SIGN OF A VULGARIAN. 
 
 There are a plenty of bold men who might have been 
 clothed in their own hair instead of a barber's wig, had they 
 conformed to the usages of cultivated society leaving their 
 hats in the entry before entering a drawing-room. It is one of 
 the rudest and most common of vulgarities, and therefore 
 deserving a severe reprehension, that in some of the Southern 
 States a man's hat is a permanent fixture to his head. Whether 
 they are removed at night is a question. Certainly, they wear 
 them in the presence of ladies as tenaciously as. orthodox Israe- 
 fltes do theirs in a synagogue. If anything smacks of extreme 
 vulgarity, it is to see a person claiming to be a gentleman, sit- 
 ting in a parlor in conversation with ladies without removing 
 his hat. 
 
 ANTIQUITY OF WIGS. 
 
 Revelations from the mummy pits of Egypt show that 
 subjects of the Pharaohs of the male gender all wore wigs. They 
 were extremely light and skilfully made of delicate materials, 
 which permitted a free ventilation. At present, and indeed for 
 many centuries past, since mummy-making was abandoned, 
 Orientals have their heads closely shaven about every ten days. 
 Even male infants pass through the same operation, and have 
 it continued as long as they live. As mummies were shaven 
 
276 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 as far back in the history of Nilolic civilization as any authentic 
 evidences can be found, it appears that in exchanging wigs for 
 the tarboush or red felt skull-cap barbering the caput was not 
 omitted. It is a national custom in the East of extreme 
 antiquity. 
 
 It is an opinion, founded on the supposition, that vermin 
 have always been such a source of personal annoyance in Egypt, 
 that the only way of escaping from them was to cut off the 
 hair where one variety principally burrow. Barbers are very 
 common in the cities of Egypt, plying their razors on the heads 
 of customers by the wayside at all hours. They use no soap, 
 but simply moisten the hair with water, then pare the cranium 
 as smoothe as an eggshell. 
 
 Females in that same vermin* infested country cultivate long 
 hair like other women. They are less exposed to camels, don- 
 kies, dogs, and goats, than men, and hence less liable to the 
 tribulation to which the other sex are exposed from their 
 intercourse with those animals. 
 
 PREMATURE Loss. 
 
 A premature disappearance of hair, like a premature loss of 
 teeth, results from neglect, or, in other words, in consequence 
 of not taking proper care of either. It is asserted in a popular 
 theological work, that teeth were never intended to ache. But 
 they do, and generally those who deplore their loss are very 
 much to blame. 
 
 Hair being a secretion directly from arterial blood through 
 the agency of a peculiar glandular apparatus, intimately asso- 
 ciated with cells from whence it shoots forth, if any violence is 
 inflicted on them, their function is interrupted, and if that 
 violence continue, they die and are obliterated. 
 
 A beautiful network of vessels and nerves surrounds each 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 277 
 
 hair bulb. The vascularity is apparent under microscopic in- 
 spection. Therefore, the less we do in dressing the hair beyond 
 keeping it orderly, the better. By frequently cropping, it is 
 supposed to thicken the hairs at their base, and encourage a 
 more vigorous growth. To some extent, that may be true. 
 When short, air is more freely admitted to the scalp, and in- 
 sensible, perspirable emanations escape without raising an 
 unhealthy temperature when pent up in ordinary hats, silk caps, 
 and fur head-dresses. 
 
 The whole secret of having luxuriant hair is to keep it suffi- 
 ciently loose for a free access of air, and never resorting to oils, 
 pomatums, or bear's-grease, however sweetly scented to disguise 
 their origin in lard, cotton-seed oil, or goose-grease. 
 
 No preparation compares with pure cold water, for giving a 
 gloss and vitality to a lady's hair. Nothing equals it, and being 
 within the reach of all, they have the means of securing a 
 precious boon without money or price. 
 
 GRAY HAIR. 
 
 Another point in regard to hair relates to its color. Ladies 
 become gray, occasionally, while they consider themselves 
 younger than they really are. It is no evidence of old age to 
 have white or gray hair as early as when just emerging from 
 their teens. It is a hereditary affair in such cases, and shows 
 itself through one or two generations. Nor can a defective 
 secretion of coloring matter be restored by any art or applica- 
 tion known to science. 
 
 It has been said the Chinese have a mode of meeting the 
 difficulty by taking something into the stomach that supplies 
 the blood with an element for restoring the hair to its original 
 color. The chemists doubt it, and they know quite as much 
 
278 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 and far more of science, than people of the flowery central 
 kingdom. 
 
 Hair-dyes are extensively manufactured to cover up those 
 premature indications of age, about which some ladies are 
 extremely sensitive, without reflecting upon the fact that it is 
 an incidental circumstance, sometimes quite independent of 
 longevity. 
 
 Moral objections are urged against the use or resort to hair- 
 dyes, on the score of its being a deception. But ladies practise 
 other deceptions quite as heinous, and if one is wrong, the 
 other is equally reprehensible ; although no public censor has 
 yet had the courage to particularize what those deceptions 
 may be. 
 
 If the color of an edifice does not suit, the proprietor gives 
 it another to meet his views, without causing any unpleasant 
 comments of those passing by as to his right to interfere with 
 a natural process of decay that is going on, or the moral ter- 
 pitude of covering up a color which he does not like with 
 another more acceptable to his taste. 
 
 Ladies have the same inalienable right to color their fiery red, 
 yellow, or gray hair to black, brown, or any other tint which 
 makes it more conformable to their individual standard of 
 beauty, without scruple or apology. 
 
 It is a duty to look as well as we can to other eyes. If we 
 can appear younger than we are by a little beet-juice on the 
 cheeks, or have the hair at fifty look as it did at eighteen, 
 there is no more wickedness in doing so, than in wearing 
 artificial teeth. 
 
 If it is an offence in the sight of heaven to color our hair, 
 it must be an offence also to substitute new clothing for thread- 
 bare garments. The moment waning humanity attempts to 
 rejuvenate in external appearance, there are troops of excessively 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 279 
 
 good people who denounce it with holy horror, as a profana- 
 tion and an unpardonable offence against Christian propriety. 
 
 We are advocates for harmless improvements in our ex- 
 ternal appearance, even if it relates to the substitution of new 
 clothes for old ones. As the hair first indicates the decrease 
 of vital force, there is nothing criminal, or particularly offensive 
 to the public sentiment in keeping up cheerful appearances 
 to conceal the melancholy discovery that we are no longer 
 young. 
 
 No one is so weak as to suppose that by staining the 
 cheeks or coloring the hair, either will prolong their stay on 
 earth, or prevent them going to that far-off country from 
 whence no traveller returns. To remain at a stand-still point 
 and be forever in the bloom of youth, with no indications of 
 having passed a meridian, cannot be expected. But it is 
 gratifying to some to conceal their infirmities, but not so easy 
 as to cover up wrinkles or mount a wig. 
 
 Through the instrumentalities of art, ladies succeed ad- 
 mirably in covering up many evidences of having been in the 
 land of the living considerably longer than they are willing 
 to acknowledge. 
 
 Pharmaceutical preparations for external and internal 
 administration, of no value whatever, are articles of commer- 
 cial importance, because they are represented to do so much 
 towards the rejuvenation of antiquated females. They cannot 
 be convinced of the imposition, so strong is the desire to 
 appear in perpetual vigor. An active trade in hair-dyes, under 
 the title of restorers, regenerators, inmgorators, etc., therefore, 
 is mainly sustained by those of both sexes who fancy gray 
 hair speaks too plainly of age. 
 
 Do hair-dyes interfere with the health of those who apply 
 them? 
 
280 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 HAIK-DYES. 
 
 Occasionally frightful accounts of their poisonous effects 
 make excellent sensational paragraphs, and aid the sale of 
 some new preparation that is represented to contain no in- 
 jurious properties. 
 
 Under the impression that the skin absorbs fluids, hair- 
 dyes are occasionally denounced. It is very questionable 
 whether any cuticular imbibation can take place. Experiments, 
 carefully conducted to determine whether it is possible for the 
 skin to absorb any kind of fluid in which the whole body had 
 been immersed for hours, and varied in temperature, it could 
 not be detected in any of the organs, or in the secretions or 
 excretions ; nor by weighing before and after, was there any 
 loss more than might reasonably be expected by evaporation. 
 
 Therefore, hair-dyes are not, and cannot be absorbed. It 
 is possible to irritate the scalp with an acrid preparation. If 
 there are abraded surfaces, cuts, scratches, or open ulcerations, 
 then it is quite probable there might be both a local and a 
 constitutional disturbance. But if no such conditions exist, 
 then it is idle to dwell on the effects of a hair-dye, even if it is 
 made up of such materials. 
 
 That lead may be held in solution to a very small extent in 
 water drawn from lead pipes, in which it has remained con- 
 siderable time, is not doubted. Some persons are extremely 
 susceptible to its influence in the minutest form, while others 
 are in no way molested by it. Thus, palsies are often traced to 
 that source, and it is quite possible those supposed to have been 
 partially or wholly paralyzed by hair-dye, received the lead in 
 the water they drank, and not by its external absorption. 
 
 Most of the dyes have the reputation of being made of lead 
 and largely of sulphur. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 281 
 
 Lead pipes are objectionable, but it would be expensive to 
 introduce a substitute. Millionaires only could afford to tap 
 street mains with silver or glass tubes of sufficient strength to 
 resist pressure from without or from within. Municipalities, 
 boards 'of health, and chemists are convinced, by thorough 
 investigation, that lead in solution in lead water pipes is so 
 minute in quantity, as not to endanger public health. As well 
 might printing be abandoned, and books and papers written 
 with a pen, as before the invention of type, because one com- 
 positor in one hundred thousand has benumbed fingers in 
 consequence of lead in their composition. 
 
 There is a vital chemistry a preservative force constantly 
 operating for the protection of the body separating, carrying 
 away, or neutralizing poisonous properties taken into the 
 stomach in aliments and water, which, if allowed to remain un- 
 changed but a little time, would be productive of painful con- 
 sequences. It is in that way that lead poison is disposed of 
 before so much of it accumulates as to become unmanageable 
 by that conservative vital force which is a watchful guardian 
 over organic life. 
 
 Some persons are infinitely more susceptible to certain im- 
 pressions than others. On the whole, we must be reconciled to 
 the contingencies of modern civilization. It would be absurd 
 to abandon thousands of conveniences because it is possible 
 some of them might raise a pimple, and thus mar the beauty 
 of a fine face. 
 
 By no means run a needless risk in an effort to improve 
 personal appearance; but in the application of hair-dyes, no 
 danger need be apprehended, if the skin is not broken, and the 
 scalp is free from ulcerations. 
 
 Simply moistening the hair cannot in any way conduct the 
 fluid into the system. Hairs are not tubes which may be filled 
 
282 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 at their outward extremity, like a bottle ; nor are they hollow 
 cylinders, through which a stream may be conveyed to the 
 skull. Hair performs no such function. The fluid of which 
 they are formed is taken directly from arterial blood, flowing 
 from the base outwardly. No inverted action can take place. 
 Neuralgic twinges, numbness, or giddiness, from the use of 
 hair-dyes, are not produced by its absorption. If at all, it is 
 by evaporation, and inhaling the vapor into the lungs, and 
 thus conducting the poison to the circulation. 
 
 Hair-dyes contain sulphur. That, too, is denounced on the 
 false supposition that it creeps insidiously through the hair, 
 like a sand-gigger, into the system. Irritation is not absorp- 
 tion. Continued applications of solutions of lead or sulphur 
 would unquestionably become irritants, and they indirectly 
 affect the general health. A palsy of the muscles about the eyes, 
 or sides of the face, or of the broad, flat occipito frontalis that 
 covers the top of the head, from hair-dyes, must be extremely 
 rare ; and then, rather from sympathy, than a direct action of 
 the dye to the extreme twigs of the first and second branches 
 of the fifth pair of nerves, which are finely dispersed in the 
 facial muscles. 
 
 Nerves of motion emanate from the vertebral column, 
 while those of special sense have their origin in the brain. 
 Threads of the superior, middle, and inferior facial nerves 
 which control the muscles on the sides of the face, are wholly 
 beyond and independent of twigs from quite another source 
 distributed to the hair bulbs. 
 
 There is no valid physiological objection, therefore, nor 
 pathological, to staining white hair black, brown, or yellow. 
 If mixtures contain pulverized cantharides, or any powerful 
 irritant, of course uncomfortable consequences will follow. 
 
 Some hair-dye manufacturers claim that they restore the 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 283 
 
 hair to its original color. That is a mistake, since it can only 
 be accomplished by a natural process, the tint being carried to 
 the bulbs by arterial action. Chemically changing the color is 
 not a restoration, and, besides, it fades out in a few days, if 
 neglected. 
 
 Vegetable dyes are always preferable to metallic. Turks, 
 Persians, Egyptians, and other Orientals, who glory in their 
 intensely black beards, have them stained by decoctions and 
 inspissated juices of plants. Inmates of harems, too, avail 
 themselves of simple products of the vegetable kingdom for 
 their raven locks. 
 
 Sulphur is extensively used in American hair-dyes, but 
 that need not excite alarm or apprehension. When applied, as 
 it often is, to the whole surface of the body in the form of an 
 unguent for cuticular affections, in baths or internally, no 
 baneful effects follow. How much less direct, when simply 
 applied to the hair. 
 
 Whoever gives to the patronizing-hair-dyeing public a 
 purely vegetable coloring fluid, will reap a rich return. 
 
CHAPTEE XXII. 
 THEIR FEET. 
 
 Can't make them Small Enough How they are Injured Origin of Corns 
 and Bunions Tight Shoes Enlargement of the Toe-Joints by Com- 
 pression India Rubber Evil of High Heels Remedy for Pains and 
 Deformities. 
 
 HAVING adverted to the painful consequences of wearing 
 garments that fit too closely about the chest, without the re- 
 motest expectation of gaining converts among those for whom 
 these observations have been written, the consideration of 
 another evil of serious moment to the every-day comfort of 
 women, is a subject not to be overlooked by them. 
 
 It being admitted that Nature is superior to art, it is extra- 
 ordinary that women of sense continue to torture themselves, 
 with an apparent resolution to compel Nature to sanction their 
 follies. Notwithstanding the most positive and undeniable 
 proofs that have been given in public lectures, and in printed 
 volumes, to explain intelligibly the injurious effects of tight- 
 lacing, women are as obstinately opposed to any change in that 
 respect, as they would be to a reyolution that would abridge 
 their freedom, or interfere with cherished opinions in regard to 
 their moral duties and obligations. 
 
 Feet were designed to be used in walking, and' it must be 
 admitted that their anatomical structure admirably fits them for 
 sustaining the weight of the body. 
 
 An architectural arrangement of seven irregularly-shapen 
 bones of the instep, brought together in a manner to form two 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 285 
 
 arches, unequalled in strength and adaptation for the purposes 
 contemplated in their structure, needs only to be examined 
 attentively to convince a sceptic that the evidence of design is 
 too forcibly demonstrated in the mechanical adjustment of that 
 part of the foot, to be questioned by a sane mind. 
 
 There was a necessity contemplated for giving the lower 
 extremities peculiar strength. The feet are complicated 
 machines, managed by a multitude of vessels, cords, nerves, 
 ligaments and voluntary muscles, and yet, with all their com- 
 plexity, if not ill-treated, they rarely get out of order. They 
 would outlast some of the apparently higher organs, and are 
 always in readiness for use when properly treated. 
 
 DISSATISFIED WITH NATUBE. 
 
 Women are notorious for being dissatisfied with that part of 
 their own organization. Some of the kindest-hearted, sym- 
 pathetic ladies, are intolerably severe upon their own feet, 
 which they torture without remorse, when it would distress 
 them painfully to witness the struggles of a fly in a spider's 
 web. They comment, without apology, on the feet of other 
 women. 
 
 They are harder upon their own feet than on the doubtful 
 reputation of a rival, and recklessly tamper with their pedal ex- 
 tremities to their own discomfiture. 
 
 A small foot is more prized by some women than a full 
 purse. She is a bold female who prefers comfortable shoes, if 
 they appear to be large, while millions court the applause of 
 fools who pretend to idolize little feet. 
 
 Laws of proportion are studied by artists in living beings ; 
 one may have a large head, another long fingers, a plump 
 hand, or a coarse and angular pair of shoulders. Some are dis- 
 
286 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 tinguished for short limbs, others are stilted up on immensely 
 slender legs, hardly larger than the slender supports of a 
 flamingo. 
 
 As people vary in dimensions, weight, strength or graceful- 
 ness, so their feet vary, but they are always precisely of the 
 size they ought to be, to sustain the pressure from above. 
 Unfortunately, ladies, as a general observation, do not see things 
 in that light. An arbitrary ruling of the votaries of fashion 
 has decided that feet must be small to be elegant. This is the 
 reason why distorted feet are almost universal among women 
 who are removed, by fortunate circumstances, above the lower 
 stratum of society. 
 
 They patiently submit to severe grievances without com- 
 plaining, but if their feet happen to be larger than the standard 
 of gentility requires, their lamentations, though not always 
 audible, are, nevertheless, nursed in secret through years of 
 hope and ambition to be remoulded. 
 
 From the vanity of some ladies, whose thoughts are more 
 concentrated on their feet than their education, it impresses 
 spectators with an idea that they think more of them than they 
 do of the culture of their minds. 
 
 ABNOKMAL CONDITIONS. 
 
 Corns, bunions, incurvated nails, callosities on the heels, 
 riding toes, distortions, chilblains, and many other troubles of a 
 less grievous character, are each and all of them the results of 
 wearing such shoes as most commonly do not fit them, in conse- 
 quence of determining to wear those which are too small. 
 Tight shoes are the immediate agents in the production of all 
 those pedal woes. 
 
 If small feet have their worshippers in worthless admirers, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 287 
 
 there are those who view with sorrow a deplorable progress of 
 that phase in civilization which cripples women in order to 
 make them satisfied with themselves. 
 
 Swellings, cedematous enlargements of the joints, especially 
 of the great toe, or a doughy fulness of the ankles, increased 
 by too tightly-laced boots, are all the results of voluntary abuse. 
 
 By mistake, boots and shoes may be too small,* but where 
 there is a determination to conform to a prescribed standard, 
 the wearer is not to be bluffed off by pain, or the outcry of 
 oppressed flesh and blood at the point of pressure. 
 
 Continued compression cannot be endured long without dis- 
 arranging the anatomical relations of the bones. The foot is 
 built up of twenty-six bones, no two being alike, of the same 
 weight, size, or shape, besides one or two additional ones, not 
 always constant, called sesamoids, resembling split peas. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF EXTRA BONES. 
 
 An extra bone may be generated to meet certain contin- 
 gencies. These sesamoids are two, three, or even four in 
 number, depending on circumstances affecting the particular 
 region where an extra bone may be developed. 
 
 Originally, only two exist, and these are at the base of the 
 large toe, being props for lifting the long flexor tendon farther 
 from the articulation, to increase its power. Bunions are an 
 inflamed thickening of the periosteum and an enlargement of 
 the ends of two bones making the great toe joint. 
 
 If there is pressure at that point, long-continued inflamma- 
 tion sets in. The irritation extends down from the skin to the 
 periosteum, the membrane immediately investing the bone, 
 which thickens, becomes puffy and exceedingly sensitive when 
 its vitality is roused. 
 
288 THE WAYS OF WOMEK 
 
 Each tissue is thickened, and the exterior becomes red and 
 painful. Unless all pressure is immediately removed and ap- 
 plications made to reduce the inflammation, matter forms and 
 sometimes is copiously discharged. 
 
 If not opened with a lancet, the pent-up matter being 
 allowed to remain, the bone may become diseased, which 
 greatly complicates the misfortune. 
 
 Ulceration leaves the joint a little enlarged, even when 
 treated skilfully. !N"o shoe ever fits precisely or easily, after 
 the periosteum has once been roused to inflammation. 
 
 Topical applications are only temporary relief. It is pre- 
 posterous to think of a radical cure without removing the 
 cause. 
 
 Another tribulation connected with uncured bunions, is the 
 spongy enlargement of the long metatarsal bone to which the 
 great toe is attached. Once enlarged, it seldom ever falls back 
 to its normal dimensions. As a natural consequence, a shoe 
 worn over it reveals the distortion, giving that part of the foot 
 an unsymmetrical appearance. 
 
 Persons are constantly met with one or both large toe-joints 
 so much enlarged as to immensely distort the shoe. Every 
 step is attended with torture. 
 
 When a bone becomes diseased, there is an exaltation of 
 vitality of a peculiar character. In health it is of a low order, 
 just sufficient to connect it with a living system, otherwise it 
 would stand in the relation of a foreign body, not to be 
 repaired when injured or governed by laws of the general 
 economy. 
 
 The nerves in the bones are extremely attenuated, while 
 the circulation of arterial blood is sent to the remotest section, 
 carrying in solution materials for growth or repair. Yet even 
 such slender threads, communicating as they do with nervous 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 289 
 
 centres, when contused or invaded, immediately communicate 
 the fact. An injured bone cannot be pacified easily. Medica- 
 tions for them consist principally in topical appliances for 
 reducing inflammatory action. 
 
 The severest sufferings from bunions or corns are not per- 
 manently relieved by unguents, emollient lotions, or paring 
 away hardened cuticle. The remedy which is a cure, is simply 
 wearing shoes that do not press on the tender spot. 
 
 Wearing sandals for a month, which have no vamps, would 
 allow nature to reestablish order where it has been disturbed 
 by tight shoes. 
 
 TEMPORARY BELIEF. 
 
 A sensible way of seeking temporay relief practised by 
 laborers, is to cut a piece out of the shoes or boot, over the 
 bunion. A hole thus made, affords immediate relief from 
 agonizing pain. 
 
 No outlay for advertised specifics need be expended. Free- 
 dom to the oppressed part is all that is required. 
 
 When ladies reach their dressing-rooms from a promenade, 
 distressed by their beautifully-fitting boots, their first act is to 
 exchange them for soft slippers the older the better. Other- 
 wise they sit in their stockings, shoeless, till the anguish 
 brought on by exercise in their tormentors has somewhat 
 subsided. 
 
 Corns speak in forcible language, which makes those who 
 have them realize that no half-way measures are successful in 
 their treatment. 
 
 They actually spring into existence to defend the spot 
 where they appear, from impending injury ; and as faithful 
 
290 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 sentinels, cry out at every movement which menaces the 
 locality under their charge. 
 
 Barefooted people have no such afflictions, nor those who 
 wear cast-off shoes a size or two larger than their feet. Corns 
 never appear unless the toes are wedged too closely. Being 
 pinched expresses the condition which develops those painful 
 prominences. 
 
 If the vamp of a shoe is too low, the pressure interferes 
 with a free circulation on the upper surface of the toes. Inflam- 
 mation follows, the cuticle begins to thicken and rise above the 
 ordinary level. 
 
 On its underside or base, a corn has a conical shape the 
 point, like a thorn, on the slightest pressure, irritates the in- 
 flamed periosteum below, and thus they act as messengers, 
 announcing through the nerve filaments something wrong is 
 transpiring, which is thus telegraphed to the brain ; which, if 
 a sensible one, will remove the tormenting pressure. 
 
 In these pedal miseries, volutarily induced, a demand is 
 made for a distinct profession to meet the contingency. Thus 
 chiropodists are in the enjoyment of lucrative incomes. Corn- 
 doctors have a thriving business in cities. 
 
 Corn-martyrs do not deserve much commiseration, because 
 they might have permanent relief by simply discarding tight 
 shoes. 
 
 Softening corns in tepid water, and afterwards paring them 
 down, is only temporary relief, with a moral certainty of a 
 speedy uprising again to the former elevation. The more 
 prominent, the worse it seems to dig down into the flesh below. 
 
 Corn doctors are not infallible. They promise well, but 
 their operations must be frequently repeated. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 291 
 
 CHILBLAINS. 
 
 Chilblains those burning red patches which are excessively 
 irritable on the heel, the sides of the feet, and occasionally on 
 the sole are produced quite as often by pressure and the non- 
 escapement of perspirable emanations from the feet as from 
 snow-water. 
 
 Glazed leather and India rubber shoes and boots prevent the 
 evaporation of perspiration from the feet, and hence they become 
 extremely tender and liable to chilblains. India rubber con- 
 stricts the toes, by tightening the bones and deranging their 
 original relations. 
 
 Such shoes should only be worn for a very short period 
 for walking through muddy streets and removed on entering 
 the house. Aside from the injury inflicted on the feet by 
 wearing them as some do, indiscreetly, days in succession, if 
 the perspiration is pent up and not allowed to escape, the gene- 
 ral health has been found to be disturbed from that cause. 
 Habitually worn, India rubbers distort the feet and leave them 
 extremely tender. 
 
 Thin shoes, too thin and light to resist moisture from with- 
 out, particularly when there is snow on the ground, invite chil- 
 blains. Ladies should wear shoes as thick and strong as those 
 worn by men, if they are similarly exposed in the open air. 
 Thick soles ought not to be forgotten. Ordinarily, they are 
 not much thicker than paper ?| which explains a liability to those 
 erysipelic attacks which commence suddenly and run a rapid 
 course. 
 
 ERYSIPELAS OF THE FEET. 
 
 Solutions of common salt, sulphate of zinc, decoctions of 
 rose leaves or camomile flowers, are each and all of them sooth- 
 
292 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 ing, and not unfrequently effectual in dispersing the malady, if 
 applied seasonably. 
 
 EFFECTS OF CONTINUED COMPEESSION. 
 
 There is scarcely any difficulty or derangement of the toes 
 or feet that does not originate in violence from compression. 
 Cotton-batting, stuffed between the stocking and the corn or 
 bunion, 'so as to raise the shoe above the corn, is an admirable 
 way of obtaining immediate relief, when so circumstanced that 
 no other more permanent treatment can be had. 
 
 HIGH HEELS. 
 
 Sprains, abrasions of the skin, etc., which are inconveni- 
 ences, may frequently be traced to immensely high heels which 
 ladies cannot dispense with, who make pretensions to fashion- 
 able equipment. 
 
 With these warning words, if they still persist in making 
 themselves uncomfortable even to intense suffering, they must 
 be given over as incorrigible and willing dupes to the arbitrary 
 demands of fashion which imposes hardships upon them greater 
 than they ought to bear. 
 
 It will be an amusing exhibition for a distant generation to 
 have pictorially illustrated the phases of female fashions of 
 this generation. The cut of garments, high heels, enormous 
 hip and other paddings, pyramids, of artificial hair piled on in 
 such profusion as to be entirely out of all proportion to the rest 
 of the body, with other ridiculous contrivances that must 
 embarrass their freedom of motion could not fail of being con- 
 templated then as now, with mirthful astonishment. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 293 
 
 A GRACEFUL STEP. 
 
 A steady, dignified step, is hardly possible on high heels. 
 Mounted thus, the weight is thrown forward, the shoe becom- 
 ing an inclined plane, which gives a peculiar stoop that took the 
 name of the Grecian bend when first introduced. It is like 
 standing on the roof of a building, cobbled up on high heels, 
 being continually obliged to resist a tendency to pitch forward. 
 
 High heels bring immediate trouble to the toes, by wedg- 
 ing them into the extreme point of the shoe. 
 
 Absurdities in dress die out for a while and then revive 
 again, as though humanity could not be satisfied without being 
 slightly miserable. Just at this particular juncture, high heels 
 are very high, with a base of support not much broader than a 
 finger-nail. Shop window specimens exhibit the sacrifices 
 women make to appear taller than Dame Nature ordained them. 
 Fashion or death is the ruling spirit, and some have both. 
 
 Female pedestrians step out of their high-heeled boots as 
 quickly as possible on a return from a promenade. Heels, even 
 half an inch high, cannot be worn without bringing an extra 
 strain upon some of the muscles of the leg, particularly on the 
 long flexors of the foot. 
 
 Ridicule heelless shoes of Orientals as we may, they are 
 philosophically right, and we are wrong. They are at ease with 
 them, while our ladies are only comfortable when they are off. 
 
 How much rheumatism, neuralgia, and cramps are due to 
 high heels, may be ascertained by the study of works on morbid 
 anatomy. 
 
 PARTIAL ADAPTATION TO CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 By persistence in wrong-doing, that is, voluntarily making 
 one's self uncomfortable, the muscles of the foot and leg after 
 
294 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 awhile adjust themselves partially to the new condition, but 
 always at the expense of a loss of tone, and of the full exercise 
 of their normal power. Whenever liberated, they contract back 
 to their former state, which is a permanent relief, if not again 
 compelled to act unnaturally. 
 
 Men are no wiser than women in regard to the high-heel 
 mania. Their boots are elevated quite too much at the heel ; 
 consequently, they are familiar with corns and bunions, enlarged 
 toe-nails, unsymmetrical feet, and bulging out of the leather 
 over those irregularities, created by forcing the foot forward 
 into a narrow extremity of space. 
 
 We were all born with good pedal extremities, precisely 
 adapted to the plane of the earth, and they would serve us ad- 
 mirably, free from excrescences, incurvated nails, riding toes, 
 callosities, protruding joints, and other annoyances, to extreme 
 old age, if they were never put into unyielding leather prisons, 
 too small to receive them. 
 
 ANTIQUE FOOT. 
 
 A small foot may be exceedingly beautiful in the estimation 
 of those who have very large ones. If narrow, and the toes are 
 in close contact, the foot is not a true type of the -best form. 
 Sculpture represents the toes spread, so that there is space 
 between them, thus giving them a firmer hold and a broader 
 base of support. 
 
 Camels are born with callosities over several joints on which 
 they rest while being laden or unladen. Man has a thick, com- 
 pact protecting cuticle in the sole of the foot, beautifully 
 cushioned for protecting nerves, blood-vessels, and tendons 
 under an archway of small bones, between the heel and base of 
 the toes. The arch is kept in place by inelastic ligaments, run- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 295 
 
 ning from point to point, so remarkable in the disposition made 
 of them, as to show, beyond the cavil of ingenious doubters, that 
 intelligence was exercised in their distribution, to give perfec- 
 tion to the foot. Without just that particular arrangement, the 
 weight of the body would crush the structure into confusion, 
 and utterly destroy the mechanism. 
 
 As we did not contrive our own bodies, we must admit of 
 the existence of a Supreme Intelligence that did produce such 
 marvellous mechanism. 
 
 Artists find the foot a profound study, simply looking to its 
 exterior ; while anatomists are rapt in wonder and admiration 
 at revelations in its interior. 
 
 Both elementary anatomy and physiology should be taught 
 in female schools and seminaries, that the pupils might have 
 early insight into their own complicated organization. It would 
 make them more careful of themselves, and lead to the observ- 
 ance of those laws, the violation of which, through ignorance, 
 whether relating to their stomachs, their brains, their eyes, or 
 their feet, embitters life, and destroys them before they have 
 had as much of life as they would have had under a more per- 
 fect system of education. 
 
 A medical gentleman of Boston excited considerable derision 
 some years ago, because his common-sense was superior to 
 fashionable folly. One of his so-called foolish whims was, in 
 having shoes for his children made exactly to conform to their 
 outline, marked round on a piece of leather with a pencil. 
 Their shoes had a comical appearance, to be sure, contrasted 
 with modern manufacture, but an object of importance was at- 
 tained, viz., good, sound feet. 
 
 Let those laugh who win. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 THEIR PHYSICAL NECESSITIES. 
 
 Is life essentially prolonged or shortened by the quality of 
 our food 3 
 
 Many physicians would answer no, if they gave the subject 
 much thought. Each and all entertain theories which naturally 
 have an origin in deliberations on the phases of disease, and the 
 influence of diet. 
 
 Most persons have a vague notion in regard to themselves, in 
 reference to what may or may not be suitable for the stomach. 
 
 Even those of eminent physiological attainments are often 
 influenced by whims, rather than by facts, in their theories of 
 Hfe. Evidence is extant of the highest import, incontestably 
 proving that it is of very little importance, or rather of no con- 
 sequence, what kind of food we subsist upon. Longevity 
 depends on a peculiar vital endowment, transmitted from 
 parents to children. Neither food nor climate perceptibly 
 modifies the life period, aside from outbreaks of pestilence and 
 epidemics. 
 
 A beggar in the street lives as long as one who satis- 
 fies every craving of his nature. Wise, considerate, and 
 learned men who believe themselves masters of hygienic laws, 
 cannot arrest the progress of what is denominated self-limited 
 disease. Nor is it easier to arrest the tendency to long life, 
 when the food has been wholesome, without violence. 
 
 There must be specific laws regulating the life period of all 
 animals and plants. "With the aid of science, it is possible to 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 297 
 
 acquire a better knowledge of those laws of limitation. It is 
 within the sphere of possibility to determine the precise day of 
 death. 
 
 FEMALE MEDICAL EXAMINERS. 
 
 This subject has been studied with earnest solicitude by life 
 insurance managers, but, unfortunately, the inquiry has too fre- 
 quently been confided by those institutions to medical donkies, 
 instead of men of brain. It is very mortifying that medical 
 examiners appointed for the express purpose of discovering the 
 physical prospects of life in applicants for policies, are not often 
 distinguished for ability, educational acquirements, or profes- 
 sional standing. A man of knowledge, fitting him to counsel 
 executive officers in granting the benefits of life insurance, has 
 not much chance of appointment, unless he is a relative of some 
 controlling spirit of the institution. Were researches made into 
 the organization of many companies, it would surprise the 
 public to learn they are family affairs, largely owned and 
 managed for the support of a president, secretary, cashier, and 
 other officers, including fathers-in-law, brothers-in-law, cousins, 
 sons, and nephews, and occasionally doctors, all held together by 
 a tether of consanguinity. 
 
 Women should be the medical examiners of women for life- 
 policies. Reasons might be given for this assertion, of import- 
 ance to companies. A female medical examiner should be 
 attached to the office permanently, even if she were not a rela- 
 tive to the ruling elder. 
 
 DIMINUTION OF VITAL FORCE. 
 
 When we have reached a period at which there is a full 
 development of our powers and faculties, the scale is turned, 
 
298 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 and a diminution of life-force is gradually perceptible. It is 
 precisely so with animals, in whatever climate they are located. 
 There is less activity in the circulation, a gradual relaxation of 
 the tissues, and an increasing obtuseness in the nerves of special 
 sense. A reluctance to engaging in pursuits that formerly were 
 sources of pleasure, is another observable circumstance, indicat- 
 ing a culmination and downward tendency of the body and 
 mind. 
 
 Though there may be a long lingering old age, the day of 
 doom at last arrives. Rude winds rend a limb here and there, 
 and by and by a gale in its fury levels the giant oak with the 
 ground from whence it came. As it is with stately trees of the 
 forest, so it is with monsters of the deep. A whale may roam 
 in the depths of the ocean for centuries, able to withstand 
 terrific assaults of formidable enemies, but the great heapt that 
 drove a column of blood one hundred feet at each pulsation, 
 finally beats for the last time, at the end of a thousand years, 
 for aught we know to the contrary in obedience to a law 
 of limitation. 
 
 Though we understand many of the once-called mysteries of 
 Nature, yet we cannot ward off a blow that will terminate 
 existence, when most solicitous to live. Man, of all created 
 beings, has a conscious knowledge of what must transpire in re- 
 gard to the close of life, without being able to avert it. 
 
 SANITAKY PRECAUTIONS. 
 
 Moses gave the first code of sanitary regulations ever pro- 
 mulgated, which are substantially in force at the present day in 
 most Christian countries. Wherever they are strictly observed 
 in respect to animal food, the people enjoy the best health. 
 
 "Were a catalogue given of the kinds of food on which 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 299 
 
 humanity should subsist, it would not be satisfactory, simply 
 because articles that would be excluded as dangerous in one 
 country, might be valued as very superior in another. 
 
 But man being omnivorous, he can be sustained on anything 
 which yields nutrition to graminivorous or carnivorous animals. 
 In Arctic regions, the demand of the stomach is for fat meats 
 and animal oils. On approaching the Tropics, both the quality 
 and quantity is constantly varying, the craving being for a mix- 
 ture of vegetable with animal food the appetite for the first 
 rather predominating. 
 
 At the Equator, fruits, grains, nuts, seeds, and roots are the 
 principal food of the inhabitants ; but, according to travellers, 
 a desire for animal aliment becomes so perfectly uncontrollable 
 at times, as to lead to terribly revolting exhibitions of can- 
 nibalism. 
 
 Disgusting feastings on human flesh are almost certain to 
 take place every few months in the gloomy interior of that part 
 of Africa which is rarely penetrated by white men, the home 
 of gorillas, if meats cannot be procured from other sources. 
 
 A demand for elements, nowhere else found but in animal 
 food, partially explains those barbarous acts of feeding on a fel- 
 low-being, which characterize the rudest condition of human 
 society. 
 
 There really is no positive standard, that is, a catalogue of 
 articles which are proper, and exclusively so, for nourishing the 
 body. 
 
 Were a butcher to sell horse meat in our cities, he would, 
 unquestionably, be prosecuted for vending an unwholesome 
 article, unfit and unsuitable for human food. A feeling of in- 
 tense exasperation would probably agitate the community 
 where such an outrage had been perpetrated. Yet, in Paris, 
 horse-beef is a recognized market production, and well esteemed 
 
300 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 as nutritious and proper. There were eight markets in which 
 it was extensively sold before the late revolution. 
 
 Let a prosecution be commenced almost anywhere in the 
 United States, against some one who had the hardihood to sell 
 horse-meat, and, ten chances to one, there would be an array of 
 medical experts to testify it was an infamous transaction, de- 
 structive to individuals, as it would be to the public 
 health. 
 
 Man is omnivorous, and, because he is so, amply qualified to 
 range over the globe, regardless of circumstances which restrict 
 most animals to particular localities in which their appropriate 
 nourishment is provided. 
 
 What would become of the inhabitants of Lapland, deprived 
 of fish and seal, no vegetables to be had there ? 
 
 Necessity compels those at the Arctic Circle to feed on that 
 which will best keep up the current of their vitality. Under 
 another condition of climate, millions subsist on rice. But the 
 intellectual calibre of both fall infinitely below those in temper- 
 ate zones, who are sustained on a mixed diet of flesh and 
 vegetables. 
 
 Our jaws are studded with four distinct kinds of teeth, viz., 
 incisors, or cutters, in front ; canine, called eye-teeth, for tear- 
 ing and holding firmly ; single and double molars, exclusively 
 for grinding. 
 
 Carnivorous animals have no grinders, the graminivorous are 
 without the canine, as they appear in dogs, lions, tigers, and the 
 like. The motion of their jaws is up and down, cutting upon 
 the principle of shears, with no sliding movement. Cattle, 
 horses, camels, etc., grind their food into pulp before swallow- 
 ing it. 
 
 Man both cuts, rends, and grinds. In short, he performs all 
 the acts in preparing food for the stomach, which the animals 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 301 
 
 referred to perform singly. Thus, anatomically, is a proof 
 found of his omnivorous nature. 
 
 Passing from the farther consideration of the omnivorous 
 character of man, to qualify him for a general superintendence 
 of the earth's surface, it may be fearlessly asserted that those 
 who confine themselves exclusively to a vegetable diet, will 
 never be distinguished for their intellectual powers. 
 
 A flourish of trumpets and tempestuous declamations before 
 weak-minded audiences of converts to any ism which happens 
 to be promulgated by adventurers for notoriety, occasionally 
 secure a disciple who is captivated with the announcement that 
 we were designed to subsist exclusively on vegetables. 
 
 Their physical and mental deterioration begins when they 
 adopt the system. A temporary brilliancy, and vaunted clear- 
 ness of perception is imagined to result from an abandonment 
 of animal food for baked apples, boiled turnips, and roasted 
 potatoes. 
 
 Rapsodies from a change of habits are symptoms of ap- 
 proaching lunacy. 
 
 Women require a mixed diet. They should take, without 
 reserve, whatever belongs to the family regimen. This is not 
 to be construed into an arbitrary system of dietetics, from which 
 no deviations are allowable. Whatever is relished and digest- 
 ible, is proper. 
 
 Meats have been human food in all ages, and they will con- 
 tinue to be served while humanity remains the same. 
 
 If men were originally monkeys, they probably subsisted as 
 monkeys now do, on nuts and farinaceous products. When 
 men confine themselves exclusively to vegetable food, they will 
 dwindle down again to the level of their putative ancestors. 
 
 A mixed food of animal and vegetable is a law of necessity 
 in temperate zones. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MrNTOR SOUECES OF ANNOYANCE. 
 
 Pride Mutilations without Destroying the Intellect Ligation of Limbs by 
 Elastics Freckles Epidermis Moth Patches Nostrums Grass Food 
 Danger of Topical Applications Red Noses Astringent Lotions 
 Smelling Bottles Stimulants Appearing to Advantage. 
 
 A NATURAL instinct urges TIB to appear to the best advan- 
 tage before others. That leads to placidity of deportment, 
 propriety of conduct, and the practice of courtesies which are 
 agreeable, if not essential, to a good understanding with those 
 with whom we are associated. 
 
 It would be hardly short of insanity to seek opportunities 
 for disgusting acquaintances by habits offensive to decency or 
 the common usages of well-regulated society. 
 
 This inborn disposition impels us to efforts for improve- 
 ment, and to conceal defects, real or imaginary, that might 
 diminish our attractive qualities. External appearances have 
 more influence with the majority of mankind than intellectual 
 attainments or moral excellences of character. 
 
 When pride is in excess, it eventuates in ridiculous exhibi- 
 tions that provoke comment and biting remarks. With a 
 desire to improve personal appearance, the remedy is not un- 
 frequently worse than the defect. Thus wigs, cheek-plumpers 
 to puff out hollow mouth- walls, artificial eyebrows, gum- 
 elastic bosoms, wooden calves to spindle-shanks, and some 
 other devices for appearing developed to a commendable 
 standard of excellence, cannot escape comment when the 
 deception has been discovered. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 303 
 
 MUTILATIONS POSSIBLE. 
 
 There is a story illustrative of the pruning a living human 
 body may pass through, without destroying life or apparently 
 impairing the mind. 
 
 "When Miss Jones became Mrs. Brown, the happy husband 
 was nearly frightened out of his senses by the extraordinary 
 metamorphoses through which she passed. He had gazed with 
 pride on Mrs. Brown's tine proportions.. 
 
 Knowing her to be a woman of discretion, whose forty 
 years of singleness had afforded ample opportunity for quali- 
 fying the charming creature for superintending the genteel 
 establishment to which she nad been matrimonially introduced, 
 Mr. Brown congratulated himself on the prospects of his 
 domestic future. 
 
 Retiring, Mrs. Brown first removed a splendid head of hair. 
 Next, on taking off a pair of gold-bowed spectacles, out came 
 one eye. Laying both on a table, she then deliberately with- 
 drew a double set of milk-white teeth. Progressing, a full 
 panting bosom was unbuckled. Taking a position before a 
 mirror, one side of her porcelain nose came off. Sitting down, 
 a wooden leg was unscrewed, and then the left arm just below 
 the elbow ! 
 
 Such are among the mutilations possible, without in the 
 slightest appreciable manner interfering with mental oper- 
 ations. 
 
 All artificial appendages which improve the corporeal pro- 
 portions, while contributing to the comfort and sometimes to 
 the necessities of the individual, are allowable and should be 
 encouraged. It is high art to so improve and conceal defects 
 which are unpleasant objects to others. 
 
 Dentistry has largely contributed to the restoration of im- 
 
304: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 paired faces, and essentially benefited millions whose digestion 
 was defective from the loss of teeth. 
 
 WHAT HAS BEEN NEGLECTED. 
 
 Elastics for keeping sleeves and stockings in place have 
 escaped observation. It is time they received attention from 
 physiological reformers who devote themselves to teaching the 
 way of long life by the avoidance of popular abuses, self- 
 imposed and, therefore, the more difficult to remove. 
 
 Those girders obstruct a return of blood from the ex- 
 tremities, through superficial veins, and therefore should be 
 abandoned. . 
 
 A reason why some ladies have very small, bony limbs, AS 
 because they have not blood enough circulating in them. 
 
 Elastics below the knee block the cutaneous veins; and 
 those articles under the name of sleeve-bands worn on the 
 arms, obstruct the currents in both arteries and veins, as they 
 press them against the bone. 
 
 Garters do not produce much pressure on the arteries, as 
 they are deep-seated and protected from compression by their 
 favorable location. 
 
 Hose should be kept up by elastic straps, a few inches in 
 length, extending from a button on the drawers to another at 
 the top of the stocking on each limb. That simple contrivance 
 completely relieves the vessels. If the circulation is unim- 
 peded, tne limbs will develop under appropriate exercise. 
 
 FRECKLES. 
 
 Freckles are regarded as afflictions. Persons of a light, 
 florid complexion, especially those having redish, or entirely red 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 305 
 
 hair, more generally than others, are apt to be marred with 
 dingy discoloration s of the skin. 
 
 Dark hair, dark eyes, and dark complexions are usually 
 exempt from such anti-beauty spots. 
 
 Freckles cluster under the lower eyelids, by the sides of the 
 nose, back of the hands, on the upper part of the neck, or, 
 indeed, wherever there is an habitual exposure to sunlight in 
 a particularly warm season. 
 
 Washes, lotions, teas, etc., without number, are everywhere 
 on sale, represented as efficient in the removal of such defects. 
 But they are utterly useless, doing damage rather than reliev- 
 ing the skin from offensive dingy discolorations, freckles, or 
 yellow irregular patches. 
 
 Exclusion from solar light is a precaution, in the brightest 
 part of the day. A veil is unquestionably a partial defence 
 against intense rays of a brilliant sun, which corrugate the skin 
 where the coloring pigment under it is thin or scantily 
 secreted. 
 
 The epidermis, or first skin, is both thickened and cor- 
 rugated at intervals of a few lines, by exposure to the sun's 
 rays in many persons. Those of a nervous, sanguine tempera- 
 ment, and of a light complexion, are most susceptible to 
 freckling influences. 
 
 It is consolatory to believe in the theory that freckles are 
 protecting shields to parts immediately under them, particu- 
 larly when the attempt to remove them is unsuccessful. 
 
 That freckles prevent the passage of some of the prismatic 
 rays from reaching something that ought not to be impinged 
 upon by them, is rather an assumption, than susceptible of 
 proof. 
 
 Whether pores, or twigs of cutaneous nerves, are protected 
 from injuries that might ensue, were it not for thickened places 
 
306 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 in the outer tissue, requires more and closer observation than 
 the subject has hitherto received. 
 
 Freckles are both mechanical and chemical barriers to 
 properties in sunlight that would inflict an injury, if not 
 intercepted. Such is the imagined origin of them with those 
 who have more imagination than facts to build upon. 
 
 Possibly, extreme minute capillary vessels are protected in 
 their labors by being covered by a thicker scale for such is a 
 freckle. Where there* is one, it is a darker, thicker spot than 
 the space between any two of them. 
 
 MOTH SPOTS. 
 
 Moth-patches, as they are called, being irregularly defined 
 discolorations of a yellowish hue, commonly appear about the 
 chin, the base of the ears, on the forehead, and, indeed, just 
 where they are conspicuously in sight: oftenest on the faces 
 of ladies of a lax habit. Nursing women, and those who pass 
 much of their time in poorly ventilated apartments, are most 
 predisposed to such unwelcome appearances. 
 
 No calculation can be made respecting their duration. 
 Young mothers are sometimes suddenly surprised by those 
 yellow markings. Ladies, too, in middle life, without any 
 assignable cause, are also the occasional subjects of moth- 
 spots. 
 
 Quacks and nostrum-venders hold out encouragement for 
 their removal by applications of secret compositions. But 
 there is no utility in their farragos. 
 
 NEW APPLICATION OF STEAM. 
 
 A process has been successfully practised of late for the 
 removal of those disagreeable discolorations, which is unobjec- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 307 
 
 tionable, and far better than dosing with internal medicine that 
 can have no efficacy whatever. 
 
 The place is covered by a cup, from the bottom of which 
 extends an elastic tube communicating with a vessel generating 
 steam. The hot vapor is thus applied at a bearable tempera- 
 ture, to thoroughly soften the skin to a point that it may easily 
 be rubbed off by the linger on removing the cup. 
 
 That parboiling process also softens the pigment, which 
 also slides off from the cutis vera, or true skin. 
 
 A return -of the yellowish coloring matter may gradually 
 reappear. Application of the steam-vapor a few times, at the 
 same time circulating freely in open air, rarely fails of 
 accomplishing the object. 
 
 On peeling off the mothy skin, cover the denuded surface 
 with gold-beater's membrane or thin court-plaster, in order to 
 exclude the air for a few days. 
 
 AVOIDANCE OF CAUSES. 
 
 Gross food, such as too frequent meat-eating, -pepper, vine- 
 gar, or irregularities in diet, are thought to contribute to 
 moth-spot development. 
 
 Pimples, elevated purple aureolar discs, minute vegetations 
 near the wings of the nose, clusters of black dots, and hard, 
 gnarly moles on the face, cannot always be removed without 
 excision. 
 
 There is absolute danger from the topical application of so 
 many falsely-named medicinal remedies; the compositions, 
 when known, being invariably condemned by physicians. It 
 is never safe to tamper with drugs of any kind ; neither pills, 
 powders, nor fluids, however prominently recommended, with- 
 out approval of a medical adviser. 
 
308 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 In taking preparations, the ingredients of which are 
 unknown to any but those interested in the profits, difficulties 
 are produced, not unfrequently far more serious than the 
 minor ailment for which they were given. 
 
 A RED NOSE. 
 
 A red nose on a lady's face is an extreme mortification. 
 Sometimes an intense shining redness remains a fixture for 
 months in succession, unaffected either by external or internal 
 medications. An engorgement of cutaneous blood-vessels on 
 the cheeks or nose resists discutient applications far more obsti- 
 nately than inflammations on other parts of the body. 
 
 Sometimes the tip of the nose is of a shining tumid redness. 
 The vessels of the skin are in a permanent state of inflammation. 
 Cooling lotions rather aggravate than ameliorate the tumefac- 
 tion, which is opposed to the theory that excessive local heat 
 can be reduced by cold applications. 
 
 Lead water also aggravates the condition ; and worse still, 
 if persisted in too long, results in a loss of sensibility at the tip, 
 by producing a paralysis of the cutaneous nerves distributed 
 there. 
 
 For a red nose, mild treatment is safer and more successful 
 than harsh measures. If air and light are excluded, very easily 
 accomplished by a covering properly fitted through the night, 
 and much of the time through the day, considerable relief may 
 be anticipated. 
 
 But the best method to pursue is, to apply soft, emollient 
 applications, mildly warm. Fine Indian-meal, in the form of a 
 poultice, mixed in alum-water, should be worn through the 
 night. Follow up the practice without intermission, for weeks. 
 It is best not to have the mixture very astringent at first. The 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 309 
 
 astringency may be gradually increased by a solution of more 
 alum. 
 
 The skin "becomes gradually softened, the enlarged vessels 
 diminish, and, as the inflammation subsides, the redness disap- 
 pears. 
 
 When the poultice is removed on rising in the morning, 
 favor the partially-parboiled surface with a soft piece of oil- 
 cloth, pierced with orifices for seeing, breathing, and using the 
 mouth. 
 
 Avoid smelling-bottles, pungent odors, snuff, and all other 
 irritants of the nasal cavities, when a tendency to an engorge- 
 ment about the wings or the nose itself exists. 
 
 A caution in regard to liquors may be unnecessary to 
 ladies ; however, it is certain that any extra excitement which 
 drives the blood rapidly would be an aggravation of inflamed 
 patches on the face. 
 
 Red-nosed smokers must abandon their idol, if they have a 
 desire to recover their once good appearance. A volatilization 
 of the essential oil, or whatever property is diffused in the smoke 
 from a cigar or pipe, seems to add fuel to the inflammation. 
 
 Women being less prone to the use of stimulants than men, 
 and less exposed to various demoralizing influences from pro 
 fane and vulgar associations, escape many ills which are incident 
 to weak and thoughtless men. 
 
 Women are occasionally seen with red noses, and morbidly 
 flushed cheeks, who are egregiously imposed upon in their haste 
 for relief. They are duped into purchasing vaunted specific re- 
 medies that have not the least medicinal virtue. 
 
 If ladies have more credulity than men, happily, they have 
 fewer sins. 
 
 Many precious lives are sacrificed on the altar of female 
 vanity, in the earnest pursuit of phantoms. 
 
310 . THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Every woman exerts herself to appear to the best advantage. 
 That prompts them to appear neat and tidy in their persons, 
 and if they have blemishes, real or imaginary, they strive to 
 remedy the defect as speedily as possible. 
 
 That is why they are patrons of all sorts of advertised nos- 
 trums which promise more than can be performed. When 
 all women are dead, there will be no more sale for patent 
 medicines. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 THEIR PECULIAR ORGANIZATION". 
 
 To point out all the anatomical differences of the sexes, is 
 not contemplated. No subject would be more difficult to 
 popularize, and, were it accomplished, there would still be 
 problems unsatisfactorily * managed to meet the theoretical 
 views of those who are always ready with objections, even when 
 nature bears witness to the statements and deductions of 
 medical philosophers. 
 
 From childhood to age, there is a marked difference between 
 men and women in their physical structure and appearance. 
 Moral qualities are laid aside in this examination. 
 
 There is a delicacy in the very bones of a female, that con- 
 trasts singularly with the strong, hard, rough skeleton of the 
 male. But in some of the carpentry of the osseous system, it 
 is obvious that intelligent reference is manifested in the varia- 
 tions recognized by anatomists to specific purposes which do 
 not exist iu the male. 
 
 With the same number of bones, arranged in the same 
 order, and fulfilling the same offices, and moved by precisely 
 similar muscles, influenced by nerves exactly like those in man, 
 yet a woman is not a man. She is of mankind, and yet she is 
 by herself. 
 
 Though of a finer texture, and operated upon by subtle 
 influences, regulated by a law of periodicity past finding out, 
 she is really no more complex than a strong, athletic barbarian 
 in her physical economy. 
 
312 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 A woman is not a perfect being by herself, neither is a man. 
 The two constitute one, and that is a relation contemplated 
 from the beginning by the Power that fashioned them. From 
 birth up to a pubert age, some parts of their system have been 
 so slowly developing, the physiologist is perplexed in his 
 attempts to make plain an interesting chapter regarding the 
 phenomena of development. 
 
 While the brain enlarges in volume, the limbs lengthen, 
 the muscles increase in bulk and strength, essential organs in 
 the economy of animal life remain quiescent for years. Per- 
 haps it is better to say apparently at rest performing no office 
 for a long while. That apparent quiescence is undoubtedly a 
 period of extraordinary changes, with reference to a revolution 
 which changes the child to a woman. 
 
 Precisely so are the conditions of boys through years of 
 adolescence. At thirteen or fourteen, in most countries, a 
 change of voice and the appearance of a beard indicate a sudden 
 advance made from an imperfect to a perfectly organized man. 
 
 An early maturity characterizes animals generally. In- 
 sects have an exceedingly rapid series of evolutions. To be 
 born and become the parents of a numerous offspring in a 
 single day, and then give way to a coming generation, are 
 extraordinary circumstances. Those living longest are the 
 slowest in being physically perfected. 
 
 Poets have exhausted their magazines of imagery in their 
 meditations on the helplessness of infancy. But the compen- 
 sation for those years of incapacity of body and mind for any 
 of the responsibilities of life, is found in the longevity of the 
 race. The average of existence far surpasses the life lease of 
 the general animal kingdom. 
 
 This subject will have special consideration in the chapter 
 on longevity. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN 313 
 
 Whether the moon exerts any more influence on the adult 
 female than on the adult man, is left open for the discussion of 
 professors in their official intercourse with their pupils. "Were 
 some learned pundit to assert the planet Mars, rather than 
 the cold moon, the controlling power, who is able to con- 
 fute it? 
 
 There are peculiarities of structure and functions of our- 
 selves, which are divine mysteries. ^Nature eludes our best 
 concerted efforts for watching processes in her laboratories. 
 Ever vigilant and uncommunicative, we are still profoundly 
 ignorant of what we most desire to know. 
 
 We know how life terminates, but who knows how it 
 begins ? 
 
CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 THEIR MALADIES. 
 
 A Repetition of Facts and Opinions in preceding Chapters Childhood Trans- 
 plantation of Men and Women Too much Comfort Diseased Lungs 
 The Chest A Stitch in the side Incidental Infelicities Temperature 
 Family Failures Dosing too much. 
 
 REFINEMENTS are accompanied by a train of discomforts, 
 particularly severe upon women. 
 
 Unfortunately, an impression prevails just where it ought 
 not to be entertained, that their organization is so delicate they 
 cannot have exposure to air, exercise, labor, or play, such as men 
 are exposed to without detriment to their health. 
 
 As already explained, their anatomical structure is no more 
 complex than that of males. There is a delicacy and a finer 
 finish, if that expression is allowable, but otherwise there is 
 nothing in the form or development of the female body which 
 indicates its unfitness to resist atmospheric changes or any in- 
 fluences from without, which the physical constitution of the 
 other sex can successfully withstand with impunity. 
 
 Hardships are met with in all conditions of life. Pleasures 
 and pains are about equally divided. Finally, there is no special 
 reason why women should not be as free from sickness or indis- 
 position from ordinary causes, and endure as much and as long 
 as men, all other things being equal. 
 
 Hereditary infirmities, such as scrofula and pulmonary con- 
 sumption, appertain to some families. Easy circumstances 
 present no reliable modifying conditions that promise less suf- 
 fering than is to be met with in abodes of poverty. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 315 
 
 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Among the poor a deficiency of proper kinds of nourish- 
 ment in childhood leads to physical conditions which are 
 troublesome in adult years. Especially so in regard to female 
 children. Restrained as they generally are from out-door exer- 
 cise, allowed to boys, and restricted most unfortunately, more 
 frequently than otherwise, to small, badly ventilated apartments, 
 their domestic pursuits ordinarily being sewing, or of a kind 
 that keeps them most of the day and all of the night in social 
 imprisonment they grow up with less firmness of bone and 
 muscle than their brothers, since no one cares whether their 
 faces are tanned by the sun, or their feet are wet by wading in 
 gutters. 
 
 Frequent exposure to wind and weather, without refer- 
 ence to temperature or humidity, does very much toward build- 
 ing up a hardy body. Being kept from such influences debili- 
 tates, and those thus reared possess feeble powers of resistance. 
 A boy braves the storm, while the girl wilts and fades away 
 under circumstances of home discipline, that robust, stirring, 
 boys could not endure. 
 
 On reaching womanhood, a girl is not able to resist influences 
 that destroy her, while young men contend with the same con- 
 tingencies without being moved by them in respect to health. 
 
 "When the teeth show defects as early as fourteen to sixteen 
 not unfrequently much sooner it is pretty conclusive evidence 
 of the premature death of those organs, resulting from an in- 
 sufficient supply of phosphate of lime. The bones are not 
 usually so well grown nor so strong in young misses whose teeth 
 exhibit a paucity of that .element, necessary for the perfect 
 development of the whole osseous structure. 
 
 "We have already shown that in agricultural regions, where 
 
316 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 cereal grains are easily and abundantly cultivated, the people 
 are taller and their bones are both larger and stronger than the 
 bones of those who live where crops are only sparingly raised. 
 
 In Western wheat-growing districts the inhabitants are pro- 
 verbial for white, beautifully-set, sound teeth. When those 
 materials, which once gave from forty to fifty bushels to an acre, 
 have been exhausted by continuous culture, without returning 
 to the soil an equivalent for what has been drawn from it, 
 the product dwindles to fiiten or twenty bushels. Then de- 
 fective teeth begin to appear in young persons. The third 
 generation, on the same ground, deteriorate in stature. Short 
 men and women, descendants of stalwart parents in the same 
 locality, would have been as tall and as perfect as their grand- 
 parents, had they been provided with the amount of phosphate 
 of lime they received in their youth. 
 
 With an increase of population, and diminished products in 
 a once fertile grain-growing area, the result of long-continued 
 tillage, the inhabitants begin to seek new homes. This is the 
 commencement in this country of removals to new lands farther 
 off, which are rich. An improvement in the physical aspect, 
 and, certainly, in the height of children born in the new locality, 
 is noticeable when they reach an adult age. 
 
 In cities, a change of diet, even though they may have come 
 from the pure atmosphere of the country, not unfrequently 
 immensely benefits some persons by the removal. It is because 
 their systems are provided with elements necessary for a com- 
 plete development of their bodies, which their habitual food in 
 the interior did not furnish. 
 
 Change of location is often quite as favorable, in a physical 
 point of view, as change of position, after sitting for hours on 
 the same seat. That law of change, in relation to man and 
 animals, is recognized in another form, in respect to a rotation 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 317 
 
 of crops. It is a gross mistake to attempt raising on the same 
 ground, perpetually, one kind of product. There must be 
 alternations, which afford opportunity for Mature to replace, in 
 her own way, elements that are taken away, and then, after 
 awhile, the grain that had exhausted fertility may succeed 
 again. 
 
 BEST. 
 
 JSTo people have ever managed a farming interest so philo- 
 sophically as the Jews, while they observed the requirements of 
 their great lawgiver. Every seventh year the land rested one 
 year. It gave it time simply for garnering up a new store of 
 salts for raising subsequent crops. 
 
 In avenues of trade, handicraft, or in the exercise of profes- 
 sions, competition calls into activity parts of the brain which, in 
 rural life, were almost, if not quite, dormant. 
 
 The transfer of some of their vitality from the muscles, as in 
 holding a plow, or reaping a field, requiring no vigorous effort 
 of mind, to the busy scenes and stirring enterprises of a great 
 mercantile establishment, brings out intellectual force in country 
 boys they were not conscious of possessing. 
 
 By degrees their faculties are systematized ; they grasp at 
 great undertakings in commerce, and when the brain has been 
 educated to the new order of things, mental friction subsides, 
 and slender boys become portly gentlemen, bold calculators, in- 
 trepid contractors with government, bank directors, and far- 
 seeing financiers. 
 
 TKANSPLANTATION OF MEN-. 
 
 Society is immensely advanced, as a city is, in being recruit- 
 ed from the honest farmer's one-story house. 
 
318 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 A transplantation of men and women is as important for 
 the progress of society as the removal of trees from their native 
 soil to ornament public parks. 
 
 Choice fruit-trees are invariably taken from a nursery while 
 young, because they acclimate and accommodate themselves to 
 the circumstances of a new locality. 
 
 Old trees cannot be removed so readily. They die sooner 
 than expected. Nothing is gained, either in quality or quantity, 
 by running counter to those general laws which are recognized 
 by the uneducated as violations, when plants and children are 
 rudely handled, or old trees or old persons are expected to do as 
 well in new conditions, as when left to themselves in places 
 where their habits have been established, and their growth 
 matured. 
 
 Select boys and girls for removal to new spheres of life, as a 
 shrubbery is chosen, for healthful appearance, vigor, and flexi- 
 bility. They can then be handled with impunity, and made to 
 develop where they will be both useful, beautiful, and orna- 
 mental. 
 
 With females, a change of residence, from rural freedom in 
 a country home to a city, is not so satisfactory in all respects, as 
 with boys. Conventionalities in elevated circles keep them 
 under too much restraint for a play of the vital machinery. 
 
 When they come to town with impaired health, it is some- 
 times extremely advantageous to an enfeebled young lady to 
 have the stimulus of a maritime residence ; or in being trans- 
 ported to an inland town, where they escape the humidity of 
 easterly winds, or long, wet, cold springs, that were causes of 
 indisposition in the locality whence they came. 
 
 On being established in town, they find it customary, if not 
 necessary, to adopt quite a new mode of life, which, in connec- 
 tion with close dwellings, heated by furnaces, instead of an open 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 319 
 
 fireplace, with a cheerful glow of blazing wood, together with 
 regulations and preparations for the breakfast-table in one dress, 
 for a promenade in another, at the dinner-table in something 
 else, and lastly, for the drawing-room, in still another change of 
 costume ; and all those, independently of very formidable and 
 elaborate transformations for the opera, are direct sources of 
 debility, and, certainly, of great fatigue. She must have a re- 
 markable constitution to withstand so many and unrelaxing 
 causes of indisposition. 
 
 Too MUCH COMFORT. 
 
 Women break down under too much domestic comfort, 
 sooner than under domestic hardships. Thus, people, whose 
 days and nights are a series of excitements, high living, and 
 irregular hours, scarcely ever number as many years as those 
 who are obliged to contend with poverty and privations. It 
 is among females in the latter condition that extreme longevity 
 is found. 
 
 Men fly about in open air, inflating their lungs with refresh- 
 ing properties, while their beautiful wives and daughters, with 
 pale faces and tallowy complexions, are lounging on sofas, com- 
 plaining of ennui. How many of them fall like promising 
 blossoms before the fruit is set, killed by kindness. Such is too 
 much civilization. 
 
 Travelling for health is nothing more nor less than ranging 
 about for vitality, which all the rich can neither find nor pur- 
 chase, while the poor have it forced upon them through broken 
 panes and cracks in the walls. 
 
 They are pitied because their lot is hard. They have no 
 luxuries for their stomachs ; no two thousand dollar shawl to 
 protect their white shoulders; no velvet ottomans for their 
 feet ; no frescoed apartments to suffocate in, nor down beds for 
 
320 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 sleeping away life in idleness. But they have what money 
 cannot procure or physicians furnish, viz., rosy cheeks, sound 
 lungs, white teeth, a good appetite, and other requisites for 
 reaching three score and ten without converting their homes 
 into a hospital. 
 
 A consumptive diathesis is most commonly transmitted from 
 the mother. Whether induced in them by exposures, hardships, 
 or transmitted to them from ancestors, cannot always be ascer- 
 tained. If there were no consumptive mothers, however, there 
 would be fewer victims of that frightful malady. 
 
 DISEASED LUNGS. 
 
 Nature is always conservative. The effort is invariably to 
 repair, restore impaired parts, and to strengthen where there is 
 weakness. 
 
 There is a contest between life and death in cases where the 
 partitions between the air-cells of the lungs are ulcerated, and 
 the function of respiration is, of course, imperfectly performed. 
 Blood sent there does not obtain as much oxygen as the body 
 requires. 
 
 Ulcerations extend and pus accumulates till in advanced 
 stages of the disease extensive abscesses are formed, and cavities 
 are 'distended, with thick, adhesive, offensive fluid. Breathing 
 becomes more impeded and death ensues. 
 
 Usually only one lung is involved in the manner described. 
 Were it within the province of surgery, as it probably will be 
 at no very remote period, when there is more confidence in the 
 resources of that great art and less timidity among operators, 
 that half of the chest containing a disorganized lung will be 
 opened for the extraction of the useless, diseased lobe. 
 
 When air enters the pleural cavity, the lung collapses in- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 321 
 
 stantly. It would be relieved from inflation, and in that way 
 set at rest. The sound lung on the other side, completely sepa- 
 rated by a partition, and in its own pleural box, would sustain 
 life unaided by its fellow. 
 
 Teachers of surgery set forth in frightful array the fatal 
 effects of an inflammation of the pleura, the lining membrane 
 of the thorax, should air be admitted to it. 
 
 Let them devise methods to prevent its access. No domain 
 of operative surgery is so miserably handled as that of the chest. 
 No progress has been made there in a hundred years. 
 
 There are thousands of medical men who remember the 
 perpetual caution impressed upon them in their pupilage, not to 
 wound the peritoneum. Even a puncture was to be avoided 
 with scrupulous care, because it was a serous tissue. 
 
 On account of that bugbear of apprehended fatal inflamma- 
 tion, peritonitis was managed with difficulty. Now, in the ex- 
 traction of ovarian tumors nowhere more skilfully performed 
 than in the United States but few out of many are lost, and 
 yet incisions through that membrane are extensive in ovari- 
 atomy. 
 
 Many women have died of those enlargements in past times, 
 who might have been saved, had there been more accurate 
 knowledge of what course to pursue in treating the peritoneum. 
 
 The late Dr. Mott remarked to a medical gentleman, while 
 both were observing the progress of an operation involving 
 parts he was cautioned in his youth to avoid, " Why, they cut 
 the peritoneum now-a-days as heedlessly as they would cut an 
 old shoe." 
 
 THE CHEST. 
 
 The lining membrane of the chest is also a serous one, per- 
 forming an office very similar to that which lines the abdominal 
 
322 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 cavity viz., pouring out a fluid for lubricating the organs 
 within. 
 
 When that fluid is in excess, the absorbents failing to take 
 it away, the accumulation is a dropsy. To draw it off artifi- 
 cially, an instrument called a trocar is resorted to. 
 
 A puncture being made, the fluid is drawn off. The opera- 
 tion is substantially the same in relieving the chest, but not so 
 often performed, as the inflammation apprehended is considered 
 more difficult to control. 
 
 There is considerable unoccupied ground in the domain of 
 surgery. The coming operator who has boldness enough and 
 it will be called daring to cut into the chest, and take out 
 diseased portions of a diseased lung, will secure great fame. 
 
 The right and left lobes open into one common tube ; but if 
 the branch pipe on either side were closed, the supply of air 
 would be inhaled as before into the lung whose tube was 
 free. 
 
 Not to enlarge further on this subject, deserving as it is of 
 careful consideration, it may be asserted that many persons at 
 this present moment are in vigorous health, who have only one 
 lung. 
 
 Gun-shot wounds, bayonet, stiletto, and sabre-thrusts, have 
 often punctured the thorax, and terrific violence to the lungs 
 did not prove fatal. 
 
 A STITCH IK THE SIDE. 
 
 In severe pleurisy, adhesions are formed between the sur- 
 face of the pleura costalis and the one covering the lung. 
 As the lung thus tied begins to inflate, there is a sharp, painful 
 sensation, called stitch in the side, which prevents a full 
 inspiration. 
 
 When inflammation has subsided, the individual gradually 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 323 
 
 begins to inhale a larger volume of air. The bridle which held 
 the lung, so that it could not be inflated without pain, gradually 
 elongates, and finally normal breathing is reestablished. 
 
 Females appear more prone to pleurisy, or aggra- 
 vated inflammation of the lungs, than men. The manner 
 of ligating the waist prevents the descent of the lungs with the 
 fall of the diaphragm to where they ought to have gone in a 
 full inspiration. 
 
 Girding the body with stays diminishes the lower end of 
 the thorax. Its capacity is unnaturally small. Long practice 
 has fixed the ribs where they are permanently held. 
 
 Such compression deranges the abdominal viscera. The 
 lungs are forced higher up. Chafing, as they do, through a 
 triangular membranous space at the root of the neck, the sharp 
 horizontal edge of the first rib creates inflammation, and that 
 degenerates into something worse. Matter forms, and cell 
 after cell is laden with the accumulating pus. 
 
 The mechanical effect of girding the waist has been 
 explained. A full inflation of the lungs keeps gradually 
 forcing the upper part upwardly, till ultimately a portion rises 
 above the level of the first rib. 
 
 This is the origin of many a case of consumption, developed 
 by tampering with the body to make it take a form which 
 is contemplated as an improvement. The penalty is a life 
 of suffering to many, and premature death to a majority 
 of all who have been made over in the barbarous manner so 
 much admired by ladies. 
 
 Youth and beauty are sacrificed to the demands of a per- 
 verted taste. Thousands of brilliant young ladies have been 
 carried to the grave, victims of stays, busks, and unyielding 
 corsets, the real cause of their premature death not being 
 suspected. 
 
324 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 INCIDENTAL INFELICITIES. 
 
 There are indispositions of a temporary kind improperly 
 considered as inevitable results of female organization. This 
 not being a treatise on therapeutics, nor aspiring to the pro- 
 vince of a physician, no details in regard to medicine-taking 
 are attempted. 
 
 If women reflected upon the mission devolving upon them 
 with more earnestness, the/ could not fail to perceive that they 
 have not been forced into existence to suffer, nor to die pre- 
 maturely. . Their organization has incorporated with it com- 
 pensating powers of resistance. 
 
 If women are the weaker sex, or in any respect inferior to 
 men, the cause of it is a fault of civilization. 
 
 Direct causes of functional derangements, out of which grave 
 difficulties arise,- are traceable to actual violations of sanitary 
 laws. 
 
 Too light clothing, improper food, imperfect nutrition, the 
 wild waywardness of passion, the seductions of fashion, and the 
 pride to look better than they fancy they appear, and striving 
 to improve their form to correspond with an ideal model of 
 exterior perfection, are each and all of them dangerous, and, 
 when carried too far, eventuate in some form of sickness. 
 
 Why should not a woman be clothed as warmly as a man ? 
 That question is not a new one. 
 
 TEMPERATURE. 
 
 A notion prevails, and perhaps not entirely without reason, 
 that their ordinary temperature is higher than the vital heat of 
 men under precisely the same circumstances. 
 
 Admitting it were so, that they have less need of thick 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 325 
 
 clothing, it fails to explain why they are ever dressed in such 
 frail fabrics as are scarcely sufficient to resist a zephyr. Most 
 of their garments are rapid conductors of caloric. 
 
 Mothers cannot be ignorant of this fact, that the clothing 
 of their girls is far lighter and less substantial than that of 
 their boys. 
 
 It has been heralded from Dan to Beersheba, in treatises ex- 
 pressly written for the instruction of females, and by warning 
 voices, that the present method of clothing young girls in this 
 fitful climate is wrong. 
 
 But it amounts to nothing. There is no improvement. An 
 appalling percentage are doomed to die before they become 
 responsible beings. 
 
 More females than "males, according to necrological re- 
 ports, die annually of consumption. Were men subjected to 
 the same stay-discipline from a tender age, their ribs distorted, 
 and their lungs preternaturally operating in a place too small 
 for the oxygenation of the blood, the bills of mortality would 
 exhibit melancholy memorials of the death-rate of the self- 
 sacrificed. 
 
 Men die of consumption. When sporadic, and not heredi- 
 tary, it may be traced to exposures that brought on severe 
 bronchial inflammation, respiratory derangements, and their 
 concomitants. 
 
 With wide-spreading ribs at the base of the chest, they 
 resist, successfully, influences which the female chest in its 
 distortions cannot withstand. Therefore their hold of life is less 
 precarious. 
 
 Consumption is only one of many diseases to which females 
 are liable, that may be avoided. If, as physicians assert, de- 
 rangements in the lungs, engorgements and congestions of the 
 mucous membrane of the pelvic viscera, are due oftener than 
 
326 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 suspected to their insufficient garments, there is a remedy with- 
 out resort to medicine. 
 
 Women expose themselves with thin shoes, and insist they 
 are thick enough. In their thin silks, and other delicate 
 dresses, in going into the open air, they cannot resist the sudden 
 blasts that chill them in passing from one temperature to 
 another. 
 
 A few of the many may have the moral courage to be com- 
 fortable at the hazard of being represented as eccentric or 
 opinionated, regardless of what people may say of their oddity 
 in not killing themselves in the wake of fashion. 
 
 NOT CLOTHED SUITABLY. 
 
 Small girls in the house, the street, the school, and in their 
 amusement, expose too much skin surface to the weather. 
 
 Fancy growing boys, wearing summer coats without sleeves 
 in winter, their necks bare and bosoms open to cold breezes, 
 with a postage stamp on their caputs instead of a hat, racing 
 at foot-ball in kid slippers, and they would convey no inapt 
 idea of the scanty clothing of female children generally in the 
 Atlantic States. 
 
 Bare arms, bare chests, light tight-fitting dresses, and, lastly, 
 their shoes and gauze stockings, are their certain destruction. 
 
 Girls should be as warmly clad and in as thick clothing as 
 their hardy, red-cheeked brothers. 
 
 Discussion is not invited. This statement is presented for 
 the consideration of parents. Either allow girls to exhaust 
 their superabundant vitality in unrestrained out-door rambles, 
 barefooted and bonnetless, like vagrants, which would con- 
 tribute to robustness and vigor ; or dress them suitably for pro- 
 tection against cold blasts that they meet in their pastimes 
 from an overheated parlor to an open piazza. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 327 
 
 Immense numbers of young girls are always to be seen in 
 attics barefooted, in clothing that outrages decency, whose 
 cheeks glow with health. Their homes are cheerless; they 
 lodge in rickety apartments where fresh air reaches their 
 lungs through broken windows and unfastened doors. Their 
 food being plain, coarse, and often cold, their digestion is not 
 deranged by high-seasoned dishes, too strong coffee, or their 
 nerves excited beyond a normal condition. 
 
 "While such children move our sympathy, and the demoral- 
 izations to which they are exposed are deplored, they have 
 what wealth cannot purchase, health. The rich man's daugh- 
 ters pine with their feet on velvet carpets, and they repose on 
 down-beds when their eyes are closed in slumber. 
 
 Poor girls are by no means wholly exempt from sickness. 
 There are painful sacrifices of human life in the abodes of 
 poverty. Yet decaying families are recruited from the ranks 
 of those which oftener than otherwise are regarded with con- 
 tempt by the vulgar rich. 
 
 This idea does not embrace the haunts of vice, but simply 
 refers to the country where children generally inherit sound 
 constitutions. Their capital in the future business of life for 
 securing respectability, position, and independence, is made up 
 more of honesty and energy of character than money in bank. 
 
 FAMILY FAILUBES. 
 
 In cities, especially those active commercial centres where 
 wealth becomes literally immense, families deteriorate rapidly, 
 and virtually become extinct in about two hundred years, 
 pampered and placed above a necessity for exertion. Such is 
 the progress of decay in a country like this, where no laws of 
 primogeniture secure posterity a foothold on a landed estate. 
 
328 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 If it is true that many noble families have been perpetuated 
 in Europe, as their own historians assert, by having plebeian 
 blood incorporated with their own, it is not improbable that a 
 farmer's son, or a chambermaid engrafted upon a withering 
 stock, will save many a name and many estates on this side of 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 The ills of women multiply with the progress of social re- 
 finement. They are usually traceable to causes that might 
 have been avoided. No revolutions for their special benefit 
 are anticipated which call for an abandonment of customs or 
 etiquette intimately interwoven with the present aspect of 
 civilization. 
 
 More courage would be required to stem the current of popu- 
 lar prejudice among those who make up good society, in common 
 parlance, than to subdue a rebellion against the government. 
 
 Therefore they are doomed to suffer, in order to be con- 
 sistent ; and they must die prematurely, because it would be 
 unpardonable to live in defiance of the public sentiment in 
 regard to what is deemed to be extremely respectable. 
 
 DOSING TOO MUCH. 
 
 There are special infirmities appertaining to women techni- 
 cally recognized as the better class so common, and so many 
 are afflicted, that a paragraph or two will be sufficient to open 
 their eyes to impositions practised upon them by unprincipled 
 medical specialists. 
 
 Both male and female pseudo-medical practitioners are 
 equally guilty of fraud ; and the only possible way of limiting 
 their demoralizing manipulations, which generally aggravate 
 conditions, is to expose their nefarious doings to the indignation 
 of those whose confidence they wickedly abuse. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 329 
 
 No one but a physician can estimate the extent and ravages 
 
 JL / O 
 
 that result from over-treatment of simple local difficulties, that 
 would eventually correct themselves if left to the recuperative 
 efforts of nature. 
 
 Young women, quite as often as matrons, present anomalous 
 pelvic complaints. Even a slight congestion is magnified into 
 a bugbear, requiring very special attentions. As the patient re- 
 lies on the report of the only one consulted in her case, the 
 opportunity for keeping up an alarm is quite within the control 
 of the person consulted. 
 
 Since female practitioners have been recognized as being in 
 an appropriate sphere, a woman very naturally gives them a pre- 
 ference. That is proper and commendable, but there are female 
 quacks. 
 
 Because a seamstress can increase her income by announcing 
 herself a physician, without the slightest preparation for the 
 responsibilities of the profession, she should not be con- 
 sulted before exhibiting some honorable evidence of her quali- 
 fications. 
 
 Yery respectable physicians, in most respects, unfortunately 
 for the progress of medical intelligence, have their hobbies. 
 
 For the last dozen years a mania for caustic applications for 
 almost any engorgement, or slight inflammation of some mucous 
 membranes accessible to the practitioner, has raged with the 
 intensity of an epidemic. Thousands of women have submitted 
 to a topical application with lunar caustic, who were injured 
 excessively by it. 
 
 Because too many, improperly cauterized, have kept the 
 secret of improper treatment to themselves, it is hoped this 
 exposition of an imposition practised upon them, may lead to 
 the correction of an outrageous kind of practice. 
 
 Let no woman in her senses submit to the nitrate-of-silver 
 
330 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 treatment, without consulting previously the most commanding 
 medical authority to be had. 
 
 Two-thirds of the self-styled female physicians, whose signs 
 figure conspicuously in basement windows, are quite as ignorant 
 as self-reliant, and without a ray of pathological knowledge. 
 
 When there is cause for alarm, induced, perhaps, by fatigue, 
 or from any other cause, let nature have an opportunity at 
 restoration first. 
 
 Nutritious diet, warm baths, a mild course of tonics, wine, 
 new sights, new faces, and breathing another atmosphere, purer 
 and less contaminated with street dust, coal, gas, or other im- 
 purities, are superior as curative agencies, and infinitely more to 
 be prized, than a farrago of medications. 
 
 Gross impositions are practised on the credulity of sensible 
 women, too, by unprincipled speculators in health. 
 
 It is their misfortune often to require advice, which they 
 should have from reliable sources, but it is extraordinary that 
 persons of good understandings are as often duped as those of 
 no intelligence. 
 
 OIBB of the reasons why medical gentlemen of reputation 
 hesitate to give countenance to female practitioners is, because 
 there are such impostors among them, unscrupulous cheats, 
 deceiving their own sex whenever opportunity presents; and 
 honest female practitioners have to suffer for their sins. 
 
 Moral influences, appropriately directed, should close the 
 gates against medical adventurers. If the people, particularly 
 the female portion of the community, are taught as they should 
 be, in the course of education, the fundamental principles of 
 physiology, they would not be so frequently deceived in matters 
 pertaining to their own health, and by ignoramuses, too, whose 
 ignorance is concealed under the title of doctor. 
 
 There are but few positively sound women in this country. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 331 
 
 Many are unsound who might have been models of physical 
 perfection. 
 
 Causes which tend to disease, and, consequently, to an 
 abridgment of life, have been sufficiently set forth, but 
 with no hope of inducing one in a thousand to abandon 
 their idols. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 THEIK POWERS OF ENDURANCE. 
 
 What Women can do Under Pressure of Misfortunes Distinguish Them- 
 selves in Science Being Misplaced What Offices they could Discharge 
 Out-door Employments Capacity Iceberg Philanthropists Chil- 
 dren of Indigent Parentage Exposures to Varying Temperatures 
 Development of Strength. 
 
 WITH a delicate organization, women certainly endure bodily 
 sufferings with firmness and heroic resolution. 
 
 They can do anything in art or science which the other sex 
 accomplish. Certainly, they have the ability for mastering lan- 
 guages, playing music, or carrying on nice mechanical opera- 
 tions. In sculpture, painting, and many ornamental arts, they 
 vastly excel. If they had fewer muscles, or fewer bones, or 
 even more than a man, they could not conduct manipulations 
 requiring expert fingers and a well-formed brain. 
 
 Annals of war furnish thrilling accounts of brilliant achieve- 
 ments in arms, in which young women braved the hardship of a 
 camp, with a fortitude that would have exalted the reputation 
 of a veteran, without shrinking. They have often triumphantly 
 gained a reputation for skill, bravery, and patriotism. 
 
 Their capacity for horticultural and general agricultural 
 pursuits, is widely acknowledged. In their poverty and de- 
 pendence on manual labor for bread, their strength keeps pace 
 with their necessities. Thus, in Europe, they till the soil, 
 drive teams, saw wood in the streets, act as hostlers, and to 
 the disgrace of those communities in which their hard destiny 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 333 
 
 compels them to do the work which belongs to stronger and 
 naturally rougher hands. 
 
 It dwarfs them, to be compelled to carry heavy burdens. 
 Exposure to all weathers hardens and tans their complexion, 
 while alternations of heat, cold, rains, and winds, bronze their 
 skin. To be sweating and tugging in the laborious pursuits 
 of a farm, is not their appropriate sphere. Still they do it, 
 and adapt themselves to the hard fortune imposed upon them, 
 without complaining more than the sisterhood whose destiny 
 places them beyond the necessity of being industrious. 
 
 They bear up under misfortune, indeed, under all hard- 
 ships, more cheerfully than men, without perilling their health 
 or morals. Their instincts are always in the right direction. 
 
 A mother in the extreme wretchedness of some forms of 
 poverty, ignorant, and dependent, manifests as much maternal 
 solicitude, affection, and unconquerable love for her children, 
 as the wife of a peer. She submits with fortitude to surgical 
 operations, and endures protracted pains more heroically than 
 men, whose physical powers of resistance, apparently, are far 
 superior. 
 
 A citation from historical records to establish this proposi- 
 tion would be needless, since it has become a proverb that a 
 woman is acknowledged to bear away the palm. 
 
 When circumstances require, women do as well as men as 
 teachers, artists, or bookkeepers ; and they are constitutionally 
 more honest than those claiming to be lords over them. 
 Having the same number of nerves, bones, and blood-vessels, 
 why should they not do whatever men do in those economies 
 which require brains and hands ? 
 
 If they fall below the sterner sex in any sphere of action, 
 it is because their education has been less complete. Give 
 them equal advantages. 
 
334: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. . 
 
 Immense numbers of men and women are unfortunately 
 misplaced. Society, consequently, is a loser by not having 
 them in positions where each would have contributed advan- 
 tageously for the good of all. 
 
 Women quite frequently find themselves mismated as well 
 as misplaced. It is a mistake they often make, in supposing 
 that pearls and diamonds are worth more than intelligence. 
 Jewels have no weight in an intellectual balance. 
 
 " When unadorned, adorned the most," is a trite expression, 
 but it conveys a truth applicable to women of culture. They 
 have an influence wherever they move, because there is a force 
 in their deportment, and especially in their words, when pro- 
 perly directed, commanding both respect and admiration. 
 
 An unaccountable opposition is manifested against granting 
 educational privileges to women. 
 
 There are unsuccessful merchants who would have been 
 excellent farmers, and many farmers of the most thriftless 
 order, who would have made enterprizing traders. The pulpit 
 is burdened with stupid clergymen, whose voices are an anodyne, 
 and their reasoning solid opium. Their congregations sleep as 
 quietly under their clerical administration of the parish, as if 
 they had taken a dose of chloroform at the commencement of 
 the services. 
 
 Now, such somnambulant church-operators might have 
 succeeded far better in pursuits requiring muscle instead of 
 brain. Lawyers, too, profoundly ignorant of law, and physicians 
 who literally know nothing of the profession they are permitted 
 to practise, are familiar examples of social displacement. 
 
 One of the objections to giving women clerkships, or putting 
 them in positions of accountants, actuaries, bookkeepers, bank- 
 tellers, ticket-takers at railroad offices, and even conductors, and 
 many other pursuits, which they might follow quite as accept- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 335 
 
 ably as such services are performed bj rough, coarse, unmanner- 
 ed vulgarians, loathed by those obliged to come in contact with 
 them, is from a fear they might become demoralized by such 
 general intercourse with the outside world. Theoretically, but 
 without any valid reason, they should be occupants of the house 
 at all times, and the instruments with which they should become 
 familiarized, are broomsticks, needles, and teapots. 
 
 It is discreditable to men, who have so little confidence in 
 the moral perfections of their mothers and sisters as to exclude 
 them from situations which would not only be eminently bene- 
 ficial to themselves, but also to each and every community in 
 which their fitness and capacity for such pursuits have been 
 appreciated and encouraged. 
 
 OBJECTIONS UKGED. 
 
 It has been urged that women could not be relied upon in 
 some very common offices in which men are in charge, on ac- 
 count of certain constitutional peculiarities, which forbid females 
 from exposing themselves to varying temperatures, wetting their 
 feet, etc., which would prove ruinous to their health. 
 
 Such apprehensions are unfounded. It is true, that those 
 reared so tenderly as to make them unnaturally feeble, and 
 therefore more susceptible, would not have constitutions for 
 some industries ; but a woman who has been allowed through 
 her childhood to breathe in open air, to exercise her muscles 
 out-doors, can resist any and all influences from atmospheric ex- 
 posure, that a male organization resists. Early training, and 
 not a congenital predisposition, fits or unfits either for activity 
 and usefulness, in-door or out. 
 
 In all discussions on the subject of female suffrage, a sort of 
 epidemic that breaks out occasionally, to the immense alarm of 
 
336 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 politicians especially those who dread the elevation of women, 
 well knowing their intelligence and superior moral qualifica- 
 tions would be a death-blow to their own aspirations it is as- 
 sumed that they are physically unfitted for pursuits in which 
 men engage. 
 
 Mental capacity is ingeniously left out of the account as 
 much as possible ; and those very wise doctors who, in fear of 
 having well-informed women employed to nurse sickly or de- 
 moralized institutions, are continually harping on their inability, 
 are careful to say nothing about their educational fitness to 
 transact affairs far more successfully than thousands of party 
 numskulls, whose only qualification for positions they disgrace 
 by ignorance, is devotion to leaders bolder and more unscrupu- 
 lous than themselves. 
 
 WHERE THEY WOULD SUCCEED. 
 
 In courts of law ; on grand or traverse juries ; as coroners, 
 sheriffs, and similar offices, which require tact, good manners, firm- 
 ness, and an accurate knowledge of legal forms, women could 
 aquit themselves far more acceptably than such coarse, profane, 
 offensive occupants as sometimes hold those places. 
 
 In March, 1870, an experiment was tried in the Territory 
 of Wyoming, for the first time since the formation of a civil 
 government in America, of placing women on a jury. 
 
 A wretch, by the name of Cowie, was on trial for murder. 
 The panel had upon it six females and six males. After a pro- 
 tracted deliberation of four days and nights, a verdict of man- 
 slaughter was rendered. 
 
 Of course, the ladies were exceedingly fatigued, but their 
 resolution, and the dignity and solemnity of the occasion, won 
 for them the admiration of the whole country. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 337 
 
 Hardly, however, had the eclat of their services been 
 heralded over the country, than it was bruited about that their 
 husbands were dissatisfied with such a protracted absence of 
 their wives from domestic duties. Worse still, a busy press 
 was active in propagating a story that another source of dis- 
 satisfaction grew out of having their beloved helpmates shut up 
 four days and nights with strange men, sturdy yeomen, of whom 
 they knew neither good nor evil. 
 
 That must have been an attempt at merriment, or the out- 
 growth of a mischievous disposition to destroy the influence 
 which women were acquiring in their praiseworthy efforts in a 
 new and important sphere of action. 
 
 HARDY DISCIPLINE. 
 
 Children born to apparent affluence, tenderly managed, by 
 unexpected family reverses have been often thrown upon the 
 cold charity of the world to grapple with poverty in its severest 
 forms. Iceberg philanthropists seldom thaw at the sight 
 of wretchedness that can best be warmed by money. 
 
 In transitions from one social extreme to another, the body 
 suffers from no shocks that essentially impairs it, while a hope 
 is entertained of ultimately rising above poverty to the realiza- 
 tion of influence and comforts. Some fall by the way, whose 
 feeble organization is unequal to the depressing wretchedness 
 of hope deferred. But how many live through painful scenes 
 of want and mortification to reach old age in a better aspect 
 than when they first began to battle with tribulations ! 
 
 Children of indigent parentage throng the streets of every 
 city, barefooted, hatless, bonnetless, thinly clad, and oppressed by 
 hunger, braving storms, whose ruddy cheeks bear witness to 
 the invigorating influence of fresh air. 
 
338 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Female children from such sources are factory operatives. 
 They are domestics, and in whatever position they may occupy 
 at service, are not only expected, but are ordered to do that 
 which as often as otherwise obliges them to be standing in 
 water handling wet clothes, cold and chilling to their warm 
 blood ; and yet they sustain a higher standard of health than 
 the pampered offspring of their masters and mistresses, imag- 
 ined to have been born to a better inheritance. 
 
 It is no more dangerous to have one's feet in cold water than 
 to have their hands in it. There is nothing in the anatomy of 
 a woman's body that indicates a greater susceptibility in her 
 feet than in her lingers. 
 
 The whole body, as individual limbs, or the face, maybe 
 accustomed to endurances that would be detrimental to a novice 
 in such kinds of exposure. A sudden plunge into a cold bath 
 reduces vital temperature. In coming out, it returns with 
 accelerated force. But the after-glow, so much coveted by 
 ladies, and of which they speak with enthusiasm, as delightful 
 in the transition from a bath to a warm room, is a dearly pur- 
 chased pleasure by some hydropathic advocates. 
 
 That after-glow draws largely upon the vitality of those of 
 extremely delicate organization. It takes so much from the 
 fountain, that it finally ceases to rise to its normal level. A lady 
 may dissipate in a bath, to her injury, quite as readily as with 
 chloroform or opium. Their effects, however, are widely differ- 
 ent, though both lead to the gates of death. Excess in any- 
 thing enervates. Regularity, even in the violation of organic 
 laws, does not produce derangements immediately. 
 
 Sudden cold douches are as unbearable as electric shocks ; 
 still, by gradually practising, as, for example, keeping the hands 
 or feet a long while in intensely cold water, no injury ensues. 
 
 Pearl divers descend thirty and forty feet, and walk about 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 339 
 
 deliberately on the bottom. Suspending respiration thus is an 
 education of the lungs to meet the contingency of their pro- 
 fession. Washer-women in Paris paddle in the Seine with the 
 freedom of ducks always cold and wet ; yet they live to the 
 ordinary age of those who have had no experience in aquatics. 
 
 The muscle of men becomes stronger and more massive 
 than in women, because they are more exercised in all forms of 
 activity. Just as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined. 
 
 As soon as muscles are required to perform an increased 
 amount of service in a particular routine of action, an extra 
 volume of blood circulates in them, which is equivalent to giv- 
 ing them more food than when their labors were less. 
 
 Thus, a blacksmith's hammer-arm is larger than the other, 
 because the weight to be habitually moved in forging at his 
 anvil requires increased muscular force. It is, therefore, more 
 copiously nourished. 
 
 The stonecutter's arm becomes larger that wields a mallet, 
 than its mate directing the chisel. Ballet-dancers, rope-per- 
 formers, circus-riders, and professional pedestrians, have won- 
 derfully fine lower extremities, while their arms appear dispro- 
 portionably small, in consequence of not having an increased 
 circulation directed to them. 
 
 On the other hand, porters, or those who are constantly 
 handling, moving, and lifting heavy boxes, barrels, etc., or car- 
 rying burdens on their backs or shoulders, have a prodigious 
 massiveness of the pectoral muscles about the upper part of the 
 chest and lumbar region. 
 
 It is one of the strange sights at the port of Havana to 
 watch the play of muscles of nude burden-carriers in discharg- 
 ing vessels, which stand out in living prominence. 
 
 Stevedores, in Sicily, walk up a plank with a bale of rags 
 on their brawny shoulders, weighing, upon an average, four 
 
340 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 hundred pounds. They move off deliberately, as though, not 
 particularly embarrassed. 
 
 "We have a distinct recollection of seeing a Turkish porter, 
 passing through a street in Smyrna, with a barrel of New- 
 England rum slung to his arched back. 
 
 Processes which develop strength in men, will also develop 
 strength in women. Arab girls, on the banks of the Nile, and 
 indeed all over Syria, assist one another in raising heavy jars of 
 water to their head, which they carry off to distant villages 
 with apparent ease, rarely touching the vessel with their hands, 
 so admirably are they poised. 
 
 Files of those dark-eyed, supple nymphs, in social chat, 
 cheerfully wend their way for one or two miles, without the 
 least apparent fatigue. Such habitual exercise of all their 
 muscles brings out the finest imaginable proportions of the 
 body. Every fibre is urged to a full state of tension. 
 
 Those bronzed females, whose symmetrical forms cannot be 
 excelled in any country, know nothing of numerous complaints 
 which are the burden of our civilization. They have neither 
 distorted spines, drooping shoulders, or contracted waists. 
 Maternity is rarely attended with anxiety. Apprehending no 
 danger, they are never harassed by nervous anticipations, or 
 depressed with thoughts of danger. 
 
 Were orthopedic surgeons, whose specialty is to warp dis- 
 torted bones into position, to treat their patients to sustaining 
 weights on their heads, and exercise with them, their success 
 would be far more satisfactory. Put the muscles into action, 
 properly directed, and they will certainly adjust the distorted 
 parts, by contracting forcibly till the deviating bone is gradually 
 restored to its natural relations. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 341 
 
 WHO ARE DISTORTED? 
 
 Young ladies brought up in luxurious indolence are the 
 principal sufferers from incurvations of the spine. Family opu- 
 lence is not uafrequently the destruction of heirs to an estate. 
 Rich girls are made puny, feeble, and lifeless by their dresses, 
 table luxuries, gas-lights when they ought to be in bed, by opera 
 excitements, piano drillings, unventilated apartments, and 
 brain-burning novels ! 
 
 When very young, they should be permitted to range in loose 
 garments, and be as free as the poor man's daughters. That is 
 the way to form, a good constitution. If, however, the misfor- 
 tune of a spinal curvature overtakes them, let them promenade 
 regularly with as much of a weight on the head as they can 
 carry. Do it in the garden or open field, rather than in a draw- 
 ing-room. Being lashed down to an inclined plane is an ab- 
 surdity, and deserves professional condemnation. Liberate 
 their oppressed ribs ; give them coarse food, instead of dry 
 toast and tea. Imitate the vigorous girls of Egypt. Theories 
 disappear before facts in orthopedic surgery : 
 
 " Natura duce was the text 
 Of ancient Hippocrates, 
 But we shall lead old Nature next, 
 The force of art so great is." 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 FOKCE. 
 
 Mental Differences Genius not to be Purchased Soul Molecules of 
 Matter Perpetually Re-arranged Duplication of Organs Brains Look 
 Alike A Divine Mystery Male and Female Brains No Apparent 
 Anatomical Difference. 
 
 ISTo one pretends to question the universal opinion that in- 
 tellection is manifested through the instrumentality of the 
 brain, a poorly understood organ. 
 
 Brain force, that exercise of the will which places humanity 
 at the head, and gives man control over animals, and, in fact, 
 over the whole world, perplexes philosophers as much now as in 
 the earliest periods of philosophical inquiry. 
 
 Science affords but little light for conducting investigations 
 which have in view an easy explanation of cerebral functions. 
 That positive something which is a power, exercised by indi- 
 viduals in producing great, or, indeed, any results, is potent, 
 and almost irresistible in its fullest development. 
 
 Some are superior to others, because they originate thoughts. 
 Mechanical inventors, those having the faculty of combining 
 complicated motions, resulting in the production of labor-saving 
 machines, or who conceive unique designs, and execute splendid 
 works in art, must have brains intrinsically different from those 
 who are totally incapable of exhibiting new and striking forms 
 of talent. 
 
 Poets, writers of exciting fiction admitted to possess active 
 imaginations create scenes and circumstances, which are trans- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 343 
 
 f erred to paper, as the painter does an ideal image to canvas, to 
 delight those who have no similar inspirations. Some, then, 
 have a capacity for enjoying the mental productions of others. 
 They have, too, a skill in searching out beauties, and of detect- 
 ing faults, without a faculty of originating. 
 
 Yet, in a dissection of the brain, the most accomplished 
 anatomist cannot detect the slightest difference in structure. 
 One may exceed the other slightly, perhaps, in weight. But 
 many a genius has had a small head, and thousands of distin- 
 guished fools had a brain surprisingly large. 
 
 Misers see phantom dollars upon the same philosophical 
 principle that an architect sees in his mind's eye the structure 
 he proposes to erect. Both contemplate an intangible repre- 
 sentation, which is copied and made real. 
 
 Whether education changes the arrangement of cerebral 
 fibres, requires further investigation. It develops and directs 
 innate powers which otherwise might have remained partially 
 dormant. 
 
 A knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic, or utter 
 ignorance of those useful branches, is no evidence of an in- 
 ability to invent or make discoveries of importance to man- 
 kind. 
 
 GENIUS. 
 
 Genius can neither be bought, sold, nor transferred. It 
 appertains to individuals. Hence they who possess it in an 
 eminent degree, when directed for the advancement of the 
 common good, are regarded as public benefactors. When extra- 
 ordinary intellectual endowments are wasted in frivolous pur- 
 suits, or the envied possessor of rare cerebral gifts fritters away 
 opportunities for enlarging his own orbit and advancing the 
 interests of the community, society says he lived to no pur- 
 
3M THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 pose, and died without leaving a brilliant memorial of his 
 existence. 
 
 A perfectly developed mind depends on a perfectly devel- 
 oped condition of the apparatus by which it is manifested. 
 
 A body may be mutilated to an extraordinary degree without 
 at all limiting the range of intellect. A member of the British 
 parliament was born without arms or legs, yet he is a man of 
 clear perceptions and unclouded judgment. 
 
 When all distinguishing characteristics of a well-balanced 
 intellect are active and even brilliant, every limb may be am- 
 putated, both ears removed, both eyes blinded, the teeth 
 extracted, the tongue severed, and many more terrible mutila- 
 tions inflicted without essentially impairing intellection, which 
 remains as complete before. 
 
 THE SOUL. 
 
 When those material instrumentalities by which mind is 
 manifested are injured or destroyed, then there can be no 
 conscious volitions. 
 
 It is argued that the soul is something quite independent 
 and distinct from the machinery of organic life, through the 
 instrumentality of which its essential attributes are manifested. 
 
 If food is withheld too long, a debility of the body follows 
 and the mind falters. If the tissues are not supplied with 
 materials for repairing a waste constantly going on in the 
 system, organs cease to operate. Death ensues, and the soul 
 departs. 
 
 Our bodies are all the time receiving new materials, and 
 throwing off effete substance that has imparted its vitality. 
 Let this operation be suspended even but for a very brief 
 period, and derangements and death would be inevitable. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEX. 345 
 
 Particles received yesterday are ready to be removed to- 
 day, while new ones, just elaborated from food, take their 
 places. Thus life is mechanically sustained. 
 
 It is, therefore, morally certain that mind is an independent, 
 intangible something, which exhibits itself through vitalized 
 matter. From whence it came, or where it goes, belongs to 
 the province of revealed religion to elucidate. 
 
 DUPLICATION. 
 
 Animals are organized beings, varying in their forms, both 
 externally and internally, according to a specific service they 
 are to perform in the economy of nature. As far as naturalists 
 have carried their investigations, each and every one, including 
 man, are duplicated in their bones, muscles, members, and 
 special nerves of sense. 
 
 Two halves, rarely varying much in form, number, or 
 weight, are united to make one symmetrical whole. 
 
 Thus there are two brains united, two eyes, two ears, two 
 olfactory cavities, with two sets of nerves alike on the two 
 sides, two kidneys, two arms, two feet, and, in the foetal state, 
 each jaw was in two pieces. 
 
 An obvious advantage in thus duplicating so many parts, 
 is to increase and concentrate force, whether vital or mechan- 
 ical. Even the heart is double. One heart throws blood into 
 the lungs, while the other propels it through the body. 
 By welding them together, less room was required, and 
 compactness in packing is one of the wonders disclosed by 
 dissection. 
 
 In respect to the brain, nerves, and muscles, when one set 
 are out of order, or they can no longer perform their part in 
 the circle of vital movements, thought, volitions, and muscular 
 
34:6 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 efforts are solely carried on by the other half, which is unim- 
 paired. 
 
 We hear with one ear, see with one eye, chew on one side, 
 taste with half a tongue, secrete with one kidney, locomote 
 on one leg, and do very well with one arm ; and in a paralysis 
 of half the body, drag it about for years, while all the powers 
 of life are carried on and regulated by the sound side. 
 
 Worms are an aggregation of rings or sections, each of 
 which is almost a distinct individual, having its own breathing 
 orifice, its own ganglions, or nervous centres, equivalent to a 
 brain, and its own independent locomotive apparatus. 
 
 Some of the annelides may be cut into pieces, and each one 
 will become a distinct, complete, independent being. 
 
 One set of digestive apparatus answers for a double set of 
 organs in all animals, as one boiler is sufficient for a double 
 engine in steam-vessels. 
 
 DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE. 
 
 To all appearance, human brains are alike in structure. 
 One may be larger than another, but it is quite impossible to 
 discriminate a male from a female brain, otherwise than upon 
 the received opinion that the latter is smallest. 
 
 On the dissecting-table, the most expert anatomist could 
 not designate the brain of a statesman from that of a scavenger. 
 They are essentially alike, and yet they differ in a manner, 
 while living, which no one has yet been able to explain. 
 
 If we were not alike in regard to the number and arrange- 
 ments of our organs, we could neither think nor act alike. 
 Anatomists, however, discover no difference in the structure 
 or disposition of the brain, nerve, or muscles. Therefore, a 
 great mystery remains unsolved, notwithstanding all that has 
 been taught in elucidation of the laws of life. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 347 
 
 PASSIVE ORGANS. 
 
 With eyes, an invisible conscious entity within the brain 
 sees what is transpiring without. It hears with the ears, feels 
 through the nerves, tastes with the tongue, and contracts muscles 
 by a force acting from within. An eye cannot see, or an ear 
 hear. They are completely passive, simply being instruments 
 constructed for conducting to the soul's residence information 
 that could not in any other manner or way be communicated. 
 
 Thinkers who exercise their muscles, in-door and out, 
 discreetly, have a longer life than those who are careless in 
 their habits, and sluggish in their movements. 
 
 More women are moved by the brain-force of others, than 
 among an equal number of men ; but there are female writers 
 whose mental capacity has not been equalled by the other sex : 
 in any branch of literature. 
 
 Brain-force is a Divine mystery. Its influence is felt, but 
 that is all we know about it. There is no art or device that 
 did not originate in a brain. There, too, conceptions, complex 
 and intricate, may be kept safely for future use, or remain 
 quiescent till the golden bowl is broken at the fountain. 
 
 Whatever is fabricated by human hands, must first have 
 existed in the brain so legibly photographed there, the mind 
 examined the pattern as the work of imitating proceeded till 
 completed. 
 
 There being no apparent difference in the brains of the 
 sexes, and experience favoring the opinion there is none, why 
 cannot women do all that men accomplish of value to society ? 
 They are entitled in equity to all rights and privileges in the 
 exercise of the talents God has given them, and no opportunity 
 should be omitted, on their part, for exercising that brain-force 
 in all lawful enterprises and pursuits. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 OVER-WORKING THE BRAIN". 
 
 Must be Exercised to be kept in Order Must nave Periods of Rest Sleep 
 A Sound Mind Predisposing Cause of Madness Political Friction 
 Oriental Calmness Sudden Death Avarice. 
 
 THERE is a popular notion that the brain may be over-taxed ; 
 and it is well founded. Those who dwell wholly and con- 
 tinually on one idea, a perpetual hobby, injure the organ by 
 compelling one set of fibres, tubes, or molecules, we know not 
 which, to be too much and too long exercised without relax- 
 ation. 
 
 Relaxation is as necessary for the brain as for the muscles. 
 Alternations of mental action and reasonable repose are neces- 
 sary in the constitution of humanity. 
 
 Those who have exercised the brain pleasurably, through a 
 long life of industry, have had clearer perceptions, and a higher 
 order of intelligence, than those whose mental action is irre- 
 gular: becoming suddenly excited, and then relaxing into 
 thoughtless indolence, is particularly injurious. 
 
 The more the brain is used without abuse, the more com- 
 plete its functions. It may be injured by concentrating cerebral 
 force too long, or confining the mind to the consideration of 
 one problem, or series of cogitations, to the exclusion of other 
 thoughts, or the intrusion of impressions that might divert the 
 mind from the order in which the individual is resolved to con- 
 centrate his thoughts. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 34-9 
 
 Hence leaders of isms, furious reformers, radical agitators, 
 inventors, who dwell long and earnestly on certain mechanical 
 contrivances, as the quadrature of the circle ; mad poets, those 
 creatures of imagination, who feel themselves unappreciated, 
 and, therefore, neglected, become eccentric, and in extreme 
 cases insane, because the brain has had no rest. 
 
 ALTERNATIONS OE LABOR AND REST. 
 
 Intervals of relaxation of one set or parts of the thinking 
 apparatus is necessary, while others are operating. The same 
 law governs the organs of digestion. After the stomach has 
 prepared the food received, it passes onward to the alimentary 
 canal. In the meanwhile, it reposes till the next meal is 
 received, thus recuperating in the intervals. Without such 
 opportunities for rest, derangements would inevitably occur. In 
 fact, they do in those who are continually violating the laws of 
 health, by imposing too much service on that badly-treated 
 viscus. Dyspepsia, gastric pains, and chronic inflammations are 
 penalties for gorging the stomach too much, too often, and 
 with materials that bring on direct disease, in an effort to digest 
 what is indigestible. That is forced labor. 
 
 An eye must have repose, the heart is perfectly at rest an 
 instant between its pulsations, and beats on, in some bosoms, 
 one hundred years, unimpaired. 
 
 Birds sleep at night ; reptiles retire to their holes ; fishes 
 balance themselves on their pectoral fins in the darkness 01 
 aquatic night in slumber. It is thus, while all is quiet, and 
 each and every animal puts itself in a position most favorable 
 for rest, that nervous force re-accumulates for meeting demands 
 that may be made upon the system the coming day. 
 
 The brain must sleep, and, in hours of total unconscious- 
 
350 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 ness, if there are no irregularities in the circulation or digestion, 
 regathers that which invigorates it for the waking hour. 
 
 Imperfect nutrition of the brain is quite as much the cause 
 of irregular action as being over-taxed with one burden, or a 
 ceaseless devotion to one engrossing theme. 
 
 If the liver is diseased, the spleen disordered, the pancreas, 
 scirrhus, or the stomach inadequate to the performance of its 
 ordinary duties, the brain soon becomes impoverished. It is 
 impossible to carry on its appropriate functions on a short 
 allowance. 
 
 A SOUND MIND. 
 
 A sound mind is intimately associated with good health, and 
 that is maintained by nutritious food and perfect digestion. 
 
 Lunatic asylums furnish painful examples of impaired brains, 
 but those institutions have not yet had the independence to 
 publish such details as would satisfactorily explain many true 
 causes of insanity in a large proportion of their inmates. 
 
 It is, perhaps, an exercise of philanthropic discretion not to 
 report what might mortify, pain, or horrify. 
 
 A predisposing cause of moodiness, nervous excitability, 
 melancholy, and various phases of insanity, may be traced almost 
 invariably to a violation of some law of life. 
 
 An apology may be found for an unfortunate sufferer, by 
 pleading his ignorance ; but it is, nevertheless, a transgression. 
 It is charitable to presume hard study has destroyed many 
 promising intellects, but medical authorities teach us that the 
 mind is oftener overthrown by the practice of vices than by an 
 influx of knowledge. 
 
 Rather than admit the destruction of reason by intense 
 literary application, writers are beginning to intimate that abuses 
 self-imposed demand a more strict professional scrutiny. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 351 
 
 It might be thought premature, or at least inexpedient to 
 announce authoratively in annual reports, that restraints actually 
 bring on madness in some of its saddest forms. 
 
 Our civilization imposes barriers against the indulgence of 
 many natural wants. A reflex action deranges the brain. 
 
 When Mahometans are insane, it is usually caused by in- 
 juries of the skull, frights, sudden surprisals, deprivation of 
 cherished rights, opium, hasheesh, smoking, etc., but rarely, if 
 ever, from moral causes. Moslem fanatics, like those in Chris- 
 tian countries, become eccentric and insane too. Blighted 
 hopes, disappointments in love, or religious fervor, seldom lead 
 to alienations of mind in Orientals. 
 
 They have among them fanatical individuals, whose tem- 
 peraments are like those of the same nervous type in all coun- 
 tries. When thwarted in favorite schemes for revolutionizing 
 a neighborhood or a state, disappointment brings on analagous 
 forms of insanity. 
 
 Political rebuffs, unsuccessful enterprises, religious theories 
 which others oppose, self-imposed missions ostensibly for the 
 public good, which were fully intended to be particularly bene- 
 ficial to themselves, are avenues to lunacy. Each and all of 
 them are proper examples of over-working the brain. 
 
 Still, over-working that organ is not quite as common as 
 may have been supposed. A vindictive determination to do 
 what is not agreeable to others, meets with opposition that not 
 unfrequently reacts upon an excited brain beyond what it can 
 bear. That, however, is not to be understood as over-working 
 it. Does a calm, considerate exercise of acquiring, comparing, 
 and analyzing tend to the brain's injury ? No. 
 
 Have many young men or misses of sixteen ruined their 
 intellect by study ? 
 
 That their minds have given way in early youth is undeni- 
 
352 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 able ; but not by schooling the brain in the ordinary manner 
 of being educated. One-idea people are numerous, and in this 
 country among women, particularly. When necessity compels 
 them to laborious devotion to one unvarying pursuit, as stitch- 
 ing with a needle, running a sewing machine, braiding straw, 
 reading proof-sheets, or similar exhausting industries, the ner- 
 vous system is often seriously prostrated. Indeed, the con- 
 templation of one thing all the while, as more prominent than 
 all others, without reasonable relaxation, is excessively over- 
 working the brain. 
 
 EXPLOSION OF LIFE. 
 
 Commmercial men in communities where property is the 
 only passport to position, over-work the brain more rapidly 
 and more frequently than women. 
 
 Men occasionally drop dead by a sudden explosion, as it were, 
 of vital force. Culture, taste, refined sentiments, a delicate 
 perception of what constitutes good breeding, or lays claim to re- 
 spect and attentions, weigh nothing where the chink of gold gives 
 more pleasure than the music of the greatest masters of melody. 
 
 Women are apt, with an unexpected change in social posi- 
 tion, to become deaf to all sounds not associated with the 
 rustle of rich dresses, and some die martyrs to an idea that a 
 wardrobe makes a lady. 
 
 Any faculty of the mind may be exercised to its exceeding 
 detriment. Allowing the powers of intellect to be wholly 
 given to the acquisition of wealth, to the exclusion of whatever 
 relates to the moral nature, social duties and obligations, is 
 avarice. That is, in fact, a disease of the organ in which senti- 
 ments are elaborated. It is a malady that destroys the indivi- 
 dual before he is ready to enjoy pleasures and advantages he 
 had promised himself when riches were secured. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 353 
 
 A history of trade in its successful aspects, which includes 
 any position in which an adequate income is realized for per- 
 sonal services or skill in the management of funds, would show 
 that not one in five thousand who heap up treasures, ever has 
 the benefit of them. Heirs-at-law, who may never have earned 
 a farthing, usually have the spending of such fortunes. 
 
 "When a property becomes colossal, a little of it is devised oc- 
 casionally to eleemosynary institutions, or in special charities 
 for securing the favor of heaven, but not because such spas- 
 modic benevolence arises from a religious sentiment. 
 
 It is nothing more nor less than a willingness to purchase 
 what could not be hoped for on the score of merit. A mercan- 
 tile transaction to the last breath. 
 
 To allow avarice to obtain a mastery, is a fatal mistake. 
 The late Mr. George Peabody gave a bright example of the 
 way of finding happiness, by making others so with the abund- 
 ance which a kind Providence had placed at his disposal. The 
 honored Peter Cooper, of New York, has heaven in advance. 
 
 The whole of us, mind and body, must be used, but not 
 abused. Happiness being the object of pursuit, unrecorded 
 miseries are heroically endured to gain what cannot be enjoyed 
 when attained. 
 
 Convulsive attempts at reformation, when we are alarmed 
 at a realizing sense of the results of disappointed schemes, is 
 snatching at floating straws. 
 
 An over- worked brain must abide the consequences of 
 neglected hygienic laws. For a woman to live many years, she 
 must live simply, industriously, and in obedience to her inborn 
 intuitive sense of what is right and what is wrong, and she must 
 vary her pursuits, so that her brain may have as much oppor- 
 tunity for rest as she requires for her hands and feet. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 THEIR COMPLEXION. 
 
 Physical Bearing Cosmetics Let them alone Eruptions Pearl Powder 
 Water as a Purifier Pores of the Skin Temperature of the Body 
 Insensible Perspiration Tint of the Complexion Antimony. 
 
 NEVEK perfectly satisfied with what nature in kindness has 
 bestowed upon them, however fresh, healthy, or beautiful, 
 women are continually exercising their fertile minds in pursuit 
 of means for improving their appearance. They tax their 
 ingenuity for increasing the effect of their facial expression and 
 figure. 
 
 A man may be massive, bearded, and manifest the highest 
 intellectual power, and yet not be a beauty. Those exterior 
 evidences of his strength and masculine maturity are altogether 
 different from those traits and influences which characterize 
 women. There are concentrated in her person a compound 
 of symmetry, texture, and indefinable properties not readily 
 expressed, which, nevertheless, are felt and acknowledged to 
 exist. 
 
 When cultivated, and her soul educated to correspond with 
 her positive corporeal attributes, a woman governs without 
 speaking, and commands by an ineffable magnetism. 
 
 She has an innate disposition to appear to the best advan- 
 tage, and in that way her power is augmented, and her sove- 
 reignty over the male sex secured. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 355 
 
 AMBITIOUS TO LOOK WELL. 
 
 Impressed with a conviction that she can improve her 
 appearance by processes of art, women of all countries are the 
 patrons of cosmetics. The savage female seeks such appliances 
 among simples of the field, and in mineral preparations, which 
 make her hideous, in her fancied metamorphosis for the better ; 
 perfectly loathsome, if not horrid, to the eyes of a civilized 
 being. 
 
 A woman's complexion, the expression of her eyes, the 
 arrangement of her hair, the size of her hands and her feet, 
 occupy her thoughts tpo much, if truthfully represented by 
 writers of their own sex. And it is unquestionably true they 
 heroically submit to self-imposed tortures, with an expectation 
 of appearing essentially improved in appearance in the estima- 
 tion of those with whom they associate. 
 
 Not one article in the catalogue of miscalled beautifiers, of 
 which ladies are usually munificent patrons, is worth having, 
 or free from objection on account of deleterious properties in 
 their composition. 
 
 Most cosmetics are positively injurious to the skin. 
 
 There are no exceptions in favor of any, however popular 
 they may appear from the representations of schooled advertisers, 
 or the opinion of fair customers, to the contrary. 
 
 CUTANEOUS BLEMISHES. 
 
 Eruptions, cutaneous enlargements, chronic inflammatory 
 flushes, bordering on erysipelatous redness, resisting ordinary 
 discutient applications, are always made worse by such im- 
 proper treatment as many an indiscreet woman voluntarily 
 
356 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 imposes upon herself, under a hopeful expectation of a tri- 
 umphant success in dispersing them. 
 
 Women relinquish their idols reluctantly; therefore, the 
 probability of convincing them by arguments, or even the pre- 
 sentation of facts, that they would gain vastly more by 
 abandoning the external application of washes and powders, 
 which they have been accustomed to regard as important 
 appendages of their toilet, is not entertained. 
 
 Paints have been found with female mummies in the cata- 
 combs of Egypt, with females of an extinct race in South 
 America, and even in the superficial graves of the aborigines, 
 wherever the Indians have resided on this continent. 
 
 Bountiful supplies of coloring materials dug up occasionally 
 with the crumbling remains of human bodies, must have been 
 considered indispensable adjuncts to female beauty by those 
 who placed them there, and prove the immense antiquity of 
 such appliances. Some such discoveries antedate the Pen- 
 tateuch. 
 
 On all the continents, but especially in America, revelations 
 from very ancient graves testify to the vanity of the sex, and 
 prove, moreover, that the leading elements of their character 
 have always been the same in every country, in every .age and 
 climate, in carrying to their last resting-place materials which 
 were contemplated as necessary in eternity as while sojourning 
 on earth. 
 
 Pearl-powder ranks well with ladies, being extensively used 
 by them. A vague notion prevails that it is actually pul- 
 verized pearl, and consequently must improve the skin when 
 rubbed upon it. 
 
 Such ignorance, however, is only found among very 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 357 
 
 superficial fashionables, who have no aspirations beyond mak- 
 ing a favorable impression, not by words, but through the 
 instrumentality of art. 
 
 It may fle distasteful intelligence to assure those who pay 
 liberally for genuine pearl-powder, the most approved samples 
 are nothing more nor less than starch. Such as they purchase 
 for their laundries by the pound, for stiffening garments, is just 
 as good and valuable as that sold in quarter-ounce packages at 
 several dollars, under the name of cosmetic pearl-powder. 
 
 To be appropriately pearled for street appearance, it is 
 usually dusted on so profusely, as to give the self-satisfied 
 adorable a very mealy look. If some of those pearled pro- 
 menaders, riot unfrequently to be met with, were to dip their 
 faces into a dish of flour, who would be competent to decide 
 that it was not genuine impalpable pearl-powder ? 
 
 To put it on plentifully, especially under the eyes, round 
 the margin of the temples, and on the cheeks, suggests the idea 
 to a spectator that there may be too much of a good thing. 
 
 Even were it true that the application of refined starch 
 were of the slightest use in whitening the skin, there is a 
 reprehensible proneness to run into extremes, which is a kind of 
 abuse, not of a criminal nature. 
 
 SUPERIORITY OF WATER AS A COSMETIC. 
 
 The experience of centuries places good, wholesome water 
 at the head of all cosmetics. It is infinitely superior to chem- 
 ical compounds of druggists, and always has been. ~No com- 
 plexions compare with those of young misses who have had 
 no acquaintance with cosmetics. That healthy glow which 
 tints the country girl's cheeks, who, unsophisticated and hap- 
 pily ignorant of the mysteries of a fashionable toilette, can 
 
358 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 neither be improved by art, nor imitated successfully by 
 science. 
 
 On being transferred to a city, a young lady first begins to 
 imitate those whom she supposes to be superior to herself. 
 From that day, her facial deterioration commences. Concen- 
 trated food, stronger tea and coffee, and more of it than she 
 had been accustomed to at her rural, happy home ; later hours, 
 musical excitations, theatrical spectacles, new exhibitions of 
 the follies and frivolities of fashionable life, stimulate the pul- 
 sations of her heart. The brain is overtaxed, and with dancing 
 and phantoms, when day is turned into night and night into 
 scenes of bewildering enchantments, the rose is no longer seen 
 on her fair face. She becomes dyspectic, hectic, yellow, and 
 enfeebled. 
 
 With this condition come physicians, pills, phials, plasters 
 for a pain in the side, and a troublesome cough. 
 
 Pearl-powder will not bring back the bloom of health, nor 
 rouge, spread thinly with consummate skill over a blanched, 
 sunken feature, recall the lost complexion. Hygeia is dis- 
 couraged, and takes her departure. 
 
 STRUCTURE OF THE SKIN. 
 
 The entire surface of the body is pierced by an infinite 
 number of minute openings, known as pores, the ex- 
 ternal termination of extremely fine tubes, or sudorific ducts 
 through which we perspire. 
 
 Their inner extremities are coiled up in adipose tissue 
 below the skin. Economy in packing, while being protected 
 in a soft elastic bed, is noticeable in that beautiful arrangement 
 which is equally observable in all other parts of the system. 
 
 Through those sweat-tubes, aqueous fluid is exhaled, passing 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 359 
 
 from within to the surface where it escapes, and is immediately 
 lost by evaporation. 
 
 When the skin is apparently dry, the escape of fluid is con- 
 stantly going on ; but it is not seen. That is insensible per- 
 spiration. If, however, there is any obstruction of the orifices, 
 so that the perspirable fluid cannot make its exit, then there is 
 heat and fever. 
 
 If the temperature of the body is raised several degrees in 
 consequence of a quick circulation, the quantity of perspiration 
 becomes augmented. Should the air be at a lower temper- 
 ature, it is condensed and runs down in streamlets. That is 
 sweating. 
 
 Habitual application of substances which clog the emunc- 
 tories of the skin, and thereby prevent the escape of watery- 
 collections gathered in the sudorific tubes, must of course be 
 very injurious. 
 
 DROPSY. 
 
 One form of dropsy is an undue collection of fluid in the 
 cellular tissue below the skin. If the free escape is propor- 
 tioned to the quantity separated from the blood, then the equi- 
 librium of health is maintained. 
 
 On the contrary, when not passing off regularly as fast as 
 collected, serum occasionally collects in the abdomen, the chest, 
 or the limbs, which constitutes regional dropsy. 
 
 Cosmetics of every kind must very considerably interfere 
 with a free exit of perspiration, as a mechanical obstruction. 
 Were the entire body plastered over with a composition which 
 absolutely prevented the outlet and evaporation from the pores, 
 absolutely necessary in the economy of a living being consti- 
 tuted like ourselves, sad consequences would immediately 
 follow. 
 
360 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 On the face, where cosmetics are most freely applied, the 
 pores may be rendered quite useless if not destroyed by them. 
 A dryness, roughness, a sickly hue, and premature wrinkles are 
 the penalty of such attempts to improve upon nature. 
 
 TAMPERING WITH HEALTH. 
 
 Legislation could not effectually stop the sale of quack medi- 
 cines. People, not by any means the most intelligent, will 
 have them. 
 
 This is a glorious land of liberty, in which every one takes 
 what he likes under the name of remedies. Availing themselves 
 of a national weakness in that direction, ingenious speculators 
 accumulate enormous fortunes by the sale of pills and other 
 nostrums, represented to meet all the contingencies of life, 
 which range themselves in the train of formidable diseases. 
 
 Oleaginous compounds, not soap, are probably worse than 
 liquids of a stimulating character rubbed on the skin, because 
 they suddenly close up the pores. The other generates an in- 
 flammation that is slower, but equally detrimental. 
 
 Washes, which are announced to have a detergent property^ 
 but acting upon the same principle, are dangerous applications. 
 
 Simply bathing in pure water is a thousand times superior 
 to the most costly articles for giving and sustaining that soft, 
 delicate complexion which indicates health and vigor. 
 
 A better idea of the importance of these sudorific tubes may 
 be formed by this curious anatomical statement, that were it 
 possible to unite them all in one pipe, by joining them end to 
 end, there is enough of them on the surface of an ordinary-sized 
 woman, some have supposed, to extend two miles ! 
 
 Remarkable beauties sometimes appear to have become pre- 
 maturely old. Faded beauties wilt rapidly when they begin to 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 361 
 
 show the sere and yellow leaf. "Were some of those cases in- 
 vestigated scientifically, it might probably be shown that they 
 hastened an event they dreaded, by tampering with their fine 
 faces with just such appliances as we have here deprecated. In 
 their anxiety to prevent the appearance of deterioration, they 
 produced prematurely that which they intended to prevent. 
 
 REMOVAL OF BLEMISHES. 
 
 A yellowish, sallow-colored skin, which cannot be driven 
 away, even temporarily, by a flush of surprise, is best treated by 
 water, which acts beneficially. Children born of painted or 
 enamelled mothers, are not robust. Even their mental powers 
 are inferior. They are life-long sufferers in consequence of 
 maternal folly. 
 
 Fluids taken into the stomach percolate to some extent directly 
 through its walls, making an exit by exosmosis on the surface, 
 after having traversed through various intervening tissues. 
 
 It is by that disposition of a portion of liquids swallowed, 
 the parts are all kept soft, supple, and in a condition to glide 
 easily one upon another without friction. 
 
 By recollecting that the sudorific tubes are so numerous 
 that five hundred of them exist in a single square inch, it is no 
 difficult problem to explain the ready transmission of the fluid 
 they transmit to the surface. 
 
 On the back of the hand and foot there are one thousand 
 pores to a square inch. On the sole of the foot and palm of the 
 hand they reach the amazing number of two thousand seven 
 hundred in a square inch. 
 
 On the surface of the whole body of a woman of ordinary 
 stature, there cannot be fewer than two millions three hundred 
 thousand of those emunctories. 
 
362 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 It is something to ponder upon, that life, so precious to all, 
 is dependent upon the action of such minute, complicated 
 apparatus. 
 
 An excuse has been offered for covering up wrinkles with 
 paste, called medicated enamel, etc., that it is a privilege to re- 
 pair old bodies externally, as it is to take drugs for counteract- 
 ing diseases. 
 
 If it is right for a dilapidated woman to take tonics for im- 
 proving her physical condition, it has been argued that it is 
 right and proper to attempt improving their complexion, by 
 staining, frescoing, or other means, according to her standard 
 of taste. 
 
 We are not discussing the right or privilege to do just what 
 a woman chooses, as a free agent, but contend that the woman 
 who does it, that is, paints herself, makes an egregious mistake 
 to her personal injury. 
 
 Paints, on weather-beaten boards, are to prevent the absorp- 
 tion of moisture, which would hasten their decay. On the 
 living, paints prevent the escape of moisture, a function that 
 cannot be interrupted with impunity. 
 
 SCRUPLES AGAINST ART. 
 
 Artificial teeth are not classed with cosjnetics, as interfering 
 with vital processes, because they do not in any respect. On 
 the contrary, they are important auxiliaries in preparing food 
 for ready digestion. 
 
 Formerly it was considered a sin, by conscientious persons, 
 to resort to appliances of art for securing either comfort or an 
 improved personal appearance. The argument resorted to was 
 this, viz. : When any part or portion of the body has fallen into 
 decay, it is evidently the pleasure of the Being who created us, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 363 
 
 that we should thus gradually go to pieces, and it is wrong, 
 therefore, to proceed contrary to the divine purpose. 
 
 Influenced by such considerations, dentists were violating a 
 great law, and wooden-leg makers, wig-makers, and even oculists 
 in the restoration of the blind to perfect vision, are guilty of 
 the violation of a law equally recognized as the will of our 
 Heavenly Father. 
 
 It belongs to the history of the dental profession, that less 
 than seventy years ago many toothless ladies, scarcely able to 
 articulate their hostile feelings in reference to the wicked de- 
 vices of evil-minded men, who proposed to stud their toothless 
 jaws with beautiful artificial teeth, shrunk back with horror at 
 the idea of having such false appliances. 
 
 With a determination not to sin by assuming to be what 
 they are not, physically, artificial arms, glass eyes, india-rubber 
 bosoms so very common at this particular period would not 
 be accepted by some conscientious people. 
 
 Opinionated, sectarian reformers, who are satisfied that their 
 own narrow views are the express will of our Heavenly Father, 
 kick against the pricks of advancing intelligence, but their ef- 
 forts are useless. There is no statu quo in nature, nor can there 
 be in humanity, without the extinction of intellect, and a 
 moral death of society. 
 
 Men and women, with the light of modern science 
 and literature, cannot be kept in swaddling-clothes. Those 
 who are perpetually mourning over the good old times, when 
 they were young, cannot give a retrograde motion to 
 the earth in its orbit, nor arrest the swelling tide of 
 progress. 
 
 There is another silly vice to which fashionable ladies are 
 prone, that at least should be exposed, that it may be expen- 
 sively condemned. It is the application of crude pulverized 
 
364: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 antimony on the margins of their eyelids, and evfcn spread at 
 the base of the under-lid, giving the hollow below a bluish tint. 
 The object is to increase the brilliancy of their otherwise spark- 
 ling optics. 
 
 It is unaccountable that it should be supposed by quite sen- 
 sible women, that a bluish shade of the skin, a diffused indigo 
 shading at that particular section of the face, enhances their 
 good looks. No grosser mistake ever quickened their enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 That is used largely by Oriental females the occupants of 
 harems, particularly for the same purpose. But they are 
 semi-civilized, without souls, according to a popular tradition 
 of ignorant Mahometan proprietors. 
 
 Repetitions of antimony or khol make the eyes irritable 
 after a while. They cannot bear the strong light, and a slow 
 form of inflammation attacks the lids. 
 
 Their custom of staining their nails, palms of their hands, 
 and even the soles of their feet, with henna, shows their posi- 
 tion in the scale of intelligence, and their strict adherence to 
 the customs of their equally ignorant ancestors. 
 
 It was in Palestine this relic of remote ages cosmetics 
 appears to have been extensively employed. Mrs. Jezebel 
 painted her face. The story of her tragical death, by being 
 thrown from an upper story window, incidentally brought with 
 it the curious fact that she painted her face. 
 
 Applying a weak solution of aconite to the corner of the 
 eye, now practised, is intended to enlarge the pupil, and en- 
 hance the brilliancy of those organs. A dangerous practice. 
 
 There is too much that is unreal. There are reasonable 
 boundaries, beyond which it is dangerous to proceed. Such 
 practices as interfere with the higher range of vital functions, 
 should have appropriate consideration. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 365 
 
 One of the latest modern weaknesses that has had an exten- 
 sive run, has been the passion for blonde hair. To meet the 
 demand, scientific skill has provided a preparation to change 
 chesmit, black, or any other head to look as though it were 
 dyed in a sulphur bath. 
 
 Mendicant old women wander through the narrow streets 
 of Damascus with flowing red locks streaming in the wind like 
 bunting from the mainmast of a ship. It is the coveted color 
 with them. Whether they are disposed to think it makes them 
 attractive, we have no means of knowing. 
 
 There is no composition, however skilfully prepared, that 
 will compare with pure cold water as a beautifier. It is a 
 perfect solvent for those accumulations over the pores, which 
 are chiefly derived from desquamations of the scarfskin. If it 
 does not readily remove them, it is owing to some mineral 
 elements held in it that give it a quality called hard. Emolli- 
 ent soaps with tepid water is a never-failing success. 
 
 Simple warm-water baths, without the addition of cologne, 
 camphor, whiskey, rum, white wine, etc., etc., which it is ex- 
 tremly difficult to persuade fashionable ladies are not essen- 
 tial, or of the slightest utility. 
 
 Avoid advertised preparations, however much extolled in 
 certificates from irresponsible sources. They are deceptions. 
 "Water is plenty, inodorous, tastless, colorless, aud precisely 
 meets the demands of our nature externally. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 FEMALE EDUCATION. 
 
 What Education is not New Avenues for Industry must be Opened for 
 Women Excess of Female Population They have been Neglected. 
 
 .LIBEAEIES are burdened with essays on this subject, and 
 there is room for more. Every one who has given attention to it, 
 seems oppressed with new theories and plans, exceedingly im- 
 portant in the estimation of those from whom they emanate. 
 Each writer contemplates his own proposition as the only 
 fitting method for elevating woman to the sphere she was 
 designed to adorn. 
 
 Men who never had the honor of having a daughter, and 
 desiccated spinsters who will never be mothers, are those most 
 disposed to contribute copiously to the literature of female 
 education. Neither of them are qualified for guides. It is 
 a matter of profound interest to those who appreciate the 
 importance of educational training, to determine how females 
 should be taught to meet the ever- varying phases of modern 
 society. 
 
 Education does not mean learning to read and write, work- 
 ing worsted artistically, or playing the piano. Nor should the 
 mind of woman be regarded of such small value as to be put 
 off with indifferent instruction. 
 
 Christian civilization should righteously recognize her as 
 man's intellectual equal. A question yet to be decided is, 
 whether she is not also his political equal. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 337 
 
 If she has not the same amount of muscular strength, she 
 has the same number of muscles, disposed of in the same 
 manner. 
 
 Modern thinkers on the constitution and mission of human- 
 ity, tacitly admit an equality of the sexes. That old adage, 
 that man is strong and woman weak, is properly questioned of 
 late. A woman's imaginary pictures of moral worth, virtue, 
 and beauty, are better drawn than those by men. 
 
 In language, music, and the fine arts, she is by no means 
 inferior. Her mechanical ingenuity in construction is not un- 
 frequently very surprising. The constructive faculty of woman 
 is far above the level assigned her. Devices displayed in 
 needlework, pottery, sculpture, designs, the actual manufacture 
 of metallic pens, jewelry, timepieces, and the peculiar finish 
 given to watches, the product of their own hands in this 
 country, confirm an opinion long entertained, that they are 
 unequalled mechanics, when systematically instructed, as men 
 are taught a handicraft. 
 
 A needle is a tool. If they can direct that adroitly, as it is 
 admitted they do, they might, with equal facility, vary their 
 pursuits, and use other instruments just as readily. In watch- 
 making, particularly, proprietors of great establishments ac- 
 knowledge their unrivalled skill and delicacy of touch. 
 
 Therefore, it must be admitted women can do with their 
 fingers whatever men accomplish. Custom, more .arbitrary than 
 laws, has placed them where they are not required to engage in 
 many rough employments, ordinarily considered within the 
 province of men, simply because the dress of the latter gives 
 them greater freedom of motion, favorable for a free, energetic, 
 and speedy exercise of their limbs. 
 
368 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION. 
 
 There are trades and pursuits which women are abundantly 
 able to conduct with advantage to themselves and society ; and 
 their education, therefore, should have that practical direction 
 which will qualify them to engage in honorable, remunerative 
 efforts. In-door industries, commonly assigned to females, 
 rarely bring them compensation enough for purchasing decent 
 clothing. They are certainly entitled to something beyond the 
 demands of immediate necessity. An opportunity to acquire 
 more than is needed for the present, in reference to the future, 
 should not be denied them. 
 
 Such is the extraordinary activity of the human mind at this 
 particular juncture, there is scarcely a branch of mechanical 
 business, however humble, that is not facilitated and made 
 easier through the inventive genius of man. Machines make 
 shoe-lasts, shoes, boots, ox-yokes, rakes, wheels, gun-stocks, 
 mowers, reapers, ropes, cordage, carpets, cloth, hats : and, in 
 short, what is there needed in the daily affairs of life not made 
 by automatic machinery ? Certainly spinning, weaving, card- 
 ing, reeling, sewing, knitting, and hundreds of other similar 
 operations are wholly accomplished by machines propelled by 
 water, steam, or electricity, as though animated by an intelli- 
 gent spirit within. Cannon cast solidly are bored of any 
 determined calibre, without personal attention, when once the 
 drill is set in motion. 
 
 Even pictures are copied by machinery, and news is sent 
 round the globe in a few minutes, so that everything bears testi- 
 mony to the resources of genius in the production of many 
 modes of doing what was formerly the product of human 
 hands. 
 
 One machine performs the work of hundreds of operatives, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 369 
 
 and yet nothing is cheapened, as might reasonably be expected 
 with the facilities of this over-fast age. 
 
 "When boots and shoes, stockings, cloths, hats, coats, dresses, 
 etc., were slowly fabricated by hand-labor, they were far 
 cheaper than at present. 
 
 How can it be explained ? 
 
 A machine moved by steam-power will now turn out three 
 hundred pairs of ladies' boots in one day, and yet they actually 
 cost more than when a good workman could scarcely make two 
 pairs in a day, using his greatest diligence. 
 
 There seems scarcely a limit to what is possible, when men 
 of genius interrogate nature. 
 
 Therefore, there is a necessity for opening new avenues for 
 female enterprise. The spheres they have occupied from a re- 
 mote antiquity are closed to them, in the way of industry, by 
 inventions which wholly supersede them. 
 
 Women must have bread and breathing-room, even if the 
 population can be served better and more rapidly than formerly 
 by their busy fingers. 
 
 Armies, navies, and the mercantile marine take away vast 
 numbers of men. Women remain at home, and hence they 
 outnumber very largely the males in cities and in the old States of 
 the Union. Their prospect is discouraging for sustaining them- 
 selves, unless society accords to them the right to engage in pur- 
 suits which were once considered exclusively belonging to men. 
 
 There are more women than men in many of the European 
 states and kingdoms, and it is so also in extensive countries of 
 Asia and Africa. 
 
 This excess of female population is due entirely to the evil 
 propensities of men : their love for roaming excitement, a bel- 
 ligerent disposition, and the exactions of despotic rulers who 
 control their destiny in many countries. 
 
370 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Most cities on the coast lines of the United States have an 
 excess of females by far outnumbering the male population. 
 Sea-service, the needs of new lands for agricultural laborers far 
 back in the interior ; mining operations now extensively car- 
 ried on in the great mining regions of the West, induce men to 
 leave their native places to better their circumstances, while 
 their wives and sisters and daughters remain at home. 
 
 Women cannot submit to the hardships, privations, and 
 demoralizing tendencies of many pursuits which characterize 
 those far-off enterprises. There is a rudeness of manner, and a 
 disregard for conventional forms which belong to cultivated 
 society. Civilization accords to women the expectation of being 
 treated as beings holding a balance of power in those social 
 relations which secure propriety and refinement ; and all, in fact, 
 which is good, noble, and morally elevated in any community, 
 forbids they should be exposed to the roughness, rudeness, and 
 hardships of gold-digging researches. 
 
 LAW OF EQUALIZATION. 
 
 An equalization of the sexes is maintained with peculiar 
 regularity in the animal kingdom. Where there is an apparent 
 excess of one or the other, it is due to local causes ; but it in no 
 way effects a law which secures results most beneficial to the 
 perpetuity of a species. There is neither failure in the law of 
 reproduction to meet losses, nor the least danger of extinction, 
 unless a ruthless war of extermination is waged by man, in the 
 hunting of beaver, buffaloes, and whales. 
 
 When males are too numerous, they fight among themselves, 
 and slaughter one another till a proper proportion in reference 
 to the females is established. If females are in excess, there is 
 a law of adjustment immediately brought into operation which 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 reduces them gradually without producing violent commotion 
 or perceptible disturbance. 
 
 Again, it is equally curious to observe that when there are 
 too many inhabitants in a given area, among wild animals or 
 even aquatic beings, so that the products of the soil or a feed- 
 ing region of the sea are inadequate to their healthy support, 
 disease comes in the character of an equalizing agent. Thus 
 epidemics and plagues in over-stocked cities invariably subside 
 at a point that saves a remnant, since extinction is not contem- 
 plated in a law which the philosopher recognizes as a means of 
 securing a connecting link in a long chain of existence, the loss 
 of which might lead to conditions and revolutions quite beyond 
 our comprehension. 
 
 Alarms are occasionally sounded in village lecture-rooms, 
 that women so much outnumber men in the New England 
 States, being regarded as non-producers in an agricultural 
 sense, that something must be done to meet the emergency. 
 
 It is not alleged they are idle, or in any respect a burden to 
 the community. They consume food, to be sure, and it is 
 equally true they neither plough, chop wood, or labor in the 
 field, nor should they do either. 
 
 WOMEI* ABE ORDERLY. 
 
 There is not the slightest ground for alarm, because women 
 never band together for political agitation; they never pre- 
 pare revolutions, nor is social order outraged by them, however 
 erratic a few peculiar individuals may appear in vain attempts 
 and exhibitions not in accordance with their nature. 
 
 Women neither infest bar-rooms, loiter away the day in 
 saloons, lager-beer vaults, or march through town in hostile 
 bands, destroying printing-offices, or combine in squads for rob- 
 
372 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 bing railroad trains. Neither do they stuff ballot-boxes, nor 
 break open prisons for the liberation of thieves or accomplices 
 in wickedness. 
 
 They are not proper persons for running up and down the 
 rigging of a vessel. They could not conveniently glide to the 
 extremity of a yard-arm and take in sail in a gale of wind. 
 Their organization unfits them for balancing themselves on a 
 spar while their hands were belaying the wings of a scudding 
 ship. They could not swing an axe in felling forests, drilling 
 rocks in excavating canals, because the management of the in- 
 struments used in such labors would interfere with the health 
 of organs essential to maternity. 
 
 WHAT THEY CAN Do. 
 
 But they possess all the requisite physical and intellectual 
 qualifications for managing mercantile business, and for sus- 
 taining themselves with dignity and success as teachers, from a 
 common school to chairs in universities. 
 
 Wherever intelligence, diligence, accuracy, and honesty are 
 in estimation as pre-requisites for positions, women are prepared 
 for them. 
 
 They have not been taken into favor in the past, in such re- 
 lations, because the necessity for it did not apparently exist, as 
 it now does. One sewing machine is equal to one hundred 
 hand-sewers. Yet while they kept all people clothed by their 
 needle" industry, their wages were shamefully undervalued. 
 
 While their hardy, bold, adventurous fathers, brothers, 
 and husbands are wending their way to distant regions in 
 search of localities in which their prospects would be more satis- 
 factory, their daughters and wives remain where they were, it 
 being neither proper nor always convenient to go with them to 
 
THE WATS OF WOMEN. 373 
 
 border settlements before some preparation is made for their 
 reception. 
 
 Women, even in nominally Christian countries, have been 
 so long excluded and neglected, and, worse still, taught to be- 
 lieve it was wrong to be seen or heard outside the house, it has 
 become a prevalent opinion among ignoramuses they ought to 
 remain, there, even if left in ignorance and poverty. 
 
 While the idea is nursed that it is improper for women to 
 be exposed to sunshine, because it might bronze their complex- 
 ion ; or exposed to out-door air, they might take cold ; or seen 
 where men congregate to buy, sell, and get gain, inalienable 
 rights are denied them, they are wronged. 
 
 What is the duty of society, now that competition in all de- 
 partments of business makes them far more dependent than 
 formerly, especially since they outnumber the male popula- 
 tion* in the great centres of human activity ? 
 
 LEGISLATION FOR AMELIORATING THEIR CONDITION. 
 
 Legislation in their behalf practically amounts to nothing. 
 Acts defining their hours of labor in factories or milliners' 
 shops, are farces. It is about the same in respect to the school- 
 ing of young girls employed in manufacturing establishments. 
 
 They should have both protection and assistance. The lat- 
 ter is the urgent demand. 
 
 Ladies of fortune, and indeed those who are amply provided 
 for through an affectionate forecast of provident fathers, mo- 
 thers, and relatives, cannot comprehend or understand the 
 cry that reaches to heaven for millions of poor, heart-aching, 
 penniless women; nor do those whose beauty has won for 
 them privileges, comforts, and influence which wealth com- 
 mands, sympathize sufficiently with the less fortunate of their 
 
374 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 sex who are apparently born to a hapless destiny. Those who 
 are floating on a summer sea of prosperity are especially be- 
 sought to listen to a plea for help from an oppressed, neglected 
 sisterhood. 
 
 There are not agriculturists enough in this country; and, 
 consequently, with an abundance of the best and most produc- 
 tive land on the globe, all the necessaries of life are excessively 
 dear. The supply is not equal to the demand. Western 
 grain-growing prairies might furnish the world, were they all 
 tilled. 
 
 OUT OF PLACE. 
 
 Thousands of puny, pale-faced, feminine, sickly, poorly-de- 
 veloped young men, defective in muscular energy, enough in 
 number for a great army, even were half of them musterejl in 
 a body, abound in cities, who would have the strength and 
 character of men if they were cultivating land instead of meas- 
 uring tape with a yard-stick. 
 
 They are wasting the best years of life, deteriorating bodily 
 and mentally in counting-houses, banks, insurance offices, 
 confined retail shops, telegraph stations, etc., who ought to be 
 infinitely more useful were they transferred to the open fields, 
 devoted to agriculture. 
 
 They should yield their places at desks and behind counters 
 to women, qualified to do all they do, who are suffering for 
 employments for which they are abundantly qualified. 
 
 A social revolution is required to purify the corrupt atmo- 
 sphere of cities, by driving out worthless, dissipated young 
 men, and giving their places to worthy young women. How 
 many delicate stomachs are scantily supplied, and lungs de- 
 stroyed for want of wholesome air to breathe, boxed up in 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 375 
 
 lofts and stifled apartments, who would be excellent clerks and 
 accountants. Let some philanthropist set the example of 
 patronizing honest females instead of fast moral nuisances. 
 
 If those puny, sallow, spindle-legged exquisites, whose 
 greatest achievement is raising a moustache, were to change 
 the society of inkstands for broad acres in the West, they 
 would expand as much in mind as body, and, perhaps, lay a 
 foundation for comfort, independence, and longevity, which 
 are not within their grasp in the confined circumstances to 
 which their vocation limits them, especially when they riot in 
 dissipations. 
 
 Those feeble, sickly, neglected girls, in pestiferous lanes, 
 narrow, dark streets, sunless houses, upstairs in sombre rooms, 
 or cellar, should be assisted as they might be, and instructed 
 to command l|etter compensation for their services. 
 
 Were loud-mouthed philanthropists more familiar with the \ 
 painful condition of thousands of young women who might be ' 
 elevated and directed in useful, remunerative pursuits, by \ 
 half the attention bestowed upon institutions which do far 
 more for those who have immediate charge of them than for 
 their inmates, heaven would bless their efforts. 
 
 How TO PROCEED. 
 
 First, qualify those neglected girls by sending them to com- 
 mercial schools to learn bookkeeping ; have them taught tele- 
 graphy, how to conduct business in life-insurance offices, to be 
 tellers in banks, accountants, designers, engravers, teachers of 
 languages, musical instructors, have them taught the science of 
 surveying ; and, finally, qualify them for positions always pre- 
 senting, where they could do all that young men do in such 
 relations as are indicated in this general scheme for usefulness, 
 
376 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 and even many more that might be particularized in this 
 miscellaneous grouping of industries. 
 
 Young girls, thus qualified, would sustain themselves with 
 honor. And it will be conceded, they are far less predisposed 
 to deteriorating vices than young men. 
 
 They neither smoke, drink, nor gamble, visit race-courses, 
 organize boat-clubs, carouse through the night, or engage 
 in any of those dissipations which lead to deceptions, breach 
 of confidence, or expose them to the attacks of knaves or 
 thieves 
 
 Defalcations, absconding with funds of a patron, embezzle- 
 ment of money in their care, forging notes, falsifying checks, 
 etc., would not occur, as they now do, were young women 
 placed where they should be introduced. Their instincts and 
 tendencies, even with no moral training, are alw%ys superior to 
 men of the same social grade. They are naturally virtuous, 
 honest, and sincere. 
 
 Wherever a pen is in requisition, careful reckoning, exact 
 computation, or an orderly attendance is an element of im- 
 portance, a well-instructed woman is always equal, and in many 
 trying circumstances, even superior to a man. 
 
 It would be a splendid recognition of female ability to sus- 
 tain responsible positions, .were trustees of estates, directors, 
 and other governing spirits in moneyed institutions, to exchange 
 platoons of burly, rough, unpolished, uncivil, bewhiskered 
 clerks, whose thoughts are more on whiskey and tobacco than 
 on the interest of their employers, for an equal number of 
 quiet, delicate, modest, neatly attired young women. They are 
 much more deserving than any one imagines, who simply feels a 
 woman is a sort of a fifth wheel of a coach, only to be cared for 
 when it is impossible to do without her. 
 
 They would be less expensive as clerks, and, as experience 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 377 
 
 would prove, perfectly reliable. Let those who are stockholders, 
 and, indeed, any and all who would encourage the deserving, 
 make the experiment. Their cash would be in safe keeping 
 instead of being squandered in stock-jobbing speculations so 
 frequently practised by men anxious to turn another's penny in 
 haste to be rich. 
 
 COMPENSATION. 
 
 Women should be paid for what they do as much as is given 
 to men for the same service. If they accomplish just as much 
 in a given time, and as satisfactorily as a being in pantaloons, 
 why should they not have the same compensation ? 
 
 It is disgraceful meanness for an employer to pay only one 
 dollar to a woman, because the is a woman, for work in a 
 printing-office, for example, for which a man gets three or four 
 for precisely the same labor, just because he belongs to the 
 masculine gender. 
 
 A lame excuse for such unjust recompense is, that the 
 clothing of females is less expensive than male garments, 
 and further, custom sanctions the scale of prices for labor. But 
 both are frivolous and absurd apologies for doing unjustly. 
 
 Whether their clothing costs less or more, is nothing to the 
 point. They are justly entitled to what they earn. Their 
 stomachs are as keen for a beefsteak as their competitors' in 
 full beards, who squander more in one evening at a bar-room 
 than a female compositor could earn in a week at the present 
 rate of compensation. 
 
 The chart of female employments has been under considera- 
 tion for years. Excellent speeches have also been made, beau- 
 tiful expressions have gone forth, redounding more to the praise 
 of those that uttered them, than to the profit of those in whose 
 behalf they were sent abroad. The poor, hard-working, poorly- 
 
3Y8 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 paid girls have no more pudding than when nobody cared 
 whether they lived in wretchedness, or died in a hovel. 
 
 Political equality and political suffrage for women, per- 
 petually discussed topics with those who make capital for them- 
 selves, under a pretence of being oppressed by the wrongs of 
 women, have not yet bettered the condition of the class for 
 whom their sound, but not their substance, has been given. 
 
 Political hypocrites and professional philanthropists are 
 leeches, subsisting on what they get out of the people by excit- 
 ing their sympathy. 
 
 After ages may regulate conflicting claims, and settle diffi- 
 cult problems in regard to labor, but it will be a long while 
 before the poor will be made happy by philanthropic resolu- 
 tions at anniversary meetings, where there are vice-presidents 
 enough to freight a steamboat, but no substantial assistance for 
 the ostensible objects of their overflowing benevolence of words. 
 
 We are contemplating the present period ; but when the cry 
 of the oppressed goes up to the court of Heaven, where records 
 are truly kept, the claims of that large class, whose misfortunes 
 are the text in this sermon, will be adjudicated, and their 
 wrongs righted. 
 
 No objections are entertained against any system of instruc- 
 tion which enlarges the domain of female knowledge, or that 
 qualifies them to act in any capacity in which men ought not to 
 act, while there is an excess of female population. 
 
 Parents are bound to pursue a course, in the education of 
 daughters, that promises best for their success in honorable 
 industry. 
 
 WHAT PARENTS SHOULD Do. 
 
 There is neither radicalism nor sectarianism in this. When 
 fathers and mothers cannot lay aside property for their children, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 379 
 
 in this land of free schools, they can qualify them to provide for 
 themselves. 
 
 Gloomy pictures might be drawn, illustrative of the degra- 
 dation of women in over-crowded cities, and the vicious lives 
 some are forced to lead, or die of starvation, from which they 
 would joyfully escape if they could. Life or death are solemn 
 sounds to a shrinking, timid girl, fashioned in the form of an 
 angel, famished in the sight of plenty of which she canno 4 : taste. 
 
 Police courts, jails, penitentiaries, and reformatories present 
 sickening statistics of perverted powers, and wrecks of beauty 
 in sloughs of despondency, that could have been saved to adorn 
 society, had they been cared for by those who, from their posi- 
 tion, might and should have taken them by the hand. But it 
 is too much of a sacrifice for some exceedingly good persons to 
 step out of their way to save a saint. 
 
 Books need not be consulted, bloody tragedies cited, per- 
 sonal narrations, or painful scenes of misery sought, to strengthen 
 the appeal we are making. 
 
 In pagan and Mohammedan countries women have no such 
 unhappiness as is admitted to be common in Christian lands. 
 They have homes in harems which are sacred, under the protec- 
 tion of brutes in the form of men ; but they are never outcasts 
 on the street, seeking like starved beasts of prey whom they 
 may devour. 
 
 We speak of them as pitiable objects, ignorant of their 
 rights as human beings to equal privileges, and the same social 
 status, exclusively in the possession of their proprietors, for they 
 are contemplated as property. 
 
 With such degradation, however, there are no brothels, 
 none of that wickedness which is a reproach to civilization, and 
 a curse where women are denied those rights which flow from 
 fountains of justice. 
 
380 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 "We beg to urge upon those who may begin to reflect anew 
 upon this subject, to assist according to their pecuniary ability 
 in qualifying intelligent young women for something that will 
 bring them a proper and just reward for their industry, more 
 than what they can earn with a needle. 
 
 Give them opportunities for acquiring French, German, 
 Spanish, and other languages, and assist them to positions in 
 telegraph stations, where they could make those languages of 
 the first importance for business correspondence. They ought 
 to be, and it is believed they would prove the best, most accur- 
 ate, and always punctual operators. 
 
 Boston, Portland, Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, Bal- 
 timore, Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans, etc., 
 etc., would give ample employment for thousands of such 
 accomplished telegraphers as they might be, if public sentiment 
 were enlisted in their favor. 
 
 By opening such avenues as have thus far been closed to 
 them, and by it, virtually compelling young men to enter upon 
 more appropriate pursuits than weighing out tea by the pound, 
 or selling pins and needles, a gratifying change would come 
 over the land. Bread would be cheaper. 
 
 We are hoping that phonography, telegraphy, drawing, 
 designing, engraving, and many other useful arts, may be 
 taught in all well-conducted country schools, expressly for 
 qualifying girls in those remunerative branches of industry. 
 
 Give young women who may be dependent on their per- 
 sonal efforts, a knowledge of the art or science for which they 
 have a decided preference. If philanthropists will give their 
 support in that direction, health, happiness, and independence 
 will crown their efforts. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 ACQUIRING LANGUAGES. 
 
 Capacity for Certain Pursuits Waste of Life Foreign Dialects We are 
 Called a One-tongued People How to Acquire a Language Dogs 
 Learn the Meaning of Words Curious Facts Qualifications for Tele- 
 graphing. 
 
 THERE are persons who. have a faculty for making more 
 rapid progress than others in mastering a new language. It is 
 familiar to those wholly ignorant of the science of phrenology, 
 that there is a singular difference among persons of the same 
 age, position, and opportunities, in acquiring specific or general 
 knowledge. 
 
 It would be ridiculous to assert that one boy may become 
 just as expert as another in figures or some kind of handicraft, 
 under precisely the same instruction. One will learn Latin or 
 French rapidly, which his companion at the same desk, with the 
 same facilities, cannot acquire so readily under precisely the 
 same training. 
 
 Some have an intuitive perception, where others, of equal 
 intelligence, cannot make satisfactory progress. 
 
 There are natural mathematicians, as there are, also, natural 
 linguists. Memory is differently manifested, since some 
 persons remember certain things better than others. One 
 cannot recall names of places or men, yet there is a distinct re- 
 collection of faces and peculiarities of each. 
 
 By this curious difference in the arrangement of cerebral 
 
382 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 matter, there is a man and woman precisely fitted for every 
 imaginable place. 
 
 That peculiarity is acknowledged at the temple-door of 
 philosophy. Thus every shade of mental development is recog- 
 nized, and, as no two are alike, there is a brain to meet every 
 condition and all circumstances in the management of a 
 world. 
 
 There is an unquestionable difference in the structure of 
 human brains. Though apparently alike in their general con- 
 figuration, in the materials of which they are formed, and in 
 the manner, too, of circulating the blood through the mass, the 
 arrangement of the atoms of which the cerebrum is constructed, 
 is infinitely varied. 
 
 Different races of men differ essentially in mental force. 
 Size, of course, has to be considered in a search for a reason why 
 one brain is more powerful in resources than another. There 
 are walking polyglots, but far more are incapable of speaking 
 their mother tongue grammatically. 
 
 If certain convolutions of the brain are more prominent than 
 others, according to the teachings of those who know nothing 
 about the subject, they are charged with force corresponding to 
 their development. About thirty protuberances are marked on 
 charts, which the disciples of Gall and Spurzheim recognized as 
 locations of distinct faculties. 
 
 If a ganglionic elevation happens to be the organ of lan- 
 guage, and has been better nourished, or rather more frequently 
 excited than its neighbors, it will give evidence of its superior- 
 ity ; while twenty-nine are feeble or embryotic. 
 
 We need not consult authors to facilitate progress in acquir- 
 ing a new language. Men, women, and children are constantly 
 met who have the faculty of articulating many languages flu- 
 ently, who can neither read nor write. It is curious that re- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 383 
 
 markable linguistic scholars rarely contribute much to the fund 
 of general literature. 
 
 Certain conditions are thought to be essential in learning to 
 speak a new language ; but experience and observation show, 
 very positively, that under even unfavorable circumstances, as 
 they would be estimated by scholars, little children on the 
 frontiers of Germany, France, Poland, Russia, Italy, etc., where 
 there is a meeting, as it were, of strange tongues, are perfectly 
 fluent in four, five, and even in six modern languages, yet 
 wholly unable to read or write either of them. 
 
 There is no marvel in all this. They are so located that 
 they cannot avoid having their ears saluted quite as frequently 
 with foreign words as their own. Neither effort, study, ex- 
 ercises, or recitations, are ever brought to their assistance. 
 
 EDUCATION OF THE EAR. 
 
 The ear is an avenue through which linguistic development 
 is accomplished, and not by the study of books, or recitations of 
 authorized lessons of grammarians. 
 
 Such is the commercial intercourse of one part of the busi- 
 ness world with another, there is a positive necessity for one 
 language, at least, besides our own. Great transactions with 
 foreign nations could not be conducted with any kind of facility 
 without the assistance of those who understand the meaning and 
 intentions of both parties, if neither understood the language of 
 the other. 
 
 Progress in literature, science, art, and mechanism, would 
 be extremely circumscribed, and confined to narrow boundaries, 
 were it not for scholars who change one language into another, 
 and thus put readers in communication with all mankind. 
 
 The people of the United States are regarded as a one- 
 
384 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 tongued population. Millions of foreigners, representatives of 
 every power in Europe, are interspersed through the land, but 
 they are compelled to acquire English, or pass a lonely pilgrim- 
 age without conversational intercourse. 
 
 We rarely give ourselves the trouble to learn the language 
 of new-comers from abroad. If they desire a social acquaint- 
 ance, they must blunder on for several years in order to pro- 
 nounce the shibboleth aright. They are under the painful neces- 
 sity of dropping their mother tongue. We, on the contrary, give 
 ourselves no concern in regard to their embarrassment in at- 
 tempting to comprehend or articulate what is so familiar to 
 ourselves. If they ultimately succeed in gaining an imperfect 
 command of new words, it is about all those who constitute the 
 majority of Germans, Danes, Swedes, French, etc., achieve. 
 Where enough of any of them happen to constitute a little 
 community of their own, then they hardly give themselves any 
 anxiety about mastering the elements of English. 
 
 Several communities thus constituted have so multiplied at 
 the West, that their schools, and even newspapers, are conducted 
 in their native language. This circumstance has obliged legis- 
 latures in several States to publish their laws in several lan- 
 guages, that they may not be in ignorance of the way their 
 rights and privileges are maintained and secured. 
 
 MOKE THAN ONE LANGUAGE. 
 
 Educational preparation for the active scenes of life, for 
 which youth ought to be qualified, should include a conversa- 
 tional knowledge of the most important living languages. 
 French and German have the first claim. With these and 
 English, we can hold intimate intercourse with about all 
 Europe. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 385 
 
 It is a sad waste of precious hours of a college student's 
 life, to be drilling years before and after entering the institu- 
 tion, in languages which are dead. They are accomplishments, 
 but not necessities. One is a language that has not been 
 spoken for nearly two thousand years, nor will it ever be 
 revived. 
 
 No objection is offered to their perpetuity. 
 
 One or two terms in the course of a college residence, de- 
 voted to living languages, taught so that they could be spoken 
 fluently, would be of incalculable importance to the individual 
 in all the after years of life. Latin and Greek are drilled into 
 boys for one or two years at a cost far exceeding the expense 
 of teachers of a living language, to qualify them for passing 
 an examination to become freshmen. After that crisis has 
 passed, very little does any one care for Greek or Latin, unless 
 they are designed for instructors in these departments. There- 
 fore, the expense and time are deplorable losses. 
 
 VALUE OF LIVING LANGUAGES. 
 
 It is becoming a question of interest among distinguished 
 writers on education, whether some revolution is not 'required 
 in elementary preparation for the world in which we live, of 
 more value to the pupil than Greek and Latin would not 
 living languages be more useful than obsolete ones ? 
 
 A finishing process in a young lady's education is music 
 and French. Schools exist on a reputation for polishing misses 
 in those two much-prized accomplishments. Not to be sup- 
 posed familiar with both, would be equivalent to being very 
 imperfectly educated. 
 
 Young ladies, presumed to have had the best advantages, 
 are usually taught French by instructors who cannot articulate 
 
386 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 a sentence that would not shock a French tailor. Session after 
 session at an expensively fashionable boarding-school, they are 
 supposed to acquire exact and, indeed, intimate knowledge of 
 idiomatic French ; but not one in fifty knows anything about it 
 beyond reading understandingly to themselves. They cannot 
 pronounce it ; nor dare the best of them hazard the experiment 
 in the presence of a French chambermaid for fear of exciting 
 ridicule. 
 
 As that language is too generally taught in female educa- 
 tional institutions throughout the country, it is a lamentable 
 loss of time for pupils. The teacher as often as otherwise is a 
 lady not much further advanced in the mysteries of accent 
 
 than those she is drilling. 
 
 
 
 WHEKE TO LEAEN" LANGUAGES. 
 
 Foreign languages are taught in cities very acceptably by 
 those who come from Europe, who speak their native language 
 far better than those who have acquired them second-hand 
 through professors who could not make themselves understood 
 in a baker's shop in any tongue but their own, were they starv- 
 ing for a slice of bread. 
 
 Indulgent parents expend money freely for their daughters, 
 but it is a poor method of giving them a conversational famil- 
 iarity with French, in country boarding-schools. 
 
 Instead of keeping a young lady in school for that particu- 
 lar accomplishment, French, German or Italian, place her at 
 once in a respectable, cultivated French family, or with a Ger- 
 man or Italian household. 
 
 For. example, place a young miss in a family at Montreal or 
 Quebec, in which French is spoken excl usively. Or, if the ex- 
 pense is no object, send her to France. No instruction would 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 387 
 
 be required, unless it were particularly desirable to hasten the 
 process. Simply being in a family is sufficient. 
 
 There need be neither plodding in primary books, recita- 
 tions or any instruction whatever. In an incredibly short time 
 her ears would become familiarized to new sounds. Children 
 are more ready than adults, placed under such circumstances, 
 in acquiring the meaning and accent of words. 
 
 "While boys are drudging at tasks in Greek and Latin, not 
 essential, they could have a complete acquaintance with two or 
 three living languages, of infinitely more value to them. 
 
 In all after periods of life one or two languages in addition 
 to their own would be a thousand times more important to 
 them than a critical familiarity with the orations of Cicero. 
 
 There would be less brain labor in this method than imper- 
 fectly understanding ancient classics, and boys would be quali- 
 fied for sustaining commercial relations all over the world, 
 while the best Latinist in Christendom could not buy a paper of 
 pins, were he to ask for them in that scholarly language. 
 
 FOREIGN OFFICIALS. 
 
 Our ambassadors, consuls, and commercial agents, sent 
 abroad to represent the dignity of this government, protect our 
 citizens and their interests, have often been the laughing-stock 
 of those among whom they resided, on account of their stupid 
 ignorance of all language but their own, which they not unfre- 
 quently barbarously murder. 
 
 American consuls have sometimes been spoken of as so illit- 
 erate as to be incapable of speaking English grammatically. 
 Their appointment have notulways been on account of eminent 
 qualifications. If it is true political services are ever paid for 
 in that way, as compensation for aiding in the election of a 
 
388 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 rampant partisan to Congress, it is high time the Civil Service 
 Law should be enforced. 
 
 Government makes a mortifying mistake in ever commis- 
 sioning foreigners to consular stations. When the native stock 
 has been exhausted, there will be a reasonable excuse for crav- 
 ing the assistance of men who were never on this continent who 
 do not understand its usages or laws. Travelers cannot conceal 
 their disgust at this kind of patronage. A profuse exhibition 
 of brass buttons, with the stars and stripes waving over empty 
 heads on the shoulders of official nobodies, who would not be 
 invited to dine with a cobbler in any country, are no credit to a 
 great nation of freemen. 
 
 Every consul should be qualified and write the language of 
 the country where he is stationed. All the higher grades of 
 official representatives should be educationally qualified for 
 their positions. Ministers plenipotentiary at the principal 
 courts with which we hold intimate diplomatic relations, have 
 not been a whit better qualified than their servants in many 
 instances. Clerks and attaches have transacted all business, 
 while the great man takes the salary and does the official din- 
 ing, to be laughed at behind his back. 
 
 
 
 TEACHING FRENCH AND GERMAN IN SCHOOLS. 
 
 Were French and German regularly and systematically 
 taught, like other more common but necessary studies in district 
 schools for both sexes, the national character would stand on a 
 higher level, whenever those who have had educational advan- 
 tages in them are required to serve where such languages are 
 spoken. 
 
 Every faculty of the mind should be cultivated, and no one 
 of them permitted to lie dormant in these stirring times, when 
 knowledge is power. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 389 
 
 Strange faces, new institutions, and new places, differing 
 from those to which we are accustomed, make vivid impressions 
 at first, but they gradually become familiar. So it is in respect 
 to a new language. It sounds harshly, and may be difficult to 
 articulate, is fearfully guttural, or, perhaps, worse to compre- 
 hend, even under the best facilities for instruction ; but, as the 
 ear begins to be less severely taxed in catching the new vibra- 
 tions, difficulties melt away. 
 
 When a few words are understood, the way is soon made 
 easier for more. By and by a sentence can be articulated. 
 Before half the anticipated obstacles have been overcome, we 
 begin to chat readily. 
 
 Germans, Swedes, Danes, Poles, Frenchmen, etc., who did 
 not know a word of English when they landed in America, soon 
 acquire it sufficiently for all the practical purposes of business 
 and social intercourse. We, however, rarely learn anything of 
 their language in their way of learning. 
 
 Little children are delightful assistants when a person is 
 under lingual discipline. They prattle away perpetually, un- 
 hesitatingly, and, therefore, give important aid to a beginner. 
 A family in which there are small children should have a 
 decided preference over one where there are none, in selecting 
 a home, where the main object is to be within the hearing of 
 the language which it is proposed to acquire. 
 
 Adults are very reserved, fearing to speak, lest they 
 should subject themselves to the critical observations of those 
 who might make merry over their blunders. They hesi- 
 tate to ask questions when they very much desire to do so, 
 for fear of being considered troublesome, or particularly 
 stupid. 
 
 No person, especially those quite young, could be in a 
 family of French or Germans, for example, six months, and not 
 
390 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 make considerable progress, without having had a single lesson 
 given them. 
 
 Indian prisoners at the "West, wandering about at the mercy 
 of their savage captors, very soon begin to comprehend the 
 meaning of their uncouth gutturals, and discover their views in 
 regard to their cruel intentions. 
 
 Accuracy of expression could not be expected, certainly not 
 attained, without considerable practice, since perfection of articu- 
 lation must result from long practice. 
 
 Children learn to speak without instruction. "What can they 
 know of the laws of syntax ? They lisp their crude thoughts 
 with charming freedom, years before they are taught the ele- 
 ments of grammar. That appropriately comes into play as 
 they approach their teens. 
 
 LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS. 
 
 Dogs certainly understand the import of words, or they 
 could not so readily obey their masters. Their capacity for 
 language is far above that of cats. Puss must see -a morsel of 
 meat or a cup of milk, to gain her friendly attentions. She 
 may be frightened, but not with harsh expressions, unless 
 accompanied by muscular gesticulations, when away she runs 
 from impending danger. 
 
 Dogs, on the contrary, possess a higher cerebral develop- 
 ment. They often acquire a general knowledge of two and 
 three languages, according to their advantages. It is not to be 
 supposed there is any particular effort on their part, or ambi- 
 tion, to remember the exact sense of an articulate sound. 
 
 A repetition of words and sentences, as heard in the family 
 where different languages are habitually spoken, ultimately 
 fixes an impression. Finally, they associate certain acts with 
 certain words or commands. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 391 
 
 There are dogs almost everywhere, trained to carry and 
 bring letters from the post-office, visit the market with a basket 
 for the family dinner, stand guard through the night, and carry 
 notes at the bidding of the proprietor. They actually learn to 
 obey different members of the household who may direct or 
 command them in French, German, Spanish, etc., as they are 
 spoken indifferently in the establishment. 
 
 Not long since a pet dog was brought to New York from 
 Naples, whose intelligence was extraordinary. When directed 
 to engage in certain performances, in Italian, he promptly 
 obeyed ; but when addressed in English, the poor fellow was 
 amazingly perplexed. After a while it was apparent he had 
 mastered the meaning of a new language, to a certain extent, 
 which was manifested with signs of gratification. 
 
 Vulgar dogs, like parrots, gain a knowledge of a few slang 
 phrases, becoming embarrassed when addressed in terms un- 
 connected with towering expletives. Donkeys and mules, 
 usually regarded as the embodiment of stupidity, evince a 
 nice perception of articulate sounds. 
 
 There are many places in Louisiana where those shabbily- 
 treated animals in harness readily obey orders given in three 
 different languages, as either happens to be used by their 
 drivers. Those dumb beasts prick up their long ears in 
 surprise, evidently indicating perplexity, when a strange man 
 takes the reins, speaking a new language to them. 
 
 Even oxen, dull and unobserving as they seem to be, listen 
 attentively to what is said particularly to themselves while in 
 the yoke. Haw and gee, equivalent to right and left, are as 
 perfectly understood by trained oxen as by the teamster. Back 
 is another command which an infant might pronounce with 
 equal certainty of having it executed. Horses in bakers' carts, 
 market nags, and milkmen's teams, not only know precisely 
 
392 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 what the driver bids them do, but they also know the exact 
 residence of customers. 
 
 A Vermont farmer is reputed to have borrowed of a French 
 neighbor, across the line, the use of an ox for a day, to take 
 the place of a sick one. The stranger from Her Majesty's 
 dominion could not respond to the bidding of the Yankee, be- 
 cause he could not understand him, although evincing a perfect 
 willingness to pull or turn as his mate indicated. "With the 
 best intentions, however, the unmated cattle were constantly 
 committing blunders, to the dismay of the citizen of the repub- 
 lic. Towards evening, in crossing a railroad track as a train 
 was approaching, they were urged to make haste by boisterous 
 vociferations, which quickened the speed of the Yermont ox, 
 but the other, not understanding the loud tones, gazed about 
 with glaring eyes, in view of impending destruction, not know- 
 ing which way to move, and, in that instant of hesitation and 
 doubt, was crushed to death by the locomotive, and thus died 
 dramatically, in consequence of not knowing the English 
 language. 
 
 Address any of the domesticated animals, accustomed to 
 the sound of human voices, and there is no doubt respecting 
 the fact that they attach a meaning to what they hear, to a 
 limited extent. That is particularly noticeable in menageries. 
 There they become cognizant of the expressions of their 
 keepers. 
 
 They learn their ways, analyze their character for kindness, 
 and govern themselves accordingly. So accurately do dogs and 
 cats discriminate a good disposition from a morose, severe, un- 
 sympathetic person, that they walk boldly to some for caresses, 
 or avoid others with marked exhibitions of dislike. 
 
 Seals gather a distinct meaning of words in their captivity, 
 with a keeper who is regularly in attendance. A change of 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 393 
 
 superintendent leads to sorrowful moanings. By speaking 
 slowly and distinctly to them, their full, intelligent eyes sparkle 
 with evident delight. 
 
 Anecdotes, without limitation, are interspersed in works on 
 natural history, illustrative of the capacity of animals for 
 gathering a knowledge of words. Birds certainly converse with 
 one another when preparing for a migratory excursion. They 
 then congregate in multitudes, and apparently deliberate in 
 council. If the chattering means anything, it would seem to 
 relate to the proposed removal to another climate. 
 
 If they have no intelligence, and their sagacity is without 
 thought, the force of instinct which compels them to act 
 without the exercise of volition, how does it happen that such 
 armies of feathered races move with a precision, varying by 
 incidental circumstances, as though they had both a present and 
 future object in view ? 
 
 Parrots articulate phrases they have heard, without attach- 
 ing any sense to them. Their power of imitating vocal sounds is 
 surprising. When once familiarized to a routine of expressions, 
 they repeat them, but without reference to their appropriate- 
 ness to the occasion. They have not a brain for carrying on a 
 train of thought. Mocking-birds are extraordinary imitators. 
 They are extremely jolly and frolicsome over the confusion 
 they create among other birds. Dogs are far superior to most 
 animals, from the circumstance that they retain cerebral impres- 
 sions, which are recalled for the execution of after acts. A 
 Highland shepherd bids his dog find a missing sheep. Away he 
 scampers in earnest search for it, keeping distinctly in mind 
 what is expected of him. He never can be taught to speak, be- 
 cause he has nothing to say, although he thinks accurately in 
 the line of his special vocation. Having no sphincter muscle 
 to the mouth, labial sounds are impossible. 
 
394 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Monkeys have a vocal apparatus so nearly resembling our 
 own, that it would puzzle a practical anatomist to designate one 
 from the other, if of the same size, when detached from the 
 body. They have vocal cords, well-formed lips, and nerves 
 directed precisely as in the nervous system of the most inveter- 
 ate talker, yet a monkey has never been heard to pronounce a 
 syllable. While a whip is held over his head, he performs sur- 
 prising tricks, rides in a circus, goes through manual exercises 
 with a miniature gun, plays a tambourine, collects pennies, etc., 
 but, with all these accomplishments, he never voluntarily prac- 
 tises them when left alone. Neither does he attempt speaking. 
 Their chattering is always the same, whether expressing 
 pleasure or pain. 
 
 There are remarkable accounts of dogs, which fully demon- 
 strate their reasoning powers to an extent bordering on the 
 marvellous. Seeing and hearing are special senses, which are 
 exceedingly developed in them, and through which their know- 
 ledge is very accurate. A law of limitation puts a stop to 
 mental progress with animals, as it does in respect to their 
 growth. It is quite impossible to educate beyond a certain point, 
 because the instruments for carrying on the operation of think- 
 ing are insufficient, either in their number, weight, or structure. 
 
 By associating with persons of mild manners, who pet and 
 praise them with kind expressions, some dogs make extraordi- 
 nary advances. Their canine exploits may be carried so far as 
 to excite both admiration and surprise. Such performers exert 
 themselves under the stimulus of praise, or unmistakably exhibit 
 dejection and mortification when roughly reprimanded. 
 
 Some years ago a noble Newfoundland dog, owned by the 
 city of Boston, was kept at the quarantine ground, Rainsford 
 Island, in the capacity of a general watchman. Tiger lived to 
 about the age of twenty years. In that long life-lease, he had 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 395 
 
 acquired a very correct estimate of men and manners. He was 
 deferential to masters of vessels and well-dressed passengers 
 when they came on shore, but if sailors left their boat to wander 
 over the premises, he became demonstrative. They had to run 
 rapidly back to the landing, or feel the effects of Tiger's indig- 
 nation. 
 
 Such was Tiger's ambition to be in good society, that he 
 was invariably on hand to accompany the doctor in his barge 
 when visiting vessels. On account of his prodigious size and 
 imposing aspect, he was usually an object of particular atten- 
 tion, and had excellent bits of meat dropped over the gunwale 
 into the boat, while his master was transacting business in the 
 cabin. 
 
 So favorably impressed was that sagacious quadruped with 
 the attentions he received alongside, he occasionally swam back 
 and made a call on his own account. On seeing him paddling 
 around the hull, if a rope were thrown over, he held fast to it 
 with mighty strong jaws, and was thus hauled on board, to the 
 immense gratification of the crew, and no less gratification of 
 the visitor. After being feasted heartily, and wagging his long, 
 bushy tail to those who had bestowed the grub, in a twinkling 
 of an eye he would leap overboard and strike for land. 
 
 No efforts were successful in coaxing him back. On several 
 occasions a plot was laid to capture him, but watching an 
 opportunity, as though perfectly understanding the convesra- 
 tion respecting his detention, he gave the sailors the slip by 
 plunging into the surging waves, through which he quickly 
 worked his way to the nearest beach. 
 
 In consequence of repeated exposures in aquatic adventures, 
 of which he was exceedingly fond, together with the infirmities 
 incident to age, Tiger suffered severely with earache. The 
 doctor's lady used to make hot poultices, heat bricks, folded in 
 
396 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 soft cloths, etc., and when ready, she would tell him to take 
 position. He would instantly horizontalize himself under a 
 table, patiently submitting to a satisfactory adjustment of 
 madam's applications. 
 
 The transition from pain to perfect relief was never for- 
 gotten. Whenever he had a recurrence of the old torment, he 
 regularly whined in an ineffable tone, and shook his head, which 
 was an indication of wanting the kind lady's assistance. It was 
 a curious spectacle to witness his impatience for the brick to 
 heat. Bracing himself in a corner, he would look steadfastly at 
 the red-hot coals till it was taken out, and his mistress an- 
 nounced all ready. 
 
 So warmly attached was that sagacious old dog to his bene- 
 factress, that he became evidently jealous of attentions shown 
 by persons who did not come up to his standard of respectability. 
 When she stepped from a boat he invariably sprang for the 
 painter, holding it with tenacity till his friend was fairly on dry 
 ground. If one of the bargemen attempted to take the rope 
 away, there was a growl and show of white teeth, that fore- 
 shadowed displeasure at interfering with his gallantry. When 
 the lady was quite safely landed, then the painter was dropped, 
 and Mr. Tiger trudged along by her side, as though conscious 
 of having done his duty. 
 
 By way of experiment, to ascertain the exact extent of that 
 splendid brute's appreciation of language, on the return of the 
 doctor from the city, madam related to him that during his 
 absence Tiger had not behaved well : he had disobeyed her, or 
 had been over to the hospital and eaten up a patient's dinner. 
 
 Such conversation seemed to produce profound sleep, or if 
 he saw that facial expressions were assuming an unfavorable 
 change, he stole away behind a piece of furniture. By tacking 
 ship, however, and praising his fidelity, recounting his feats 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 397 
 
 and good qualities, the old fellow's organ of approbativeness 
 brought him bolt to his feet. He was delighted with flattery, 
 and overwhelmed his good friend with affectionate demonstra- 
 tions of regard. 
 
 A lady in New York converses with her Newfoundland as 
 with one of her servants. When she says to him, " You may 
 go with John to market," he capers frantically with anticipa- 
 tions of pleasure, because he is quite sure of fine picking among 
 the stalls where he has a host of friends. He goes to the 
 kitchen for a basket, and returns with it for money from his 
 mistress. He then trots off with it through densely crowded 
 streets, safely. His vanity is his weakest point, putting him- 
 self at considerable inconvenience for a compliment. 
 
 These citations of brute intelligence are digressions, but they 
 belong to that catalogue of evidences which are numerous and 
 convincing, that animals, from canary birds to elephants, in the 
 society of man, unquestionably acquire an elementary know- 
 ledge of the true meaning of words. 
 
 How absurd then to pretend that a human being, with a 
 great brain, superior in volume to that of all races below him, 
 cannot master more than one language, while donkeys, mules, 
 horses, dogs, elephants, oxen, seals, and even mice and canary 
 birds, gather an elementary knowledge of two or three, without 
 being able to articulate any ! 
 
 SYSTEMATIC PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 By a very moderate amount of systematic industry, perse- 
 veringly continued at leisure moments, any woman may attain 
 a speaking knowledge of one or two languages in addition to 
 her own vernacular. 
 
 "William Cobbett, alone, without an instructor, became a 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 critical French scholar. He even wrote an excellent grammar 
 of the language, still in repute. Dr. Franklin acquired French 
 when he was about seventy years old, which shows what may be 
 achieved where there is a will. Such are encouraging examples, 
 showing, beyond question, that it is never too late to learn. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Jones, chaplain of the Sailor's Snug Harbor, stated 
 in a public meeting, in New York, that in a company of one 
 hundred and thirty-seven seamen, at his house, they spoke among 
 them thirty-seven languages fluently. Several conversed freely 
 in four ; one r two in five; and one, a native of Finland, spoke 
 ten, and wrote seven of them correctly, one being Latin. 
 
 Du Chaillu, the African traveller, stated before the Geo- 
 graphical Society of New York, giving an account of his wan- 
 dering in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, that there 
 is not a girl in those countries sixteen years old, even in the re- 
 motest cabins of Lapland, who could not converse readily in 
 English, French, and German, besides their own severely harsh 
 dialect. 
 
 That statement made a deep impression on a highly culti- 
 vated audience. The whole mystery of such proficiency was 
 explained. Every school, from the primary to the highest, in 
 those countries, is by law obliged to teach children three neces- 
 sary languages, the government having the good sense to ap- 
 preciate the value of the principal languages of civilized coun- 
 tries, the knowledge of which qualifies the people to transact 
 business with the ruling nations of the earth. 
 
 There is no labored effort on the part of the children, no 
 extraordinary exertion by the teachers, to bring about such 
 proud results. It is simply a gradual process like any other 
 study deemed useful for youth. Really, no child is conscious 
 of any particular effort, but, as a matter of course, they insen- 
 sibly become accomplished linguists. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 399 
 
 Just such a system should be pursued in all common schools 
 in this country. It would be attended with no more expense 
 than at present, with arithmetic, grammar, and other element- 
 ary branches. Every little girl and boy, beginning with their 
 A, B, 7 might speak and read French, German, and English in 
 the same time they are acquiring any and all of those things 
 which make up a common school education. 
 
 Let this admirable course be adopted, and in twenty years 
 we should outgrow the taunt flung in the faces of American 
 scholars, that we are a one-tongued people. 
 
 Law and medical students, theological also ; clerks, and in- 
 deed others associated with commercial, banking, and various 
 kinds of activities requiring skill, tact, and accomplishments, too, 
 in their pursuits, have no apology for being so universally ig- 
 norant of foreign languages. 
 
 By subjecting themselves to a few inconveniences, and 
 taking up a residence in families where a language is exclusively 
 spoken which they wish to acquire, medical, law, theological 
 students, and clerks, might soon speak another language with- 
 out infringing upon business hours or cost of tuition. 
 
 The same course would accomplish any young lady, if not 
 in a condition to pursue the other plan proposed, by going to 
 Canada or France. 
 
 EXAMPLES or SUCCESS. 
 
 Let the organs of hearing be educated. That is the all-im- 
 portant beginning. 
 
 A ]STew York lady practising upon this system of keeping 
 the ear familiarized with French, Spanish, Italian, German, and 
 Portuguese, has a servant representing each language, for the 
 sake of being obliged to converse with each one in his or her own 
 
400 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 language. Her house, therefore, is a modern Babel, the mistress 
 being a ready interpreter in many dialects. 
 
 A gentleman went to France a short time since with an 
 accomplished daughter of whom he was exceedingly proud. As 
 the vessel was entering the port of Havre, a passenger asked 
 the father of the young lady if he intended to take a courier 
 into service on landing. 
 
 " No, sir," he replied. " My daughter has been expensively 
 educated in French. She understands it like a book, and I 
 intend she shall be my interpreter on our travels." 
 
 Yery soon after this conversation a pilot and revenue officer 
 came on board. Marching up to the American millionaire, 
 sputtering at a rapid rate, he quite confounded the old gen- 
 tleman with his volubility. Turning towards the blooming 
 daughter, " Find out," said he, " what these fellows want." 
 
 She was respectfully approached by the new comers, who 
 stated their object in choice French, but to her inexpressible 
 confusion, she could not understand a single word. The father's 
 mortification could not be concealed. He had boasted so much 
 of her acquirements, and the money lavished on her French 
 education in one of the most expensive boarding-schools, both 
 exhibited fallen crests, as most of the passengers were expecting 
 very gratifying assistance from that source. 
 
 The young lady had a thorough reading knowledge of 
 French, far superior, no doubt, to those who had unwittingly 
 brought her into such a mortifying dilemma. But her ear had 
 been neglected, as it always is in those fashionable institutions. 
 
 Had she been placed in any French family ten months as a 
 mere boarder, without taking a single lesson, and in no way 
 interfering with other essential studies or social relations, she 
 would have spoken French conversationally with ease and 
 fluency. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 401 
 
 AVENUES TO INDUSTRY. 
 
 A man who speaks two languages, says a proverb, is equal 
 to two men, and a woman who can do it is equal to half a 
 dozen. 
 
 New routes to useful pursuits are laid open by the aid of a 
 second language. It is an extra key for unlocking a cabinet of 
 treasures. 
 
 Young persons should be ambitious to possess that advan- 
 tage. Population is rapidly increasing, consequently the strife 
 for place and position is becoming more active. Without a 
 speaking acquaintance with at least one more language in addi- 
 to her own, a young lady is not equal to the responsibilities of 
 positions she might desire to occupy. 
 
 Telegraphic interests in the future will require linguists, 
 and so will mercantile houses, banks, and insurance offices, far 
 beyond what may have been anticipated. Such operators will 
 be in request, so extended are the enterprises of nations since 
 the utilization of steam and electricity. 
 
 Young women would be admirable at the wires, and a hope 
 is entertained they may have almost a monopoly of telegraph 
 stations. Therefore, let them seasonably qualify themselves for 
 those useful, appropriate, and remunerative services. 
 
 Drive the pale, thin, feminine-looking clerks out of easy- 
 chairs in banks, insurance offices, treasuries, public bureaus, 
 where honesty and faithfulness are the first requisite qualifica- 
 tion, to cultivate the soil. It would be doing them a personal 
 kindness. In becoming strong, hardy, brave, and enterprising 
 in the field, food would be cheaper, and the race improve 
 physically, morally, and mentally. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 IN" THE PKOPESSIOKS. 
 
 Not Forcible Public Speakers before Large Audiences Physical Reason 
 Make Good Professors Female Physicians a Success Admirable Artists 
 Approved Teachers of Various Branches of Education Should be 
 Encouraged. 
 
 SOME women, unfortunately for themselves, assume un- 
 
 1 natural positions. In a pulpit they appear out of place. They 
 
 1 may become learned theologians, write with fervor, but in 
 
 \ standing before an audience, however animated by zeal, or 
 
 j eminent in qualifications, their vocal powers are not equal to 
 
 .such occasions. 
 
 The larynx is smaller than in men; therefore there is a 
 physical inability for giving strength to the voice required for 
 being distinctly heard in large halls or churches, the timbre not 
 being of the quality for ringing through great assemblies. 
 
 There is a vast difference between singing and speaking. 
 The first is appreciable as a musical tone in them, heard dis- 
 tinctly and widely ; but when they attempt giving sonorous 
 weight to the voice, in the manner of commanding orators, the 
 failure is apparent. 
 
 The cartilages of the vocal box remain flexible in females 
 through life. In men, on the contrary, when they arrive at 
 puberty, they become bony, and the voice changes from the vox 
 rauca of a boy to a manly timbre. 
 
 By that organic alteration in the plates of the larynx, there 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 403 
 
 is a vibratory impulse given to the vocal current, set in motion 
 by the vocal cords, more intense than before. No such change 
 takes place in the female larynx. 
 
 Again, the nasal cavities, the frontal and maxillary sinuses 
 are far more developed in men than women. They are to the 
 voice what the body of a bass viol is to the strings as proven 
 by an inflammation which closes them. A vulgar explanation 
 of an alteration of voice is imputed to speaking through the 
 nose, in case of a severe cold, whereas a true state of the case 
 is, that they do not have the assistance of the nose in giving 
 volume and distinctness to articulate sounds. 
 
 ADAM'S APPLE. 
 
 Within the protuberance in front of the throat, midway be- 
 tween the chin and root of the neck, is a triangular box, in 
 which ribbon-like cords are stretched from wall to wall, that 
 vibrate by the rush of air, inhaled or expired, passing over their 
 tense edges. 
 
 Before puberty the voice of boys is like that of females. They 
 are employed in church choirs, while thus stationary in their 
 vocal apparatus. On emerging from that state into perfect 
 manhood, a change of voice announces what has taken place. 
 The female voice, however, remains always the same, since an 
 evolution from girlhood to womanhood brings no parallel 
 alteration in the larynx or nasal cavities. That organ neither 
 enlarges nor ossifies. 
 
 Neither sinuses or nasal cavities are ever as large in females 
 as in men. 
 
 A natural conformation, therefore, in the vocal mechanism 
 of the throat disqualifies females for producing a strong, 
 sonorous sound. 
 
4:04: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 There are exceptional cases, in which some women are so 
 masculine in manner, voice, and acts, as to destroy those attri- 
 butes which make them attractive, and their society sought for 
 their refining influences and loveliness. 
 
 At the bar, before juries, in halls of legislation, or, indeed, 
 in large bodies, they could not compete with the deep, loud- 
 sounding voice of a man in the meridian of his muscular 
 power. 
 
 By emasculation before puberty, the larynx remains station- 
 ary. Its cartilaginous walls are ever after flexible as in females. 
 Eunuchs, therefore, are employed in harems of the East as 
 female guardians ; in choirs also, as singers, where women are 
 not admissible. If emasculation is not performed till after 
 puberty, the system being developed to its maximum of 
 completeness, the voice remains at the timbre it had when it 
 altered from the vox rauca. 
 
 PKOFESSORIAL DUTIES. 
 
 As professors of departments in public institutions, colleges, 
 seminaries of any order, where science or literature is taught, 
 no great lung-force being required, females would be abun- 
 dantly able to sustain such honorable positions. Demonstra- 
 tions and illustrations would be within their scope. They could 
 discharge all such duties with as much success, eclat, and appro- 
 priateness as men, and far more acceptably and clearly than 
 many stupid male professors, who are kept in such institutions 
 through the influence of interested relatives. 
 
 Yery many institutions of learning in this fair country are 
 languishing. Their perpetual cry is for money. They annoy 
 legislatures for pecuniary assistance. When it is obtained, it does 
 not accomplish the great rescusitating results which were theo- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 405 
 
 reticallj promised. The real secret of their feebleness is in 
 the faculty, oftener than otherwise, who have neither tact, 
 brains, nor qualifications for the chairs into which they were 
 inducted. 
 
 Of all professions, however, that in which women succeed 
 best, is in the practice of medicine. They have made the dis- 
 covery themselves, that they possess aptitude for managing the 
 sick. The public, too, in this government, and in many of the 
 most polished and advanced governments of Europe, accept the 
 proposition that they make excellent and eminently successful 
 physicians. 
 
 Medical colleges have been chartered, in all directions, for 
 the special purpose of qualifying them, scientifically, to take 
 upon themselves the responsibilities of that important pro- 
 fession. 
 
 A standing army of medical men have opposed the move- 
 ment. They have thrown every imaginable obstacle in the 
 way. Not only have they refused to admit them as pupils 
 into schools of medicine, but they have denounced and ridiculed 
 those who have expressed sympathy for them in their desire to 
 be medically educated. 
 
 That old saying, " that the blood of the martyr is the seed 
 of the church," is particularly applicable in regard to female 
 physicians. Intensified opposition has created college after 
 college expressly for their benefit, and more will be chartered 
 and they will multiply. Some institutions abroad have been 
 compelled by mandates of rulers to open their doors to them, 
 in direct opposition to the remonstrances of medical practi- 
 tioners. 
 
 Probably there will be as many female medical students 
 in the United States as male students, within the next fifty 
 years. 
 
406 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 FEMALE PHYSICIANS. 
 
 Communities have to be educated for the reception of 
 whatever is useful. It is extremely difficult to convince the 
 public that improvements are not innovations. The idea of a 
 female physician was a novelty at first, and so strange too, as 
 none but men were practitioners of medicine, it looked like 
 overturning the constitutions of society when women were 
 feeling pulses. 
 
 But we become accustomed to revolutions. The novelty 
 wore off, and next it was ascertained that their manner of inter- 
 course with invalids, the delicacy of their approach, the care- 
 fulness with which investigations were conducted, the accuracy 
 of their analysis of symptoms, and their judgment in the ad- 
 ministration of remedies, inspired confidence. 
 
 At once their own sex gave them a preference over many 
 rough, burly, indifferent practitioners, whose attainments were 
 far below the qualifications of those female physicians who 
 have been thoroughly instructed in well conducted medical 
 institutions. 
 
 Emigrant ships would immensely improve the condition of 
 steerage passengers, by having a female physician permanently 
 attached to the vessel. Female passengers need one of their own 
 sex, qualified to prescribe for them and their children, and to 
 give them council. It would insure order, neatness, morality, 
 and better health in those crowded collections of men and 
 women across the ocean, were this suggestion accepted. It is 
 an advance in propriety and the comfort of poor, neglected 
 occupants of the steerage, that is bound to be inaugurated, and 
 soon too. 
 
 That partition-wall has given way, which prevented the 
 advance of enterprise in law, medicine, and theology. Those 
 
THE WATS OF WOMEN. 40 T 
 
 professions are now open for all who are qualified to sustain 
 themselves in them. 
 
 Women, in being admitted to the privileges of medical 
 practitioners, have wisely let surgery alone. Their gentleness 
 would be out of place where living flesh is to be cut with sharp 
 instruments, even when the object is saving life. Blood is not 
 a sight for their eyes. Let them keep within the boundaries 
 which instinct directs, and their professional ministrations will 
 be appreciated. 
 
 Physiology explains the gradual unfolding of the organic 
 system, the function of nutrition, the phenomena of locomo- 
 tion, vision, audition, and the laws of reproduction. Female 
 medical students as fully comprehend difficult problems as 
 young gentlemen. Indeed, they are ordinarily closer appli- 
 cants, thus laying a broad foundation for pathological success 
 in their intercourse with the sick. 
 
 Either from a desire for distinction, hallucination, or an ab- 
 normal craving for notoriety, some women exhibit a perverted 
 taste, and a feeble judgment, when they force themselves into 
 positions which excite ridicule or contempt. 
 
 Engaged in pursuits within their appropriate sphere, their 
 success is almost certain. Both honor and profit should accrue 
 to them for whatever they do, in the same way that men are 
 compensated for analogous services. 
 
 Women make excellent physicians where their advantages 
 for instruction have been full and complete. They are miser- 
 able quacks. 
 
 In indemnifying themselves with deceptions, whether as the 
 seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, a clairvoyant, a spiritual 
 medium, a magnetic prescriber, who, with closed eyes, pretends 
 to see through an opaque body and detect obstructions in gland- 
 ular ducts, and such like nonsense, they fall below contempt. 
 
408 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 They are admirable artists, but uniformly fail as quack 
 doctresses. Only the partially ignorant presume to practise 
 without qualifications. "When . educated, they are above 
 trickery. Honorable professional industry gives no countenance 
 to hobgoblins or mesmeric nonsense, instrumentalities of the 
 blind for leading the blind. 
 
 Natural philosophy, intimately incorporated with the study 
 of medicine, is an antagonist to superstition. Those who for- 
 merly could discern ghosts, and were uncompromising believers 
 in the manifestations of disembodied souls in mystic circles, 
 can see nothing after becoming familiar with the principles of 
 general science. 
 
 So-called medical mediums are impostors. They do not 
 emanate from accredited medical institutions. They are not 
 to be confounded with those ladies who have been carefully 
 and scientifically instructed by competent teachers in all the 
 intricacies of theoretical and practical medicine. 
 
 Many medical gentlemen, standing well in communities, 
 would run a mortifying tilt with many ladies in an examina- 
 tion before an authorized board of censors, whose decision should 
 depend on the accuracy of their answers. 
 
 APPOINTMENT OF MEDICAL TEAOHEES. 
 
 Were it customary here to elect professors by concours, as 
 in France, and young ladies recently graduated were permitted 
 to be competitors, quite a number of stupid occupants of uni- 
 versity chairs, obtained through family assistance or the potency 
 of cash, would have to give way to higher attainments. 
 
 In the treatment of female maladies, women are the proper 
 professional advisers. It is grossly unjust to assert that they 
 have no comprehensive views or therapeutic knowledge beyond 
 making water gruel and flaxseed poultices. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 409 
 
 In lecture-rooms, wherever they have been admitted, their 
 progress has invariably been equal in all respects to that of 
 young men. The latter dissipate more or less, smoke, drink 
 to their detriment, ramble to places of amusement, or where 
 there is excitement at evening. Female medical students are 
 not guilty of any such sins, if sins they are. They economize 
 time in thought and study. Better still, they neither chew, 
 smoke tobacco, or stultify themselves with the curse of the 
 United States, whiskey. 
 
 Operative surgery is not their forte. Exact familiarity with 
 the intricacies of surgical anatomy, however, is one of the 
 studies in which female medical students sometimes excel. 
 They pursue anatomy with earnestness, so that they occasion- 
 ally become experts. 
 
 If they have not the requisite firmness or coolness for 
 cutting down into a region of vessels and nerves, nor a strength 
 of arm for reducing luxations, they are quite well qualified to 
 determine the extent, gravity, and probable extent of injuries. 
 
 As oculists and aurists, they might achieve great distinc- 
 tion. Ophthalmic operations are neither bloody, very painful, 
 or attended with hazard to life. With their natural delicacy 
 of touch and thorough acquaintance with the structure of the 
 eye, they might cure deafness and extract cataracts just as skil- 
 fully as operators of the other gender. The first competent 
 female oculist who commences under favorable auspices, could 
 not fail of success, if the accumulation of a fortune were the 
 evidence of it. 
 
 This suggestion is for their consideration. They must ex- 
 pect to encounter opposition ; be misrepresented and abused, 
 because it will be a novel interference with the imagined pre- 
 rogatives of those specialists. It is always far more remuner- 
 ative than ordinary general practice. 
 
410 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 "Why could not women become expert dentists also ? 
 
 Their tact in watchwork, the manufacture of rich jewellery, 
 penmaking, and some other artistic employments with which 
 they are identified, besides modelling, designing, painting, and 
 engraving, in each and all of which they succeed admirably, in- 
 sure equal success in the practice of dentistry. Filling carious 
 teeth, inserting artificial ones, taking casts of gums, restoring 
 cleft palates by the insertion of metallic plates, etc., are all 
 within the sphere of their genius. 
 
 Certainly women draw, etch, color, conduct photographic 
 and lithographic establishments ; and what is to prevent them 
 from extending the area of honest enterprise ? In each and all 
 of those callings they could earn, legitimately, quite as much as 
 men, and what is to prevent them from being equally well 
 compensated ? 
 
 MENTAL ACTIVITY. 
 
 Great undertakings are not accomplished by main strength. 
 Brain force is that specific power wielded by orators, influential 
 divines, brilliant commanders, revolutionizing writers, disturb- 
 ing politicians, great property-gatherers, bold projectors, and by 
 all those men and women who leave ineffaceable memorials of 
 their existence in the archives of history. 
 
 Neither legislative enactments, denunciations from the 
 pulpit, the bitterness of reviewers, the decisions of unjust 
 judges, or the giant strength of money, can stay the march of 
 genius. It is stronger than all mechanical powers combined. 
 Genius is not boisterous or presumptuous. It is a quiet faculty. 
 Pretenders are both positive and superficial. The records of 
 history and the experience of mankind prove that women, in 
 capacity, originality, diligence, thoroughness, skill, and intel- 
 lectual acumen, are capable of accomplishing in art, science, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 and literature, whatever men do under precisely analogous cir- 
 cumstances. They are therefore entitled to the privilege of 
 embarking on the sea of enterprise. 
 
 Men who are rated vastly beyond their merits, harnessed 
 in petticoats, laced in stays, half-clad in gossamer garments, 
 corded round the waist, and dieted on dry toast and tea, 
 restrained by arbitrary custom to the house eleven hours in 
 twelve, breathing impure air, instead of refreshing, vitalized 
 currents out of door, mounted on high heels, and every hair on 
 their heads put upon a stretch, and held back by iron pins and 
 combSj suddenly called, would they appear to any better advan- 
 tage than their mothers, wives, and sisters ? 
 
 PUBLIC OPINION A EESTKAINT. 
 
 Women are cruelly hampered and restrained by the fear of 
 what may be said of them, so that physically and intellectually, 
 they appear to disadvantage. 
 
 There are some generous enough to admit that women have 
 natural rights of which they have been defrauded by law- 
 makers. With the progress of liberal sentiments, a gratifying 
 feature of modern civilization, concessions are gradually being 
 made to them. A restoration of rights and privileges must be 
 made. 
 
 Theoretically and it is a legal fiction a man and wife are 
 one; "but the husband is the one" said a female orator on a 
 notable occasion. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 MARKIAGE. 
 
 Excuses of Husbands Marriage Purchase of Belief Helpmate Moral Re- 
 flections Happiness in Children Life Expectation Womanly Affec- 
 tion Probabilities of Life Excess of Female Population. 
 
 THE great event in a woman's life is marriage. They 
 reckon from the epoch of their marriage as a point of de- 
 parture. It is the first milestone on the highway of domestic 
 relations which outranks and overtops all other circumstances 
 in their earthly pilgrimage. 
 
 They begin to think of it early, without having any very 
 definite views of the responsibility that belongs to that solemn 
 connection. 
 
 Universal attention is given to the subject in all countries, 
 yet only a few of the many marry precisely to their liking. 
 
 Were it possible to obtain a true and exact knowledge of 
 the amount of domestic happiness appertaining to that state, 
 wedlock would make some strange revelations. 
 
 Very excellent ladies, model women in their matrimonial 
 relations, are often wearing a mask to conceal a cancer gnawing 
 at their heart. 
 
 They are compelled to be hypocrites to the end, because 
 respectability is everything. To assume the appearance of 
 happiness, prevents the mortifying comments of those in whose 
 estimation it is an object to stand well. 
 
 Merchants, bankers, and, indeed, most men in active busi- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 413 
 
 ness who give employment to young men, keep them at an 
 unwarrantable distance. The civility of inviting them to their 
 own houses, and giving them the acquaintance of their pleasant 
 families, rarely occurs, however much their clerks may have 
 merited their esteem. Some become dissipated from having no 
 respectable places to visit, none to give them an encouraging 
 recognition. 
 
 How many such neglected counting-room drudges become 
 the leading men of the day, eventually taking a flight entirely 
 beyond the narrow circle from which their patrons excluded 
 them ! Splendid husbands might have been discovered in such 
 neglected worth, by attachments formed between lovely young 
 ladies and poor but deserving young men. The policy of 
 allowing those with nothing for a capital but unsullied honor 
 and enterprise, to address a rich man's daughters, by no means 
 has the approval of a managing mother. Her ambition is to 
 engineer her angels into favor with those reputed to be worth 
 the most. 
 
 Neither heart nor principle is involved in the speculation, 
 as matrimonial adventures are now conducted on both sides of 
 the Atlantic. "Women are notoriously bought or sold to the 
 highest bidder. Love is not in the bargain. The purchaser 
 obtains a fool with her dot, and she a rake who wishes her 
 under ground after getting control of the funds. Those are 
 the matches ending in divorce. 
 
 Were young ladies satisfied with the attentions of virtuous, 
 unpretending young men, whose only fault is their poverty, 
 what gems they would often secure ! General Washington 
 offered himself to a lady to whom he was devotedly attached, 
 but had the mortification of being rejected by the haughty 
 heiress, because he was only a major without property. 
 She afterwards stood at a window, in the city of Balti- 
 
414: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 more, as that spurned lover passed through the street, lined 
 on either side by immense multitudes with uncovered heads, 
 President of the United States of America, the saviour 
 of his country, whose name and fame will live till time shall 
 be no more. She swooned, and was removed from the apart- 
 ment. 
 
 In marital relations, women carry the heaviest end of the 
 beam. They are too much burdened in the middle walks of 
 life with cares, and consequently they suffer more than men in 
 family responsibilities, especially when uncongenially united. 
 
 EXCUSES or BAD HUSBANDS. 
 
 Husbands absent themselves from disagreeable homes on a 
 plea of business, when an apology is necessary. Frivolous pre- 
 tences are always to be found for absence without exciting par- 
 ticular remark that might essentially affect their moral standing 
 in society, were the exact facts of the case known. 
 
 Their wives, however badly treated or neglected, cannot 
 flee so readily from the presence of one who abuses them, 
 without raising a whirlwind of ungenerous surmises injurious 
 to their reputation. 
 
 No true woman likes to face a tornado of scandal. Men 
 and women must associate. It was so designed from the begin- 
 ning. Monastic institutions, which interdict matrimony, are at 
 war with nature. It is unnatural and opposed to a fundamental 
 law of life. 
 
 A society which forbids the association of males and fe- 
 males on a basis contemplated in this proposition, cannot main- 
 tain such a system of discipline without exercising a vigilance 
 perfectly despotic. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 415 
 
 SHAKER CELIBACY. 
 
 The Shakers have probably carried the experiment as far as 
 any anomalous religious sect, and as successfully too, so far as 
 complete non-intercourse is essential in their creed. They 
 make but few converts, and the sect would soon be extinct were 
 it not for the children they gather among sinners. 
 
 Their organization is recruited from sources they absolutely 
 condemn as sinful. 
 
 With their wealth, their beautifully cultivated farms, model 
 gardens, well-finished brooms, medicinal herbs, carefully packed 
 seeds, apple-sauce, and some other manufactures, their societies 
 may be held together through one or two more generations. 
 Thus all religious monastic associations are sustained in op- 
 position to a law of nature. 
 
 There must be, inevitably, a last day in their calendar. A 
 dissolution will come, because they are opposed to a law of God, 
 on which the perpetuity of races depends. It can neither be 
 modified nor repealed by human effort. Let the Shaker doc- 
 trines be fully sustained, and the beautiful earth in two hun- 
 dred years would not have one human being on its surface. 
 
 Institutions antagonistic to laws governing our physical or- 
 ganization, cannot be sustained. There may be a temporary 
 show of resistance, and a pride in pretending that extraordinary 
 exaltation of mind is attained by subordinating all emotions, 
 passions, and instincts to the empire of reason, but nature 
 triumphs at last. 
 
 Religious enthusiasts are prone to announce theories which 
 they proclaim to be decidedly gratifying to the Creator. Can 
 it be a pleasure to that ever-living Power, that has fashioned 
 things as they are and as they will continue to be, to have in- 
 tellectual beings in perpetual warfare against instinct, with 
 
THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 which he has endowed us ? Death alone can give them their 
 quietus ! 
 
 Still, with a knowledge of the physiological endowments of 
 nature, they make unrelaxing efforts, and bigots run mad with 
 pent-up wrath, because they cannot rule supremely and force 
 their dogmas and crotchets down the throats of unbelievers. 
 
 MARKIAGE. 
 
 A majority of mankind, wherever located, savage, barbar- 
 ous, or enlightened by education, act in strict accordance with 
 natural laws, conducive to health, morals, and happiness. 
 
 It is not necessary to discuss the subject to prove the truth 
 of this proposition. 
 
 Thus it has been since Adam resided in the garden of Eden, 
 and so it will be while men and women are in existence. 
 
 Matrimony is an ancient institution, but the misery of be- 
 ing mis-matched is a condition of wretchedness, which senti- 
 mental reformers will find it hard to remedy. If a couple are 
 joined in wedlock, and subsequently discover that they are mis- 
 mated, it is a tedious process to relieve themselves of the misery 
 of that relation. 
 
 In countries making no pretensions to civilization, when 
 parties discover they are not congenial to each other, they simply 
 separate. That is a relief which the civil law, and certainly ec- 
 clesiastical law, very tardily and reluctantly permits. 
 
 "Were it possible for contracting parties to understand each 
 other before marriage, in regard to temperament, disposition, 
 moral feelings, and tendencies of character, it would be a bless- 
 ing to both, since they could avoid many of those forms of un- 
 happiness that lead to dissatisfaction, hate, and, lastly, revenge, 
 which occasionally closes the drama of married life, before the 
 real purpose and responsibilities of the compact are understood. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 417 
 
 Some women imagine their lovers are to continue picking 
 up their gloves from the altar to three score and ten. Silly men 
 appear surprised that the angels they have caged wear shoes, 
 and actually possess stomachs. Of course, where there is nei- 
 ther judgment nor common-sense for guidance, there is no 
 binding principle. 
 
 Assuming that men and women were designed to live 
 together, it is a problem with divines and legislators how 
 to regulate marriage so as to secure equal rights, without 
 caring a fig about the domestic happiness of those entering 
 upon that solemn contract. The law looks after property, 
 and regulates the disposition of it in every contingency, grow 
 ing out of the discontent or separation of those who have been 
 legally joined. 
 
 ~No combination of circumstances produces such real felicity 
 as the relation of husband and wife, when congenially united. 
 If not cordially associated, then it is an intolerable bondage, 
 hard to bear. 
 
 Ecclesiastical laws contemplate a secure binding, leaving the 
 parties without escape from miseries which may, and certainly 
 do, follow inharmonious marriages. 
 
 When united, as it has repeatedly happened in this country, 
 as the parties supposed, in jest, on a festive occasion, and it was 
 subsequently discovered the ceremony had actually been per- 
 formed by a magistrate, unknown to them, in that official char- 
 acter, it has been held in law that they were husband and wife, 
 although entirely contrary to the wishes or expectation of both 
 sufferers. 
 
 Such a connection, it would seem, in equity and reason, 
 ought not to be obligatory. But the civil, and, perhaps, eccle- 
 siastical tribunals concur in holding the parties to all the obliga- 
 tions that bind consenting, loving couples. 
 
418 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Such marriages cannot be dissolved without wading through 
 tedious and expensive legal processes, and a free expenditure of 
 money, which last power carries more weight with it than the 
 eternal principles of justice. 
 
 Communities are agitated by occasional accidental marriages. 
 Sometimes a deep plot is laid, and one of the parties is unsus- 
 pectingly duped into the trap matrimonial by an irrepressible 
 lover or fortune-hunter. 
 
 Courts are invoked, and legislative bodies implored for 
 special acts for emancipation from wretchedness that can only 
 terminate with death, if no relief is afforded at the fountain 
 from whence the law had its origin. 
 
 Nothing can be accomplished by the unhappy poor in that 
 dilemma, but what they do for themselves. Women commit 
 suicide, and men run away beyond the knowledge of those who 
 may have known them. It is useless for those without funds 
 to pray tribunals to break the chains that hold them in uncon- 
 genial wedlock, and let them go free again, even when the 
 petition is a mutual prayer of the aggrieved sufferers. 
 
 PURCHASE OF BELIEF. 
 
 Paving the way to justice with dollars, is the modern 
 method of making a quick passage over a rough road. Money 
 is omnipotent with magistrates, who care more for mammon 
 than the approval of conscience. 
 
 There is a cry for a modification of certain laws for the 
 special benefit of the unhappy in marriage, to arrest the pro- 
 gress of demoralization in the land. 
 
 It is asserted by Oriental travellers that there is far more 
 domestic felicity in those far off, unchristian countries, where 
 wives are purchased, and even among savages, whom instinct, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 419 
 
 and not sentiment, guides in the choice of a wife, than with us, 
 where law binds, but reluctantly unbinds, the tangled web of 
 infelicities, which sometimes characterize matrimony. 
 
 A grave question with moralists is this, viz. : Has any 
 government positive, unquestionable authority for imposing 
 obligations upon men and women, that it would be a violation 
 of a divine law to abrogate, if they failed to secure the purposes 
 for which they were enacted ? 
 
 There is such manifest dissatisfaction all over the* United 
 States, with legislative action respecting matrimonial affairs, 
 that some new legal principle is urgently demanded to meet the 
 emergency. 
 
 As it is, divorces are as common as revolutions among dis- 
 satisfied politicians. Even the descendants of the Puritans, 
 priding themselves on their law-abiding character for propriety, 
 have become restless. Nowhere is there more wretchedness in 
 matrimonial bonds than in the ISTew England States, largely 
 tracing their origin to the voyagers of the Mayflower. 
 
 HELPMATE. 
 
 Not unfrequently the press represents that women are 
 oftener to blame than men, in squabbles for emancipation. 
 The cry comes from all points that female education, as now 
 conducted, quite ignores those homely notions once in repute, 
 that a wife should be a helpmate. 
 
 "Women have witching powers of fascination for leading silly, 
 as well as well-balanced intellectual men wherever they choose. 
 But the contrary creatures themselves cannot be driven an inch. 
 
 In this fact is discoverable the origin of many family 
 troubles, culminating in ineffable misery, which nothing short 
 of divorce can assuage. 
 
420 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Climate exerts a baneful influence on some temperaments at 
 the North. Nearer the tropics, divorces are less frequent, even 
 among those who have no educational advantages. 
 
 The clergy, claiming to interpret the Divine Will, un- 
 willing to relinquish their hold upon the masses, are accused of 
 keeping old theories and old customs alive too long. 
 
 Law or no law, human or divine, when a couple discover an 
 incompatibility for each other, they generally act independently 
 of legislative requirements, braving the denunciations of the 
 pulpit. 
 
 Where obstacles are interposed which cannot legally be re- 
 moved for the accommodation of one of the parties, enormous 
 crimes are often perpetrated under the idea of regaining lost 
 liberty. 
 
 Cruelties, suicide, and murder are the bad consequences of 
 compulsory laws, obliging those to drag out life in riveted 
 wretchedness who desire separation. 
 
 A QUESTION KEGARDING DIVOKCE. 
 
 But divorces ought not to be granted on a trifling pretext 1 . 
 When a man and wife declare their determination not to reside 
 together, for reasons best known to themselves, cogent and 
 right in their own deliberate estimation, what is gained for 
 public morals by keeping their shackles riveted for ever ? 
 
 Neither society, religion, nor the State, is benefited by an un- 
 relaxing policy which would see both ruined for earth, and un- 
 fitted for heaven, in the agony of their uncongenial condition. 
 
 While we are unflinching advocates for marriage, based on 
 affection, it seems cruel to open no avenue for escape under cir- 
 cumstances which plead for sympathy and relief. 
 
 It is useless to attempt the development of love or personal 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 421 
 
 respect by law. A physiological argument, that celibacy is 
 unfavorable to longevity, never hurried any one into matri- 
 mony on the ground that it was solely for the purpose of saving 
 life. 
 
 MORAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 Men and women unmarried have a weaker hold upon life 
 than the married. Were the institution abolished, public 
 health and public morals would reduce society first to con- 
 fusion, and then to chaos. 
 
 Mankind cannot be sustained in soundness without obeying 
 laws on which the perpetuity of a race depends. 
 
 Marriage, then, not only elevates humanity, but also gives 
 us a stronger hold upon life. Single men or single women do 
 not live as many years as the married, all things being equal, 
 nor are they as free from indisposition on an average. 
 
 A minute exemplification of this assertion would be too 
 professional, hence illustrations are omitted. Every medical 
 practitioner could verify this statement from the records of his 
 own practice, were it necessary. 
 
 In 1869, the following statistical information was chronicled 
 in Illinois, abundantly proving as much as may be required for 
 sustaining an opinion that matters are loosely conducted in one 
 State, if not in all, calculated to rouse the apprehension of 
 moralists in regard to the future condition of a Christian com- 
 munity : 
 
 " Two hundred and seventy-four aspirants for widowhood, 
 out of a total of 454, filed their papers in that court, and 195 
 discontented husbands appealed to the same tribunal. The 
 whole number of divorce suits commenced in the three courts in 
 1869, was 723 against 430 the previous year. Four hundred and 
 fifty-four of these were brought by wives, and 269 by husbands. 
 
422 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 The ' better half,' it will be seen from this, is the most restive 
 half in the hymeneal coupling by considerable. Of the 454 
 wives who sought release from the yoke of matrimony, 304 
 were made happy by liberation, and 150 were remanded back 
 to the galling bondage. The husbands fared somewhat better 
 in proportion, as they generally contrive to do, and 191 out of 
 the total 269 were sent on their way rejoicing to seek new 
 affinities." 
 
 Life-insurance companies are gradually gathering in a mass 
 of statistical illustrations confirmatory of these views, some 
 of which are quite new in their physiological bearing ; at least, 
 they have never been so plainly and intelligibly demonstrated 
 in a popular form. They are hygienic discoveries, sent forth 
 like pilots to guide those who are authorized to take risks in 
 the issue of policies. 
 
 Unfortunately for themselves, women seem to consider 
 maternity a disease, and, therefore, accompanied by a hazard 
 whicl^many are unwilling to incur. Confinements, slight and 
 temporary as they are in ordinary childbirth, are contemplated 
 by insurance offices as sickness, perilling life. Childbirth is 
 not a disease. It is not a condition that should give the 
 slightest apprehension of danger. To become a mother is 
 equivalent to having a longer lease of life. The oldest women 
 are those who have borne many children. 
 
 Formerly, those who had had the largest number were most 
 honored. Now, those having the fewest, or none at all, are 
 complimented as fortunate beings. 
 
 HAPPINESS IN CHILDBED. 
 
 Children are not a curse, though they are sometimes sources 
 of great solicitude and care. On the contrary, they are bless- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 403 
 
 ings, even to those whose means are most restricted, as might 
 be shown were it of consequence to reiterate what is universally 
 admitted to be true in all countries and among all orders of 
 men. 
 
 Large families present a strong front, but a childless house- 
 hold is a desolate place before the sands of life have run 
 out. 
 
 Children are a national blessing. Mothers of many are the 
 safety of a state. Those without them have contributed 
 nothing to humanity. Who is to rise up to call them 
 blessed ? 
 
 Examples of extreme longevity have been recorded of 
 females who had never been mothers. Such, however, are ex- 
 ceptions to the general law of feminine life. 
 
 If it could be ascertained what the precise condition may 
 have been of those represented to have died in childbed, it is 
 probable it would appear they died in most instances from 
 other causes. During gestation, tuberculous affections of the 
 lungs and scrofulous difficulties that were undermining the con- 
 stitution, are usually partially suspended, that the new being in 
 its embryotic state in utero may be developed. After its birth, 
 the malady kept in abeyance then resumes its destructive 
 course. 
 
 Nature steps in with a helping hand, keeping back the 
 messenger of death till the new candidate for life comes into 
 the world to be sustained independently of the maternal 
 system. 
 
 This is a feature of such striking import, that it cannot be 
 viewed in any other way than a special provision for meeting 
 an emergency. 
 
 It is a further subject of curious philosophical interest, that 
 medical reminiscences also furnish proofs of perfect restoration 
 
424 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 to health, from feeble emaciation, during the months of gesta- 
 tion. The system had time for recuperating during a suspen- 
 sion of a disease ; and, once gaining an ascendency, the vital 
 forces were able to maintain the advantage after parturition. 
 
 LIFE EXPECTATION. 
 
 By marriage, the expectations of life are enhanced and im- 
 proved. In that relation, women live longer than men. 
 
 Widows have more vitality than widowers, all other things 
 being equal, and a majority of them are alive, when widowers 
 are very considerably reduced in numbers, in any given area of 
 country. This difference is due to the better habits of women. 
 They are more serene, secretive, and less exposed to debilitat- 
 ing excitement. 
 
 Women are more reserved than men, less frequently thrown 
 into abandoned society, and when their suspicions are roused, 
 that contaminating influences are approaching, they resist de- 
 moralizing attacks far more heroically, besides being character- 
 istically more consistent and conservative. 
 
 Single ladies, especially in New England, are prone to en- 
 gage in reformatory schemes. They are prodigiously resolute 
 in their efforts to compel the world to believe in their pre-con- 
 ceived standard of right. 
 
 Other States furnish a few strong female representative 
 minds, devotedly working to keep the social elements in com- 
 motion, that they may finally settle down in conformity to 
 their theoretical ideal of political, social, and moral equality on 
 earth. 
 
 Married ladies less frequently exhibit themselves on plat- 
 forms as agitators. When they do ascend the rostrum, how- 
 ever, and once put their hands to the plow, there is energy, but 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 425 
 
 always less powerful than exhibitions of single women, when t \ 
 they are fully persuaded they have a mighty mission to per- 
 form. 
 
 When a married woman dives into a sea of political strife, ^ 
 or rouses the community by sensational appeals, were the pre- 
 cise motives influencing her truly known, it would be found it 
 was only a safety valve, by which she endeavors to make an es- 
 cape from some domestic infelicity at home, or to divert the at- 
 tention of the public from herself to herself. It is not applause 
 that is sought. She is striving to conceal something, the publi- 
 cation of which might plunge her to the depths of unhappiness. 
 
 The appearance of ladies in unnatural positions, officiating 
 as political orators, reformers, preaching, figuring as military 
 officers, and similar performances, which their organization, thin 
 dress, education, and habits forbid, in the judgment of man- 
 kind, and the promptings of their own feminine instincts, it is 
 morally certain there is something to be concealed. 
 
 On ascending the pulpit or the forum, either to plead 
 causes or expound theology, it may be assumed that those posi- 
 tions are only waste-gates, through which are floated away 
 pent-up nervousness. 
 
 WOMANLY AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Yearnings of the heart in women require objects on which 
 to bestow those outgushings of love, which belong to their 
 nature. If disappointed in youth, the fire never goes out, even 
 in advanced age. 
 
 It burns with intensity in middle life, but may be modified 
 by new relations, which divert the mind from a perpetual con- 
 templation of unrequited affection, cruel neglects, or slander- 
 ous insinuations, which embitter the soul. 
 
426 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 " Earth has no rage like love to hatred turn'd, 
 Or hell a fury like a woman spurned." 
 
 In a prize essay on the physical signs of longevity in man, 
 published in 1869 by the Popular Life Insurance Company, 
 it is laid down as a remarkable circumstance, that when the 
 glow and warm blood of youth have cooled with an increase 
 of years, single women are exceedingly prone to embark in 
 some radical scheme or ism, quite in contrast with their former 
 tenor of life. 
 
 If, says that paper, they embrace religious or political doc- 
 trines, quite unthought of. or which, perhaps, if reflected upon 
 carelessly, had made no permanent impression, there is no 
 calculating upon the force of their enthusiasm. 
 
 In Europe, an excess of vitality in the sex is exhausted in 
 some other direction. 
 
 New-England women find no outlet to their excessive ac- 
 cumulation of mental force giving such immediate relief as 
 facing assemblies of dissatisfied persons like themselves. 
 
 Single women, however mentally moved to revolutionize a 
 village or the State, with all the strain brought to bear on a 
 fragile system in the promulgation of the cause they may have 
 espoused, have a stronger hold on life, and a better prospect of 
 old age than single revolutionary men, simply because they 
 neither smoke, chew tobacco, drink to excess", carouse at places 
 of entertainment, or keep very late hours in protracted excite- 
 ments. 
 
 Their regularity in diet, and freedom from common dissipa- 
 tions which disgrace men, are anchors that moor them safely 
 in a sea of social commotion. 
 
 While on this subject, it may be of some service to female 
 readers to have the views of discreet medical statisticians on 
 conditions which are inherited, affecting their longevity, drawn 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 427" 
 
 from the same source from whence was extracted the paragraph 
 on female reformers. 
 
 PROBABILITIES IN REGARD TO LIFE. 
 
 First. Both men and women, born of a parentage remark- 
 able for long life, inherit vitality, and are generally tenacious 
 of life. 
 
 They occasionally reach a very advanced period, being rarely 
 the victims of acute epidemic diseases. 
 
 Second. Children born of parents, one but not both of 
 whom inherited long life, do not equally inherit vitality. 
 
 In a considerable number of brothers and sisters thus born, 
 some of them will live to be aged, but not all. 
 
 Third. Men or women with particularly long bodies, other- 
 wise well developed, and governed by all the circumstances and 
 conditions heretofore noted, give satisfactory physical signs of a 
 long life. 
 
 Fourth. Married women who have been mothers, if in com- 
 fortable circumstances, especially in the country, have the 
 prospect of a longer life than those who have not borne 
 children. 
 
 Fifth. Widows have not the prospect of so long a life as 
 married women. 
 
 Sixth. Widowers have not a prospect of so long a life as 
 married men. Married persons, if happily connected, have a 
 prospect of a longer life than if unmarried. 
 
 Seventh. Unmarried women, in health, easy in their circum- 
 stances, and pleasantly conditioned in society, have a prospect 
 of a longer life than unmarried men of the same social stand- 
 ing. 
 
 Eighth. Unmarried women, dependent upon their own per- 
 
428 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 sonal efforts, and harassed by anxieties, have not a prospect of 
 long life. 
 
 Ninth. Excitable, fractious men or women, when married, 
 who are subject to paroxysms of sudden anger, peril their pro- 
 spects of a long life. 
 
 Tenth. Both men and women, although in easy circum- 
 stances, if of a jealous, irritable disposition, or subject to morose 
 exhibitions of temper, married or unmarried, have not a pro- 
 spect of long life. Still, a few out of many may sometimes 
 live to be aged. 
 
 Eleventh. Men or women who have changed their residence 
 from a cold or moderately temperate climate of one continent, 
 to a similar one on another, if comfortable in circumstances, 
 and industrious and correct in their habits, do not have their 
 vitality impaired. 
 
 Twelfth. Men or women who remove from one continent to 
 another, as from Europe to America, or from America to 
 Europe, if inclined to excesses which impair vital force, may 
 die prematurely. 
 
 EXCESS OF FEMALE POPULATION. 
 
 Females in the New-England States already outnumber 
 the male population at particular points ; and there is a social 
 cause operating that will give a female majority in all of 
 them within a few years. 
 
 An excess of females in nearly all the large cities of the 
 Atlantic coast, from Maine to Washington, is an unfortunate 
 circumstance for the prosperity of the nation, as it is for 
 humanity. 
 
 It is impossible for them all to have husbands, simply be- 
 cause there are not men enough, numerically, to meet the case, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 429 
 
 provided, in all other respects, the way were clear for honor- 
 able marriage. 
 
 A discrepancy is an argument for providing for an increas- 
 ing army of females proper and remunerative employments. It 
 must be done, or fearful consequences, poverty, destitution, 
 demoralization, crime, and, indeed, a deplorable moral deso- 
 lation, will certainly ensue. 
 
 If they could be induced to cast their bread upon the 
 waters of hope, in the fruitful regions of the West, where 
 men are vastly more numerous than women, their protec- 
 tion would be complete, and they might safely calculate upon 
 that measure of security, happiness, and ultimate indepen- 
 dence, which flows from virtuous and well-directed efforts. 
 
 Here is a statistical synopsis of the population of the globe, 
 with a classification.* 
 
 * There are on the globe 1,288,000,000 souls, of which 
 
 360,000,000 are of the Caucasian race. 
 
 552,000,000 are of the Mongol race. 
 
 190,000,000 are of the Ethiopian race. 
 
 176,000,000 are of the Malay race. 
 
 1,000,000 are of the Indo- American race. 
 
 There are 3,642 languages spoken, and 1,000 different religions. 
 
 The yearly mortality of the globe is 33,333,333 persons. This is at the 
 rate of 91,554 per day, 3,730 per hour, 62 per minute. So each pulsation of 
 the heart marks the decease of some human creature. 
 
 The average of human life is 33 years. 
 
 One-fourth of the population dies at or before the age of seven years. 
 
 One-half at or before seventeen years. 
 
 Among 10,000 persons one arrives at the age of 100 years ; one in 500 
 attains the age of 90 ; and one in 100 lives to the age of 60. 
 
 Married men live longer than single ones. 
 
 In 1,000 persons 95 marry, and more marriages occur in June and Decem- 
 ber than in any other month of the year. 
 
 One-eighth of the whole population is military. 
 
 Professions exercise a great influence on longevity. In 1,000 individuals 
 who arrive at the age of 70 years, 43 are priests, orators, or public speakers, 
 30 are agriculturists, 33 are workmen, 32 are soldiers or military employes, 
 29 advocates or engineers, 27 professors, and 24 doctors. 
 
430 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 It is evident that there is no time to lose, if there is a ray of 
 ambition to turn life to the best account. 
 
 There is not only a perpetual yearning for something more 
 than we have, but a strife also for positions that promise, 
 either truly or theoretically, to facilitate the acquisition of that 
 in which much happiness is imagined to exist. 
 
 Those who devote their lives to the prolongation of others die the soonest. 
 
 There are 336,000,000 Christians. 
 
 There are 5,000,000 Israelites. 
 
 There are 60,000,000 Asiatic religionists. 
 
 There are 190,000,000 Mahometans. 
 
 There are 300,000,000 Pagans. 
 
 In the Christian Churches 
 
 170,000,000 profess the Roman Catholic. 
 
 75,000,000 profess the Greek faith. 
 
 80,000,000 profess the Protestant. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 THEIR DANGERS IK MARRIAGE. 
 
 Laws of Descent Evolution Marriage of Whites with Blacks Mental and 
 Physical Deterioration Manly Perfection Inherited Virtues Selec- 
 tions, etc. 
 
 How far and to what extent we are accountable for what, to 
 our short-sightedness, seems quite beyond control, is a question 
 to be pondered upon by those who assume to be wise where 
 others are in doubt. 
 
 Our existence is forced upon us. It is a destiny, and, there- 
 fore, no way within the sphere of our volitions. 
 
 Were we consciously alive before being united with perish- 
 able humanity, and it were optional with us to change relations, 
 and become associated with a body subjected to the vicissitudes 
 which are inseparable from existence on earth, how many 
 would probably hazard the enterprise ? 
 
 Nothing in the divine economy is more marvellous than the 
 succession of animals and plants. 
 
 Wonderfully ingenious contrivances are invented, which 
 perform operations so complicated and extraordinary, that an 
 unsuspecting observer would be ready to admit that the move- 
 ments indicated a spirit of intelligence. Such may be the com- 
 bination of wheels, springs, and weights, as to appear like the 
 phenomena of life. And yet, life surpasses the comprehension 
 of the prof oundest investigators, and the most learned in science. 
 Ingeniously devised as machines may be, none of them keep 
 
432 . THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 themselves in repair, or reproduce similar machines when the 
 old ones are broken or worn out. 
 
 Nature, superior and supreme, does both. One generation 
 succeeds another, supplying the world with new and vigorous 
 laborers for uninterrupted progress. The fountain from whence 
 flows a river of life is exhaustless. Though man dies, and in- 
 dividuals are forgotten in the revolutions of time, yet while 
 the globe moves in its orbit, men will be in existence to super- 
 intend the domain to which they belong. 
 
 With the progress of discovery, we have had glimpses of 
 wrecks of ancient cities, and examined skeletons of monster 
 animals, that once had exclusive possession of this fair country, 
 at a period so vastly remote, that neither chronologists nor 
 geologists agree upon the number of centuries those osseous 
 remains have been hermetically sealed up in rocks, or concealed 
 in the bowels of the earth. 
 
 Marine shells on the summits of the highest mountains, 
 raised to their lofty elevation by upheaval forces from the 
 depths of primitive seas, testify to mighty revolutions in the 
 physical aspect of the land and sea. 
 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 A query has been advanced as to whether the lineal 
 descendants of any progenitor in families now recognized as 
 representatives of ancient types, bear a resemblance to those 
 from whence their existence was derived. 
 
 Learned inquirers contend that there has been a gradual 
 evolution going on from the very creation of each and every 
 race now in existence, and, therefore, the last in the series must 
 be entirely different in structure, and, consequently, has 
 modified tendencies, instincts, and propensities. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 433 
 
 This is a new doctrine with an increasing school of disciples. 
 
 From the simplest forms, according to the new theory, com- 
 plicated structures and exterior forms far more perfect have 
 been developed, and, therefore, better calculated for sustaining 
 higher relations than those from which they originally sprang, 
 far back in the realms of chaos. Germs could not have pos- 
 sessed either volition or locomotive force. 
 
 Assuming that man was at first a granule, a mere speck, a 
 germ floating in a fathomless, illimitable ocean of space, in 
 which was embodied an inherent vitalization, always exerting 
 itself by unconscious efforts to push out further, and to become 
 larger, stronger, and, perhaps, have organs of prehension, it is 
 quite as difficult to manage the problem of a first commence- 
 ment of the spark of life, as to account for the manifestations 
 of intellect. 
 
 How long men have walked on two feet or had a brain 
 capable of reasoning, eludes the prying industry of paleon- 
 tologists. Some are becoming bold in their determinations to 
 ignore the Mosaic cosmogony. They pretend to believe that 
 man has been on this earth far longer than the sacred historian 
 represents, if a true interpretation has been rendered of the 
 inspired narrative. 
 
 If the mastodon, and the great saurian reptiles almost one 
 hundred feet in length, were extinct ten thousand years ago, 
 some have the presumption to assert that man was here with 
 them. 
 
 A few arrow-heads, found sticking fast in a skull of a 
 gigantic monster that, theoretically, has been dead ten thousand 
 years, is brought in support of the proposition. They assume 
 it as almost conclusive evidence that men of those times were 
 hunters, and that flint-armed arrows were fabricated by them 
 for killing game. That was the stone age. 
 
434: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 It might be asserted with equal propriety, that those ani- 
 mals have not been extinct one thousand years. 
 
 Let all speculations of that kind pass, since our geological 
 acquirements are not so firmly fixed but they may undergo 
 many modifications in the progress of further discoveries. 
 
 Theories are easily constructed and unceremoniously aban- 
 doned without loss. We have penetrated but a little way into 
 the crust of the earth, where strange things will come to the 
 surface to astonish naturalists at some remote future. 
 
 LAW OF DESCENT. 
 i 
 
 Transmitting to a new being some anomaly recognized as 
 an anomaly, because of a striking deviation from the type to 
 which it belongs, must be received as accidental, and not in 
 accordance with the laws of descent. 
 
 Were cross-eved parents invariably to have cross-eyed chil- 
 dren, hair-lipped sons or blind people, the offspring of persons 
 thus unfortunate, it would give some coloring to the specula- 
 tions of those who insist that there were five Adams, progenitors 
 of the five known races of men. There are indeed five distinct 
 races. There are certain peculiar characteristics by which they 
 are readily distinguished from one another. 
 
 One is yellow, a second black, a third red, a fourth white, 
 and a fifth something else. These are perplexing facts ; but 
 on the supposition that climate has produced alterations which 
 have become permanent, is the way the subject is most readily 
 disposed of by those who give it the least consideration. 
 
 According to the record of Genesis, the first man, Adam, 
 was created about six thousand years ago. That belief is sus- 
 tained by researches not to be lightly questioned. 
 
 Here we approach stumbling-blocks, that derange many 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 435 
 
 finely-drawn arguments, not strengthened by science. Kevela- 
 tion is one thing, and the laws of nature something entirely 
 different. 
 
 About two thousand years after the creation of Adam, some 
 of his lineal posterity were singularly altered, in the color of 
 their skin, if it is assumed he was a white man. If the Cauca- 
 sian is a type of our Eden ancestors, strange changes have 
 taken place in the form of the face of the representative races 
 of men now in existence. Monuments are still standing, four 
 thousand years old, inscribed with characters which record, pro- 
 bably, remarkable events. Enough of some of them have been 
 deciphered to ascertain their immense antiquity, reaching with- 
 in two thousand years of Adam's lifetime. And on many of 
 them are sculptured facial outlines, profiles, and human faces, 
 that show men looked then just as they do in eighteen hundred 
 and seventy-three. Five distinct races of human beings un- 
 questionably existed then, that is, four thousand years ago. 
 
 The negro features on those monumental guide-posts into the 
 obscurities of the past, were precisely what they are in Africa 
 to-day. The protruding jaws, thick lips, and crispy, woolly 
 covering of the head, were then as they are now. 
 
 How was a change from a Caucasian type, if that was the 
 original facial form, color, and expression, brought about in two 
 thousand years, and from that period, resulting in permanent al- 
 terations, that arrange mankind in five distinctly marked varie- 
 ties of men ? 
 
 ~No essential physical, and, possibly, no moral tendencies or 
 changes have occurred in four thousand years, since that grand 
 revolutionary alteration of the primitive outline form. Nor is 
 there any reason for expecting further modifications in four 
 thousand years to come. 
 
 Monster children rarely live more than a few hours from 
 
436 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 birth. Those born defective in limbs, or with peculiar mark- 
 ings, misplaced viscera, harelip, etc., in becoming parents, do 
 not transmit their defects to their offspring. They are as fair 
 and as beautifully proportioned as the children of symmetrical 
 parentage. The exceptions to that law are referred to in an- 
 other chapter, as anomalies. 
 
 Chickens are hatched with two heads, four legs ; or a boy is 
 born with only one arm. But they do not propagate those de- 
 viations from a normal pattern, which is characteristic of a spe- 
 cies. They have no descendants like themselves. 
 
 That would eventuate in confusion. The fair world we in- 
 habit, were there no fixed laws respecting definite forms, 
 would soon team with hideous monsters, widely differing from 
 one another, both externally and internally. 
 
 Order being an unchangeable law, any deviations from a 
 primeval standard, if varying at all, must be very gradually ef- 
 fected, requiring the revolution of centuries upon centuries. 
 There is no sudden or violent departure. 
 
 A mule rarely, if ever, propagates. While some naturalists 
 claim it possible, others are strenuous in the opinion that 
 it would be impossible, inasmuch as it would be a violation of a 
 fundamental law of nature, perpetually in force to preserve 
 races, and to prevent anomalous admixtures of blood, that 
 would lead to an animal chaos. 
 
 Sterile as mules are, they are influenced by instincts and 
 propensities, peculiar to the two distinct stocks from which 
 they sprang. There is a compensation for their anomalous con- 
 dition, their longevity exceeding both horse and ass. The lat- 
 ter have the pleasure of rearing others to take their places, 
 which, the mule cannot have, as the maternal parent has in 
 nursing and protecting her long-eared colt, singularly unlike 
 herself in exterior appearance. 
 
I 
 
 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 437 
 
 An ass is old and quite stupid at twenty, although his lon- 
 gevity is beyond that of the horse. 
 
 A mule, not abused, is hale, strong, and serviceable, at fifty. 
 They have reached eighty years. Though faring poorly, and 
 usually treated with severity, he has a compensation in im- 
 munity from ordinary equine maladies. 
 
 A mixture of blood among different races of men neither 
 promotes health, strength, nor longevity. 
 
 Some singular phenomena present themselves in the amal- 
 gamation of Asiatics with Africans or American Indians, which 
 have a bearing on moral questions, that must necessarily be met 
 by those who are earnest for the improvement of humanity. But 
 it is' a topic to be approached with extreme caution, to avoid 
 shocking the sensibilities of modern political philanthropists, 
 who discover no difference in the intellectual calibre of the 
 white, black, red, or yellow man. 
 
 That a soul may be encased in different-colored envelopes, 
 according to climatic influence, is a doctrine taught by radical 
 social reformers, without affecting its powers. 
 
 We shall not discuss that subject, which has invariably 
 been productive of more vindictive feeling than sound philo- 
 sophy, whenever brought forward. 
 
 One of the evils attending a practical illustration of the 
 doctrine, that it is perfectly right and proper to amalgamate 
 races, and mix those of different color and facial expression, 
 according to the fancy of unreflecting parties, is a positive 
 certainty of deterioration, and the final disappearance of those 
 whose origin is thus commenced. 
 
 Is it no violation of a natural law of which each and every 
 one, however low in the scale of intelligence, has an instinctive 
 appreciation, for whites and blacks to intermarry ? 
 
 Is it not wrong to rear families of all intermediate shades, 
 

 
 438 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 whose parti-colored appearance does not meet the approval of 
 either party ? 
 
 Their children are born to a conscious feeling of degradation. 
 
 MARRIAGE OF WHITES A^D BLACKS. 
 
 All men are born free and equal in the sight of God, and, 
 in the language of political orators, have a right to pursue the 
 way that leads to happiness. 
 
 But where is the most devoted friend of the most oppressed 
 and maltreated of all races, the negro, who would not manifest 
 a repugnance to the union of his- accomplished daughters with 
 black husbands, however unexceptionable in manners, culture, 
 or character ? 
 
 To pretend that no such sentiment as an instinctive objec- 
 tion ought to operate against it, would give the lie to one of 
 the strongest dictates of nature and conscience. 
 
 For the sake of appearing consistent in the estimation of 
 those who might comment to the disadvantage of those pro- 
 mulgating the doctrine, that color should not be objectionable 
 in forming marriage-ties, teachers of such abominable senti- 
 ments may successfully conceal their true feelings ; but they 
 live hypocrites, self-condemned. 
 
 "We cannot go counter to the established laws of nature 
 and morality, without having a conscious prompting of the 
 wrong we have been doing. 
 
 In a first remove from the mixed parentage of black and 
 white, the children are not all of the same tint. Among a 
 group of six, for example, one may be black, with protruding 
 lips and short woolly hair ; another will have a retreating fore- 
 head and lighter complexion. Neither the features of the 
 father or the mother are distinctly reproduced in either, while 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 439 
 
 all of them are marked deviations in form, stature, color, and, 
 perhaps, mental calibre, from the parents. 
 
 MENTAL AND PHYSICAL DETERIORATION. 
 
 When those children in turn become parents, they are less 
 fruitful. In the next remove, they are not well developed. 
 Their muscles are slender and flabby, the form inclined to be 
 gaunt, and in mental force they are inferior to those from 
 whom they derived their being. 
 
 Besides a physical deterioration, a scrofulous diathesis 
 begins to appear. They hold out longer than hybrids from 
 domesticated animals, with the exception of the mule ; but 
 according to the remarks of Mr. Forbes, they actually cease to 
 propagate in the fifth remove from a union of Caucasian and 
 African blood. 
 
 MANLY PERFECTION. 
 
 The negro is a man for Africa, the Malay for the East 
 Indies, and whites for temperate zones an$ hyperborean lati- 
 tudes. In the temperate, the white man attains the highest 
 condition of which his nature is susceptible. 
 
 What is a half-breed ? In this country it is understood to 
 be a child of a white father and a squaw. They have never 
 been raised to any prominent positions of usefulness through a 
 native spirit of energy ; nor, even when assisted by conscientious, 
 painstaking philanthropists, could one of them be made into a 
 counsellor, a man of thought, of any value to the interests of 
 society. 
 
 No educational discipline conducted with special reference 
 to proving their capacity for progress, or how splendidly they 
 may operate as instrumentalities in advancing the civilization 
 of savage tribes, has ever been successful. 
 
440 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 They have never gone forward, aided by such facilities as 
 have been urged upon them by Christian charity and govern- 
 mental patronage, to the achievement of any results, predicted 
 and hoped for by their warm and sincere friends. 
 
 Half-breeds may be persuaded to reside in houses superior 
 to wigwams, to cultivate fields, and wear clothing more com- 
 plicated than a blanket ; yet they do not readily fall in with the 
 ways of civilization. They have neither been made scholars nor 
 very devout worshippers. They are just as near to the usages 
 of ordinary civil life as they are to the white man in blood, 
 but no nearer. They have to be sustained by unrelaxing 
 effort, or they quickly deteriorate by running into those wild 
 habits of indolence which are predominant in the nature of 
 the stock from which they came, always stronger on the Indian 
 side than on the other. 
 
 Some few individual half-breeds have been rather successful 
 in elementary agriculture. They may raise corn, send their 
 children to schools provided for them, but no scheme has yet 
 been successful in moulding them willingly and heartily into 
 the ways and habits of Anglo-Saxons. They never can be kept 
 up to any standard of civilization to which they have apparently 
 been raised. 
 
 DISAPPEARANCE OF THE INDIANS. 
 
 Gradually and inevitably both Indians and their half-breed 
 descendants will wholly disappear from the continent. A few 
 centuries hence there will not be a remnant left of the red race 
 which once roamed with unrestrained freedom, like the game 
 they pursued, on the broad expanse of North America. 
 
 Indians are a pioneer race, whose mission is nearly accom- 
 plished. Nations were here before them. Millions of human 
 beings, who are only known through the monuments that re- 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 441 
 
 main, the evidences of their industry and labors in the rearing 
 of mounds and earthworks, which have outlived the name, the 
 fortunes, and the history of those who raised them, were exter- 
 minated by these remnants of powerful invaders, whose gradual 
 extinction is certainly decreed in the court of destiny. 
 
 All such revolutions, the appearance and disappearance of 
 races, are in conformity to a law of limitation. Nations, like 
 individuals, carry in their organization the seeds of dissolution. 
 
 
 TENDENCY TO DISEASE TEANSMISSIBLE. 
 
 Children of consumptive parents are born with minute 
 tubercles in their lungs, embedded in elastic pulmonary tissues. 
 Their existence may not even be suspected ; but when exposed 
 to influences which inflame them, they burst and ulcerate 
 through the delicate air-cells, and death supervenes. 
 
 Children of consumptive parents rarely escape the fatal 
 malady. Even if no incipient tubercles are quiescently slum- 
 bering in their lungs up to the middle age of life, when reach- 
 ing the period at which the parents fell under the disease, they 
 are pretty sure to pass away in a similar manner, provided they 
 remain in the same locality. 
 
 By taking up a residence where the atmosphere is freer 
 from humidity, vitality may be very materially recruited, and 
 life prolonged. But whenever tubercles are present, as a direct 
 inheritance, no methods have yet been successful in preventing 
 them from inflaming, softening, and degenerating into pus. 
 
 "When that stage is ushered in, the skill of medical practi- 
 tioners avails nothing. "When those organs in winch vitality is 
 manufactured that is, where oxygen is separated from atmo- 
 spheric air, and carbonic acid thrown off are actually destroyed, 
 a recovery is impossible. 
 
44:2 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 DECEPTIONS OF QUACKS. 
 
 Nothing is more preposterous than the vaunted pretensions 
 of those empirics, criminal quacks who raise expectations, by 
 announcing the restoration of consumptives by new methods 
 of medication, generally their own. 
 
 A destruction of the parts of an organ in which vitalizing 
 properties of the air are brought in direct contact with arterial 
 blood, must terminate fatally. No regeneration of destroyed 
 parts can be made by any process within the range of science. 
 
 ACTUAL MALADIES INHERITED. 
 
 Scrofula is transmissible ; so are syphilitic taints, and some 
 eruptive maladies. The latter are traceable, carefully inves- 
 tigated, quite frequently to the same source. Even a pre- 
 disposition to deafness, nervous irregularities, distorted fingers, 
 incurvated nails, enlarged joints, St. Yitus's dance, and all 
 shades of insanity, pass from family to family for several gene- 
 rations, rather gaining intensity than losing force. 
 
 A tendency to bleed profusely, and even to die of hemor- 
 rhage from slight punctures, or the simple extraction of a tooth, 
 runs in some families, without remedy. 
 
 INHERITED PHYSICAL EXCELLENCIES. 
 
 Such facts, and many more illustrative of the law of 
 transmission, are familiar to physicians. It is equally true 
 that personal beauty, tine teeth, a tall figure, a musical voice, 
 a mathematical brain, are inherited and propagated, like 
 moral qualities. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 443 
 
 IMPERFECTION OF ART IN SAYING LIFE. 
 
 Surgeons, of extensive experience, have often failed to 
 arrest hemorrhages in one of those so-called natural bleeders. 
 Whether their blood is deficient in that plastic element 
 which assists coagulation, or whether a retraction of the lips 
 of wounds in them, which cannot be kept together by ordinary 
 mechanical appliances, is owing to some peculiar spasmodic 
 contraction of tissues, has not been ascertained. 
 
 Compression, styptics, or, indeed, any of the commonly 
 known modes of arresting a flow of blood in those thus pre- 
 disposed, are ineffectual. 
 
 SELECTIONS IN MARRIAGE. 
 
 It behooves those expecting to enter upon the responsi- 
 bilities of marriage, to weigh well and investigate a family 
 history before such relationship is formed, 
 
 A past and present sanitary character of a family with which 
 marriage is proposed, is of far more importance than might at 
 first be supposed, since various conditions in regard to body and 
 mind are propagated, and may lead to individual sufferings and 
 misery through generations in the future. 
 
 Such inquiries, of course, would have to be conducted in a 
 very guarded manner ; otherwise, not only much offence might 
 be roused, but the whole matter considered impertinent and 
 ridiculous. 
 
 But a regard for one's own comfort in the possible appear- 
 ance on the stage of life of others for whose well-being, charac- 
 ter, and condition, the happiness of parents will be at stake, 
 fully justifies such inquiries and investigations. 
 
 If a young lady has ascertained that consumption is a 
 
444 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 hereditary malady in the family of the man who proposes him- 
 self for a husband, prudence should influence her not to peril 
 herself, or the children she would probably bear, to the con- 
 tingencies that surround a family predisposed to a lingering 
 and fatal disease. 
 
 She could avoid a prospective trouble. It is useless to ex- 
 tend the argument against being joined in wedlock with a man 
 who is certain to die, as his father, mother, brothers or sisters 
 had died, of pulmonary consumption. 
 
 PEOGEESS OF PULMONAEY CONSUMPTION. 
 
 An amazing destruction of human life from that incurable 
 disease is all the while going on in the United States, particu- 
 larly in the northern parts. 
 
 Without regard to the laws of probability, or the destruc- 
 tion of the fair, bright, beautiful, and intelligent, in the begin- 
 ning of life, by that malady, even to the extinction of families, 
 little or no thought is given to that which is pretty sure to oc- 
 cur when marriage is proposed. 
 
 The farmer selects the soundest, best-developed seeds and 
 appropriate soil, otherwise the harvest would be small and im- 
 perfect. In the raising of stock, none but the soundest in 
 health, best-formed, and exhibiting indications of constitutional 
 vigor, are allowed to propagate. Thus the high-bred horse, the 
 splendid ox, the finest sheep, and choicest poultry are obtained, 
 by determining from what source they shall spring. 
 
 Nature manages among birds and all animals, in a way to 
 secure health and strength, by not permitting the weak, feeble, 
 puny males to generate at all. They are driven away and kept 
 at a distance by the giants of the herd, the flock, and in the 
 poultry yard, who alone are the sires of each succeeding genera- 
 tion. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 445 
 
 The female is passive in all those examples, having no par- 
 tialities or affections to gratify ; and thus the blood of each is 
 kept up to the highest requirements of an organic law. 
 
 If consumptives did not intermarry, hereditary consump- 
 tion would disappear. Pecuniary advantages, social condition, 
 and love, each acting with peculiar force, pay no regard to the 
 future, in respect to health. 
 
 Children are thus born to linger in pain, and die early. The 
 necrological annals of this nation is a melancholy record. It 
 is not diminishing, but, on the contrary, increasing with the in- 
 crease of population. 
 
 When the celebrated Spurzheim was in this country, he 
 fearlessly declared in public, that the legislature should inter- 
 pose its authority, by interdicting the marriage of consumptives. 
 
 KISK IN MARRIAGE. 
 
 In cities, particularly, ladies hazard more in entering upon 
 matrimonial relations than in the country, where the avenues 
 to vice are fewer, and dissipations, generally, are frowned upon 
 with a severity that inaugurates a better system of morals. 
 
 Physicians alone know of the extent of taints which fester 
 in the veins of men in cities, who, perhaps, are envied for their 
 possessions, their social positions, and their influence. 
 
 Men are more prone to irregular lives than women. They 
 plunge into dissipations, of which their most intimate friends 
 have no knowledge, and contract diseases, for the relief of 
 which they dare not consult their own physician, a it would 
 expose their doings where their reputation is enshrined in 
 gold. 
 
 Quacks tamper with them, get their money, and keep the 
 secret. Being no way qualified for medicating a patient with 
 
446 THE WATS OF WOMEN. 
 
 grave complaints, the canker that gnaws and undermines their 
 health is not eradicated, but a poison is left behind, to annoy 
 and worry the sinner the remainder of his days. 
 
 A father, whose system contains the seeds of an eruptive dis- 
 ease, a scrofulous tendency, a syphilitic taint, deep-seated ulcer- 
 ations, unsound teeth, an offensive breath, from internal causes, 
 which speak as plainly as such complaints can announce their 
 existence, will pretty certainly transmit them to his children. 
 
 Yery many women have contracted diseases from that 
 source, which have made them invalids, and destroyed all the 
 comfort of life, without, perhaps, ever suspecting the origin of 
 their protracted misery. 
 
 Cities abound with showy, flashy, fascinating impostors, 
 and women are their dupes. Fine establishments, fashionable 
 appointments, and costly equipages, however, are no compen- 
 sation for the loss of health. When they become the wives of 
 such men, they are prisoners in a charriel house. 
 
 A reformed rake is not the material for making a good hus- 
 band. It is the privilege of ladies to decide whom they will have ; 
 but unless the candidate for their hand and heart have a char- 
 acter as transparent as glass, it is for their interest to weigh 
 every circumstance with extreme deliberation, before saying 
 yes or no. 
 
 TRANSMISSIBLE TENDENCY TO INSANITY. 
 
 Insanity is another transmissible misfortune in families. 
 Beware of a lover whose father or mother has been a lunatic. 
 Severe reverses, loss of friends, peculiar affliction, and unfore- 
 seen accidents, may give rise to distraction. Such forms of in- 
 sanity are not without hope, when the cause has been removed 
 that gave rise to them, and should not therefore be viewed in 
 the same light as a hereditary predisposition to insanity. Nor 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 447 
 
 need there be an apprehension of a transmission of any tempor- 
 ary cerebral irregularities, the result of such causes. 
 
 BEWARE OF A PREDISPOSITION" TO INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 A transmitted predisposition to suicide, a murderous pro- 
 pensity, and a morbid craving for strong stimulants, are each 
 of them elements that lead to all imaginable unhappiness. 
 Avoid them, therefore, in a lover. 
 
 Ladies sometimes marry men who are known to give mani- 
 festations of those fearful conditions, under an impression that 
 they can manage them. To marry an habitual drunkard, when 
 the fact is known, under an expectation of wielding an influ- 
 ence that will lead him to abandon a debasing vice out of 
 respect to a wife's feelings, is an absurdity. They have no 
 powers of self-restraint, nor a wife any influence with a 
 drinking husband. 
 
 It is an experiment without a way of escape from impend- 
 ing misery, shame, and degradation, when a lady of refinement 
 weds a dissipated man. It is a cruel wrong when friends match 
 youth, beauty, health, and accomplishments, from sordid motives, 
 to an old, shattered body. It is a- fearful plunge into an abyss of 
 misery. 
 
 WEALTH BUYS WHAT CANNOT BE WON. 
 
 Such irrational marriages scarcely differ in moral turpitude 
 from a direct sale. It is a legalized abomination. 
 
 Property is the object when a blooming miss in her teens 
 weds an octogenarian. If there were no money to be won by 
 a game of chance for it is one, in which the bride fully expects 
 the grave will quickly cover up the old carcass she hates such 
 unions would not take place. 
 
448 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Ambition to be rich urges brilliant women to risk their 
 happiness on a throw of a matrimonial die. How frequently 
 the community is astonished by such voluntary exhibitions of 
 unnatural alliances, a living woman chained to a corpse. 
 
 Where is the tenderness, the sympathy, the religious sense 
 of honor, the instinct of love, when a woman in the vigor and 
 aspirations of youth sacrifices all at the shrine of money ? 
 
 In commenting on the barbarous customs of the Orient, 
 where females are sold at prices varying according to physical 
 attractions, travellers invariably express their disgust. It is a 
 system which Christian civilization frowns upon with indigna- 
 tion. But are there not sales in the United States, even more 
 extraordinary ? 
 
 Blue Beards are not all dead yet. Those women in market, 
 waiting for the highest bidder, offering themselves voluntarily, 
 are neither sacrifices, nor ladies. They are beings without 
 heart, without conscience, or a sense of religious accountability 
 to society or their Creator. 
 
 A lady is a different being. When her moral qualities and 
 the attributes of her gentle nature act in the sphere where she 
 ought to move, she is recognized as the best gift of God to 
 man. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 DIVORCES. 
 
 Being Matched Too Easily Procured Incompatibility Progressive In- 
 firmities Matrimonial Bickerings Congeniality Commercial Chil- 
 dren's Society Companionship, etc. 
 
 UNHAPPINESS in marriage is obviously on the increase; 
 lamentably, too, in the highest circles of intelligence in this 
 country. 
 
 A direct evidence of this statement is found in the courts of 
 law from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the forty-fifth 
 degree of north latitude to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Demands for separation from bed and board have become 
 disgracefully common all over the United States. Neither 
 legislators, divines, or moralists, have been successful in keep- 
 ing the family fold in that condition of contentment, which is 
 theoretically, if not practically, the basis on which rests the in- 
 stitution of marriage. 
 
 * 
 
 BEING MATCHED. 
 
 When contracting parties are only paired, but not lovingly 
 matched, they become estranged, most unaccountably to them- 
 selves. Divorces do not appertain to any particular condition 
 of life. Clergymen, lawyers, physicians, merchants, bankers, 
 actors, authors, the affluent, the tall, short, fat, lean, and even 
 among the industrious, wealth-producing classes, quite down to 
 cellars under sidewalks, all have their representative dissatis- 
 
450 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 fied applicants for relief from the self-imposed shackles of 
 matrimony. 
 
 So urgent is the desire for emancipation, by slipping their 
 necks out of the conjugal noose, enactments are undergoing 
 modifications in several States to facilitate a retrograde pro- 
 gress in Christian civilization. 
 
 Too EASILY PEOCUKED. 
 
 Divorces are procured with disgraceful ease, to the amaze- 
 ment of those who in. other countries have been brought up to 
 hold sacred an obligation to abide by a marital promise, to religi- 
 ously hold out, for better or for worse, till death doth them part. 
 
 A facetious story went the round not long ago, of a Massa- 
 chusetts man who wrote to the clerk of the Legislature of 
 Indiana, to ascertain why his petition for a divorce had not been 
 acted upon. In answer, the official wrote back it was customary 
 in that body to proceed alphabetically ; therefore he must not 
 be impatient, as it would be impossible to reach M till late in 
 the session, as they had only reached B in the regular order of 
 application. 
 
 INCOMPATIBILITY. 
 
 A proximate cause of such incompatibility, the generally 
 alleged reason for wishing a dissolution of the bond, is 
 explained upon what is called vital repugnance. 
 
 There is a kind of congenital uncongeniality, not to be over- 
 come or subdued by any known process, says a new theorist, 
 because there is a difference in their predestined longevity. 
 
 Thus, if a man is twenty years the senior of his wife at mar- 
 riage, they may possibly sail over life's tempestuous sea with 
 tolerable equanimity a few years. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 451 
 
 Going with the tide, however, is not their lot. Both are 
 occasionally rowing against a strong current, without keeping 
 time. Hence the boat is swayed, first, one way, then, in an 
 opposite direction, instead of gaining a peaceful harbor, pro- 
 tected from storms and tempest blasts. 
 
 PROGRESSIVE INFIRMITIES. 
 
 After awhile the husband begins to exhibit the infirmities of 
 age. Besides, he has gradually established certain fixed rules 
 which, in his long experience, are considered fundamental 
 principles necessary for repose, for propriety, for happiness ; 
 and it very much ruffles and disgusts him, too, if others refuse 
 to conform to the routine of regulations he resolves to establish 
 in his own household. 
 
 Madam entertains widely different views of the subject. 
 She comments upon his propositions as either preposterous, 
 ridiculous, or arbitrary. He makes no allowance for more 
 youthful feelings, while the wife, on the other hand, makes 
 no effort to conceal her dissatisfaction in being obliged to humor 
 the caprices of old age. 
 
 MATRIMONIAL BICKERINGS. 
 
 With occasional cutting remarks to the discomfiture of 
 both, the spirit of division obtains a foothold. An old husband 
 of a young wife never inspires her with reverence for his bald 
 head or gray hairs. Love never was an element in the original 
 arrangement. Both were deceived in supposing they were 
 made for each other. 
 
 An old man may have wisdom, judgment, and a handsome 
 estate, but he cannot inspire love and the warmth of affection 
 
4.52 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 in a girl twenty or thirty years younger than himself. She 
 feels no sense of companionship in his society. 
 
 While an old husband is deteriorating, and closing gradually 
 into smaller compass, the young wife is developing into the ful- 
 ness of commanding womanhood. 
 
 Keverse the circumstances. The wife being advanced, no 
 longer throwing off those magnetic influences which are the 
 bonds of attraction, a want is felt ; but what it is, words cannot 
 properly express. It is a sympathy only to be engendered 
 between those nearly of the same age. 
 
 An aged wife, the senior of the husband ten or fifteen years, 
 may be a model woman in the management of her domestic 
 duties, prudent and eminently discreet ; yet they do not har- 
 monize, though both are good and true. 
 
 "When nearly of the same age, their views, feelings, and 
 opinions keep pace on the same vital plane. One rarely acts 
 without the other in anything of importance, or suggests a 
 measure which would not be of mutual benefit. 
 
 CONGENIALITY. 
 
 There is a complete oneness with them, when appropriately 
 brought together. That is matrimonial happiness which we 
 read about, but do not as often witness in real life as might be 
 expected in a Christian country. 
 
 True unity of soul is the foundation of all the felicity found 
 in marriage. In that delightful realization of what actually 
 belongs to marital relations, of which affection is the bond of 
 union, one party has not a longer expectation of life than the 
 other, an unconscious harmony which, nevertheless, has a 
 direct influence on their mental and physical organization. 
 
 With such a pleasant preparation for travelling together on 
 the highway of coming years, marriage is a divine institution. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 453 
 
 Two merchants of nearly the same age agree together far 
 better in their business affairs, than when there is considerable 
 difference in their probable tenure of life all other things 
 being equal. 
 
 COMMERCIAL RELATIONS. 
 
 Some of the oldest and strongest commercial houses were 
 established by youthful partners, whose plans, operations, and 
 methods of conducting their enterprises were results of seeing 
 objects from the beginning alike, because both were alike im- 
 pressed by the same surrounding influences. 
 
 Old capitalists in business rarely proceed so smoothly with 
 a young man as with one of their own age. A reason is sought 
 for in that natural law of correspondence which is recognized 
 in various relations, but which is extremely difficult to eluci- 
 date. There is a parallelism in thought, in reasoning processes, 
 and a unity of feeling, in those of nearly the same age. Having 
 lived about the same number of years, they reckon from the 
 same events and epochs. 
 
 CHILDREN REQUIRE THE SOCIETY OF CHILDREN-. 
 
 Children . require the companionship of children. They 
 never establish the same kind of familiarity with grown-up 
 persons as they do with those of their own mental calibre. 
 
 Impressions from common objects strike them so differently. 
 The conversation of an infant is insipid to a man of years, while 
 the chat of the latter is totally beyond the comprehension of a 
 little prattler at his elbow. 
 
 Domesticated animals, to an observable degree, are influ- 
 enced by the same law of association. An old ox takes no 
 interest in a calf, but lows at the sight of a distant herd. Old 
 
454 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 dogs hardly tolerate the pranks of puppies. Cows covet the 
 company of cows, and old singing-birds appear to have pleasure 
 in the society of those similar to themselves. 
 
 COMPANIONSHIP OF ANIMALS. 
 
 Some animals form a warm attachment for each other, pro- 
 vided they have been a considerable while together ; but they are 
 not particular in expressions of friendship, if they associate late 
 in life. 
 
 Coach-horses, after having been accustomed to work in the 
 same carriage, upon being put in adjoining stalls, become exces- 
 sively uneasy when separated, and exhibit gratification in their 
 whinnyings of recognition in being again harnessed in the old 
 way. 
 
 Two cows pastured in the same field, or stalled in the same 
 stable, or two oxen accustomed to the same yoke, exhibit very 
 decided uneasiness on being separated. Their nervous watch- 
 fulness, vigilance, and frequent calls at the top of their voice, is 
 a language that denotes the violence done to their attachment 
 to an old friend. 
 
 A young weaned colt cares but little for a sedate horse ; nor 
 does a spavined hack in a dirt-cart covet the society of antic 
 nags, even when at large in a broad enclosure. Kittens are 
 repulsed by sober cats. They may tolerate their presence ; but 
 when they begin to take liberties in their mischievous capers, a 
 growl, or a blow with a sharp claw admonishes them not to 
 presume upon the gravity of their seniors. 
 
 BEPTILES WITHOUT ATTACHMENT. 
 
 Reptiles do not appear to possess social feelings. Neither 
 do voracious fishes, as sharks, wolf-fish, etc. On the contrary, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 455 
 
 cod, haddock, mackerel, and many other tribes are sociable, and 
 range in company over their feeding-ground, and migrate in 
 immense armies for mutual protection and society. 
 
 Whales are social in their nature, also, as porpoises are; 
 both swimming amicably together in their pastimes, or in 
 pursuit of food. 
 
 Whales, after all, are not fish. They belong to the mam- 
 malia. They breathe air exclusively, and suckle their young. 
 
 When aged men or women advanced in the vale of years 
 marry those younger than themselves by many years, it is not 
 only a gross mistake, but it is also a violation of a natural law. 
 It is as true in social science as in homoeopathy, that like cures 
 like. In other words, a condition in age, experience, and force 
 of vitality, is essential to that happiness which is the incentive 
 for assuming the legal and all other responsibilities appertain- 
 ing to marriage. Discrepancies in those respects are sure to 
 eventuate in certain disappointment and marital wretchedness, 
 where neither one is influenced by a highly developed religious 
 sentiment of accountability. 
 
 Who can doubt that the friction of a wounded spirit, chafed 
 and fretted by an uncongenial marriage, must be productive of 
 intensified mental misery ? 
 
 Who does not believe, also, that where a man and woman of 
 suitable age, of cultivated intellect, refined in character, are lov- 
 ingly united, they will find all that calm, ennobling realization 
 of their expectations in that relation ? 
 
 In a felicitous marriage, longevity is promoted, health is bet- 
 ter secured, and if heaven is ever found on earth, it is in the 
 home of such a family. 
 
456 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 INDISCREET MARRIAGES. 
 
 "When a young woman marries an aged man, she perils her 
 health, possibly, her life. He will improve, because his sys- 
 tem will imbibe her vitality. If some ladies have sufficient vi- 
 tality accumulating, to bear the draft of what may be called ab- 
 sorption of life, a few years, they may outlive the old husband. 
 Ten fall by the way, however, where one survives. 
 
 And in those cases, if it could be fairly explained how she 
 escaped the penalty of a violated law, it would unquestionably 
 be due to an estrangement, protecting herself by not being 
 within the reach or magnetic conducting force of the body 
 which would otherwise have received her vitality. 
 
 Reverse the conditions, and a young man would peril him- 
 self precisely in the same way. 
 
 Such are. the mainsprings of life, subtle and incomprehensi- 
 ble, but they are the laws that influence and govern humanity 
 in every country. 
 
CHAPTEK XXXVII. 
 THE LONGEVITY OF WOMEN. 
 
 Life a Precious Boon Modifications of the Penal Code Experiments Mind 
 Independent of Body Suicide a Crime Women in their Desperation 
 Women Live Longer than Men Have Better Habits Life Limitation 
 Pulse Life Insurance Positions As Cultivators. 
 
 A DREAD of death is implanted in every human breast. 
 Even creeping insects have an instinctive apprehension of fatal 
 consequences, attending exposures to superior force. 
 
 A small animal is in fear of a large one. It is 'a feeling 
 that cannot be overcome, because it is incorporated with their 
 nature as a safeguard to inspire vigilance for self-preservation. 
 Otherwise, unapprehensive of impending dangers, and regard- 
 less of consequences from a relaxation of that sentinel sense, 
 they, and man too, with all his calculating faculties, seeing the 
 end from the beginning, in his reasoning from cause to effect, 
 would heedlessly plunge into a vortex where certain destruction 
 was inevitable, as he would lie down upon a soft couch for 
 repose. 
 
 Life is a boon too precious to be neglected, or carelessly 
 thrown away. It is an imperative duty to live as long as we 
 can, and in all Christian nations it is considered a crime to volun- 
 tarily destroy ourselves or others. 
 
 A doctrine is obtaining rapidly, the advocates of which are 
 already numerous, that God, who gave life, has alone the right 
 to take it away. 
 
 Yery marked modifications of the penal code have not only 
 
4-58 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 already been effected through, the spreading influence of disbe- 
 lievers, in the necessity or right to inflict capital punishment, 
 and still further alterations may be anticipated. 
 
 Starting with that proposition, relaxing the severities of 
 punishment for several very common crimes within the last few 
 years, they are not as frequent as they were. A further re- 
 duction of legal cruelties, unworthy an age of elevated Chris- 
 tian advancement, will prove a surer remedy than hanging on a 
 gallows. 
 
 Extreme cases, characterized by atrocious barbarities, and 
 premeditated wickedness of the perpetrator, should be placed 
 beyond the control of executive pardoning powers. A perpet- 
 ual imprisonment, wholly and entirely beyond the reach of a 
 governor or a president, would be so terrific as to restrain those 
 who have entertained an expectation of freedom at last, even 
 under a life sentence. 
 
 Perpetual incarceration, without the possibility of ever being 
 again restored to freedom, would be dreaded far more intensely 
 by great criminals, than a public execution. 
 
 When it was announced to the first murderer that, instead 
 of being put to death, he should live, and seven-fold vengeance 
 be the penalty of any one who injured him, a mark being 
 fixed on his person that he might be recognized as under an 
 awful sentence, the wretched Cain exclaimed that his punish- 
 ment was greater than he could bear. 
 
 Inquisitive physiological experimenters have interrogated 
 nature with a view to ascertaining whether life departs in- 
 stantaneously with a stoppage of the vital machinery. 
 
 When a person has been shot through the head, heart, or 
 the solar or semi-lunar plexuses in front of the spine below the 
 diaphragm, does consciousness linger awhile and then gradu- 
 ally take a final departure, or is death instantaneous ? 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 459 
 
 Every muscle has a special life endowment of its own, quite 
 independent of the will. After being lacerated, and, indeed, 
 after being separated from its connections, while there is con- 
 tractility remaining, there is life in it. 
 
 Chemical decomposition is the only certain evidence of 
 death. 
 
 The conscious soul exhibits its peculiar properties through 
 the instrumentality of an organized body. In drowning, con- 
 siderable time evidently elapses before life is extinct. Re- 
 markable cases of suspended animation incontestably prove 
 that, if the soul had departed on its never-ending mission to 
 eternity, it was actually recalled back again by the appliances 
 of art. 
 
 In drowning, the union of body and mind is gradually dis- 
 solved ; but it may be interrupted and death prevented, by 
 manipulations that set the vital machinery again in motion. 
 
 The mind, therefore, is there for a while ; and it is probable 
 the same condition exists in decapitations. But violence inflicted 
 on those highly-vitalized instruments by which it manifests 
 itself in life, is a shock dissolving instantly the connection 
 between body and mind. 
 
 With the escape of arterial blood in a gash, in cutting sud- 
 denly through the neck, the brain is deprived of the material 
 it must have to act at all ; and hence death speedily follows, 
 though there may be an instant or two of distinct conscious- 
 ness. The Paris savans represent a decapitated head as en- 
 gaged in thinking for a short space of time, deprived of the 
 ability of expressing its wishes. 
 
 There are conditions in which all are cowards. Men may 
 fight bravely, face the king of terrors at the muzzle of a 
 cannon ; but, when raising a weapon for destroying their own 
 lives, it is with fear and trembling. 
 
460 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 If ever suicide is accomplished with a firm, unflinching will 
 and a steady hand, it is charitable to suppose the individual 
 absolutely insane ; because the act is a notorious violation of 
 the strongest instinct of his nature. 
 
 Women in their distraction wildly perform deeds of 
 desperation against themselves. They leap into abysses of 
 misery to avoid a foreseen disgrace. Nothing so nerves them 
 to face the dreadful alternative of death or shame, as question- 
 ing their moral purity. What is life to them without the con- 
 sciousness of unsullied virtue ? 
 
 That is the question with a woman nurtured in a religious 
 belief of rewards and punishments in a future state ; and hence, 
 among professing Christians, examples of self-destruction of fe- 
 males are more common than in pagan or Mahometan countries. 
 
 Pagan and Mahometan women rarely commit suicide. 
 Education, therefore, shapes the mind, and plants deep down in 
 the recesses of the heart, those principles w r hich both govern 
 and direct them in their social intercourse. 
 
 Whatever is instilled into the mental constitution of the 
 girl remains there through all the meanderings of after years : 
 so certain is it that, as the twig is bent, so the tree inclines. 
 
 Inquiries into the physical signs of longevity in man fully 
 confirm the opinion that women, on an average, live longer 
 than men.* 
 
 They are less exposed to dangers which sweep off men and 
 
 * Professor Faraday lias given it as his opinion that all who die before 
 they are a hundred years old, may be justly charged with self-murder ; that 
 Providence, having originally intended man to live a century, would allow 
 him to do so if he did not kill himself by eating unwholesome food, allow- 
 ing himself to be annoyed by trifles, giving license to passion and exposing 
 himself to accident. The French savan, Flourin, advanced the theory that 
 the duration of life is measured by the time of growth. When the bones' 
 epiphysis are united, the body grows no more, and it is at twenty years that 
 this union is effected in man. The natural termination of life is five re- 
 moves from the several points. Man, being twenty years in growing, lives, 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 461 
 
 boys at sea, in armies, mines, manufacturing establishments at- 
 tended with perils, as the making of gunpowder, explosive 
 cotton, nitro-glycerine ; and in various circumstances of peculiar 
 contingencies, to which females are rarely, if ever, subjected. 
 
 Then again, women, as a body, always have better habits, 
 and better morals, a sentiment often repeated in the pages of 
 this volume. Their vitality is not wasted in midnight carousals, 
 nor are they guilty of enervating vices, which kill off men 
 frightfully fast, of which little is known out of the confidential 
 circle of the medical profession. 
 
 They commence life under more favorable circumstances, in 
 some respects, in regard to the preservation of health, which 
 thousands of them fritter away prematurely, in coming into 
 womanhood. Still, more women live to very old age than men. 
 
 An examination of a family's necrological record, if care- 
 fully kept, discloses some curious facts illustrative of the tena- 
 city of life in females who have escaped the tortures imposed 
 upon the fashionable sisterhood. 
 
 Constant practice in the examination of applicants for life 
 insurance has enabled medical examiners to arrive at certain 
 interesting conclusions respecting the death period of women, 
 which had escaped notice before those investigations were 
 instituted. 
 
 Limited as may be our knowledge of vital force, enough has 
 been ascertained for the construction of tables of expectances. 
 That is, if a person has arrived at any particular age, it is 
 expected he or she may live a certain number of years from 
 that date. 
 
 Physicians make mistakes in their estimates of the value of 
 life, as well as others not supposed to be as well informed in 
 
 or should, five times twenty years ; the camel is eight years in growing, and 
 lives five times eight years ; the horse is five years in growing, and lives 
 twenty-five years, and so on with other animals. 
 
462 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 regard to the probabilities of life ; but they are progressing, 
 becoming more critical, and more accurate also, in their investi- 
 gations. Their ears and the sense of touch are being educated 
 with reference to discriminating, with precision, between normal 
 and abnormal sounds of the heart. When careful in their 
 examinations, it is surprising with what success and readiness 
 they detect irregularities in the circulation, that would escape 
 the attention of those inexperienced in those pursuits. 
 
 Unfavorable conditions of the heart, the lungs, kidneys, etc., 
 require a very nice perception of variations from their action in 
 health or disease. 
 
 Those organs are exceedingly over-worked, and, therefore, 
 driven into a degree of unnatural activity by the habits, bad 
 customs, imagined business demands, and vices of the times ; 
 and the consequence is, an increased mortality from those 
 sources, quite rare among our old-fashioned ancestors, who pro- 
 ceeded with moderation in their affairs. 
 
 A hurried pulse, far above the ordinary beats of the heart, 
 when the expenditure of vital force is in equipoise with the 
 ratio of supply, tends to injury. We are constituted for excite- 
 ments. If not too long continued, no injury accrues. But 
 when the tension is kept up continuously, too long, the next 
 phase is debility. 
 
 A preparation for being examined for a life policy some- 
 times quickens the pulse exceedingly ; and one not accustomed 
 to the sudden changes which emotions of the mind may produce, 
 is liable to grave mistakes. 
 
 Medical gentlemen are occasionally blamed for mistakes, as 
 though they were, or at least ought to be, infallible, when in 
 the service of insurance institutions, trust companies, and the 
 like, where professional opinions are required in granting their 
 favors. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 463 
 
 Those who have passed through a tedious professional pre- 
 paration for being eminently qualified to discriminate one sound 
 from another, or determine by pressure at the tip of a finger, 
 whether an applicant for life insurance may live ten years, or 
 expire, in all human probability, in ten days, are attended with 
 painful anxieties, and environed by more responsibilities than 
 officers of such institutions recognize. 
 
 Unfortunately, for the honor of the medical profession, the 
 qualifications of medical officers are decided upon by persons 
 who have not the requisite knowledge of the value of science 
 for guiding them in a choice. A blockhead is quite as often 
 chosen to a responsible professional position, as a man of 
 superior attainments. A pecuniary influence, or relationship to 
 one of the directors or an influential stockholder, may decide an 
 appointment. Is merit ignored ? This declaration is abund- 
 antly sustained in looking at the names of some who are the 
 best bowers of many life-offices, but who could not pass an 
 examination for the position of a village pedagogue. 
 
 Admitting the capacity of women for occupying all places, 
 and for engaging in almost all pursuits heretofore considered 
 the special properties of men, the further we proceed the more 
 openings seem to present for them. 
 
 It is not desirable that they should unsex themselves for the 
 sake of employments which in ages past have been denied them. 
 It is by no means necessary that they should ride a horse like a 
 moss-trooper, tend saw-mills, hew stone, labor in quarries, coal- 
 mines, iron-foundries, or anywhere in which their presence 
 would be inappropriate. 
 
 "Women may be admirable gardeners, florists, fruit-growers, 
 wool-raisers, cultivate vineyards, or, indeed, as many of them 
 do, carry on extensive farming operations. Fruits have always 
 commanded good prices ; the demand, thus far, has been greater 
 than the supply. They are wanted everywhere. 
 
464: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Having a natural aptitude for horticultural industry, and a 
 delicate taste in selecting and directing, what fortunes are in 
 reserve for those who early embark in those employments ! 
 
 Berries, poultry, honey-bees, piscatory economy, all of which 
 may be conducted on a few acres of ground, present an inviting 
 field for the display of female energy, enterprise, and praise- 
 worthy example. 
 
 Women need not necessarily lose caste among the refined of 
 their own sex, become rough in manner, or demoralized by 
 coming in contact with mother earth. Their figures will 
 neither become gross, their features less attractive, their charms 
 deteriorate, or their beauty fade any sooner for identifying 
 themselves with the culture of fruits, flowers, wheat, or wool. 
 
 People will have luxuries if they go without necessaries. 
 Among profitable pursuits for females, requiring neither un- 
 pleasant associations nor hard labor, is honey-making. One 
 woman could easily manage one hundred hives. Even one, not 
 occupying a square yard of ground, would supply thirty, forty, 
 and up to sixty pounds of honey in a single season, if carefully 
 superintended. 
 
 Let one thousand females embark in apiarian enterprises any- 
 where, and without the least regard to the quality of the soil or 
 its capacity for yielding flowers. Bees collect honey from great 
 distances, and store it wherever we direct. What wealth would 
 be accumulated by that one thousand operators in honey ! 
 
 There are more flowers in yards, windows, open conserva- 
 tories, parks, and highways in most cities, than in four times 
 the same area of land in the country. Even if there were not, 
 a single flower within five miles of an apiary would be found 
 and regularly visited by city bees. Therefore, rear them in 
 cities if the cultivator has a stationary home. 
 
 The experiment has been tried, and crowned with entire 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 405 
 
 success, even when the hive was kept within a cool part of the 
 building, and the foraging insects went out and in through 
 walls. 
 
 Throughout the country there is not a poor widow, a forlorn 
 spinster, or an idle woman, who cannot descend to pursuits be- 
 low the estimate she places upon her social position, who might 
 not have a pleasant revenue from this delightful employment 
 of honey-raising. 
 
 Throughout continental Europe, peasant women are ac- 
 customed to labor in the field side by side with men. They 
 have the same organic structure, functional peculiarities, in- 
 stincts, and necessities of the most elevated of the sex, yet they 
 are quite overlooked in researches for physical signs of incapa- 
 city for such lives as they lead. 
 
 Because women can endure hardships, can labor, lift, dig, 
 saw, carry burdens, and drive teams, it is not an argument in 
 favor of obliging them to do so, neither does it accord with our 
 civilization not to attempt relieving them. 
 
 Studying their condition at every step, from the lowest to 
 the highest round in the ascending ladder of life, in all countries, 
 the conclusion arrived at, in reference to their longevity, is 
 this : that more women live beyond a century than men, their 
 circumstances, ceteris parilus^ being equal. Both, however^ 
 in communities most distinguished for culture and intelli- 
 gence, fall far short of the years they would have attained to, 
 had they not violated many immutable laws of health. 
 
 Public registers abound with notices of men and women 
 who have lived far beyond the supposed ordinary limit of 
 human life, on the presumption that threescore and ten is the 
 doomed measure of our days. 
 
 The more quiet, unobtrusive, and less exposed way of life of 
 women is favorable to their longevity. They are rarely sub- 
 
466 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 jected to those sudden assaults upon the constitution, those fric- 
 tions of a rude world, or those personal contentions, which 
 wear away men. As they are rarely exposed to storms, or 
 called upon to test the strength of their muscles, or perplex 
 their brains with problems and difficulties which break down 
 strong men prematurely, their chance for prolonged life is 
 better. 
 
 Individuals pass through dreadful trials of body and mind, 
 and thousands of females throng madhouses, the victims of 
 cruelty and oppression ; but, as a whole, the expectation of 
 life is altogether in their favor. 
 
 Women are less corrupt than men, even when wickedly 
 debased by vicious associations. They think less evil, avoid 
 polluting influences, and thus are secured from many direct 
 causes of premature death. 
 
 "Were it not for wandering too far into the regions of 
 antiquity, illustrations of prevailing opinions, that females had 
 a peculiar tenacity of life, might be gathered. But we ascribe 
 what in the olden time was thought an extraordinary endow- 
 ment of vitality, to their habitual sobriety, propriety, and 
 happy exemption from turmoils and excitements that wear out 
 men. 
 
 The book of Genesis gives a narrative of the old age of 
 Sarah, and a remarkable physiological revolution in her system, 
 perhaps hardly ever paralleled since. Becoming a mother in 
 extreme old age, is by no means a common occurrence.* 
 
 * Mr. W. J. Thorns' new book, " Human Longevity : Its Facts and its 
 Fictions," demolishes the pretensions of many of the marvellous " old men " 
 of tradition to have lived a century and upward. He clearly proves that 
 " Old Parr," Jenkins, and the Countess of Desmond, who are reputed to have 
 survived to 140 or upward, are cases of longevity resting upon no positive 
 evidence. He demonstrates that the ages of a more modern series of cen- 
 tenarians were as follows : Mary Billinge, not 112, but 91 ; Jonathan 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Erythea, the Sybil, says that Phlegon lived ten hundred 
 years. In the writings of Matthew Paris, it is asserted that the 
 Wandering Jew was recognized in 1229. Next, copying the 
 story of a man who, at the age of three hundred and thirty- 
 five, was brought into the august presence of Lopez de Caste- 
 nada, while viceroy of India, and similar extravagant legends, 
 a formidable array of strange biographies might be collected. 
 They are of no value, being curiosities of history, once believed 
 to be true, when a few monks wrote for the astonishment of 
 ignorant, superstitious millions. 
 
 Whether persons in modern times have attained patriarchal 
 longevity, admits of a reasonable doubt. However, there are 
 exceptions to general laws ; and whenever a man or a woman 
 passes beyond one hundred years, their vitality must have been 
 remarkable. 
 
 Henry Jenkins, who in his twelfth year led a horse laden 
 with arrows to the battlefield of Flodden, reached the age 
 of one hundred and sixty years. This case seems well authen- 
 ticated, as the record of his burial by a national subscription 
 gave extensive notoriety to his extraordinary longevity. 
 
 Thomas Parr died at one hundred and fifty-two. He was 
 buried in Westminster Abbey. That circumstance shows the 
 deep public interest in the fact that he had reached an age that 
 created universal surprise, and, therefore, he was entombed 
 within the sacred edifice, where none but memorable persons 
 were honored in death. 
 
 Reeves, not 104, but 80 ; Mary Downton, not 106, but 100 ; Joshua Miller, 
 not 111, but 90 ; George Fletcher, not 108, but 92 ; George Smith, not 105, 
 but 95 ; Edward Couch, not 110, but 95 ; William Webb, not 105, but 95 ; 
 John Dawe, not 116, but 87 ; George Brewer, not 106, but 98 ; Mary Hicks, 
 not 104, but 97. Besides these, a few other cases are introduced, of which 
 all that the author can show is, that there is no convincing evidence of the 
 asserted age. He admits only two as proven out of the long roll of news- 
 paper centenarians. We have facts to confute Mr. Thorn. 
 
468 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 When Philip d'Herbelot was one hundred and fourteen, he 
 presented a bouquet to Louis XIY. on his birthday. " What 
 have you done," asked his majesty, " to have reached so great 
 an age ? " The old man replied, being then a government pen- 
 sioner, " From the age of fifty, please your majesty, I have 
 shut my heart and opened my cellar." 
 
 While the National Assembly of France was in session, 
 October 23d, 1789, a man at the age of one hundred and 
 twenty was announced. All the members rose as he entered. 
 Amidst a whirlwind of applause he walked to an arm-chair in 
 front of the secretaries. He then presented a certificate of his 
 baptism, proving his birth at St. Sobin, October 10, 1669. By 
 manual labor he had supported himself till the expiration of a 
 century. A pension of two hundred livres per annum was then 
 granted by the king. A contribution was voted him, and the 
 old man was lodged at the public expense in the Patriotic 
 School. Pupils of all ranks waited upon him. 
 
 When Napoleon I. was first consul, he decorated two men 
 on the same occasion, who were one hundred years old, before 
 an immense concourse of people. 
 
 At an inauguration of an equestrian statue of Louis XIV., 
 at the Palace of Victories, Aug. 20, 1822, Pierre Huet, called 
 the father of the French army, was present, being one hun- 
 dred and sixteen. His countenance was venerable, his voice 
 sonorous, and a flowing white beard gave dignity to his appear- 
 ance. He had been a cotemporary of the king, whose reign the 
 Bourbon dynasty were commemorating. 
 
 Dr. Barnes, of Edinburgh, gives a narrative of Kobert 
 Bom an, in the Philosophical Journal of that city, who lived to 
 be one hundred and fifteen. He distinctly remembered the re- 
 bellion of 1Y14. Among other curious recollections, he re- 
 membered when barley was three shillings for a Carlisle bushel ; 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 469 
 
 oats, eighteen pence ; butter, three pence a pound ; and eggs, a 
 penny a dozen. His food had been principally milk, but he 
 partook of whatever food was prepared for the family. Nei- 
 ther tea, coffee, or tobacco was ever used by him. When hun- 
 gry, he ate ; retired early to bed, when sleepy, but had no fixed 
 habits. 
 
 The foregoing cases of extreme longevity have been cited 
 to show that well authenticated cases are numerous, of life be- 
 ing prolonged beyond a century, which has been questioned 
 very frequently of late. But a few only, one in millions upon 
 millions, have had such vitality. 
 
 We could show, with equal certainty, that more females 
 have reached an uncommon longevity than males. A very few 
 have considerably passed one hundred years, one hundred and 
 ten, one hundred and twenty ; and the Countess of Desmond, 
 one hundred and forty-two ! 
 
 In the course of one century, one man in many millions 
 may arrive at the age of one hundred years, while within the 
 same period more women live to a full century than men. 
 
 Among the Pension Office records, at Washington, on a list 
 of twenty-one surviving soldiers of the Revolution, a few years 
 since, eighteen of them had reached 100 years, and upwards. 
 There were five who were passed 101 ; four, 102 ; two, 103 ; 
 two, 105 ; two, 106, and one, 109. 
 
 In the catalogue of widows of revolutionary soldiers, draw- 
 ing pensions, there were twenty who were 100 years old, and 
 eleven who were 97. Dinah Vick, at Nashville, Tenn., died 
 1871, at the age of 109. The oldest person drawing a pension 
 was Chloa Flatford, Virginia, who died at 116. The next per- 
 son was Charity Flindman, of West Yirginia, who was 112. 
 
 The Southern States offer more examples of extreme lon- 
 gevity than the Northern. Mrs. McDonald, of Tennessee, died 
 
470 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 at 106 ; Mrs. Shaw, of New Orleans, at 107 ; Mrs. Thrasher, of 
 Georgia, 103; Mrs. Trucker, of !N". Carolina, 109, and Mrs. 
 Harris, of Georgia, 101.* 
 
 "Were it possible, at this moment, to gather a catalogue of 
 the oldest persons, now living, the largest number of the whole 
 would probably be females. 
 
 ~Ko particular system of diet is superior to another, accord- 
 ing to the histories of those who have had such long leases of 
 life. 
 
 There is another chronicle of men and women who have vio- 
 lated all the common laws of health, having been as irregular 
 and erratic as the wind, whose longevity equalled those who 
 conformed to all the requirements of a well-regulated life. 
 
 Donald McDonald, about forty years ago, was sent to the 
 House of Correction, in Boston, because he was intemperate 
 and quarrelsome, being then one hundred and seven years old ! 
 His father died in Scotland at the age of one hundred and 
 thirty-seven, in consequence of an injury to the spine, by fall- 
 ing down stairs. 
 
 Who can doubt the transmission of vitality or vital force 
 from parent to child ? 
 
 Undoubtedly, the death rate is accelerated by intemperance 
 in this and all other countries. We are already called a nation 
 of drunkards, by those who have not had the good fortune to 
 become acquainted with the best specimens of American so- 
 ciety. The vice of intemperance is deeply rooted in the con- 
 stitution of so many, that its baneful and destroying influence 
 taints the blood of those who derive their being from such 
 polluted sources. 
 
 * Huger, a colored woman, recently died near Alexandria, Ky., at the age 
 of 122. She was born in Virginia, March 21, 1751. She had been blind 
 twenty years. Her memory was good. She was presumed to be the oldest 
 person in the United States. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 471 
 
 Neither legislation, moral suasion, nor temperance reformers 
 have gained much success in their efforts to stay the progress of 
 that dreadful vice. There are temporary lulls and loud expres- 
 sions of enthusiasm when some newly-devised schemes for re- 
 form are proposed. Alas ! neither the beauties of sobriety, nor 
 the horrors of a prison make any lasting impression on the case- 
 hardened brains of inebriates. Their morbid thirst is a disease 
 beyond the resources of medicine, in its present imperfect 
 state. 
 
 There are persons so organized, they crave unusual excite- 
 ment. Their temperaments cannot be kept in equilibrium with 
 cold water. They will hazard reputation, and even life, for in- 
 dulgence. The sober-minded are taxed for the support of va- 
 gabonds and criminals, who were made such by intemperance. 
 
 There is one untried remedy. When mild wines are cheaper 
 than beer, ale, whiskey, and brain-crazing cordials, those who 
 look upon wine as a luxury beyond their reach will prefer it. 
 Then intemperance will be less frequent, and a new condition 
 of society may be anticipated, most gratifying to philanthro- 
 pists, to Christian laborers, in the midst of wide-spread vice 
 and dissipation, but not before. 
 
 "Wine can be made in sufficient quantities to root out the 
 undermining destruction of distilleries. California, alone, has 
 more than sufficient for the remedy but it must be cheaper. 
 
 Give those who are maddened by strong potations some- 
 thing superior to meet the demands of a morbid craving, and 
 in fifty years the public sentiment will sustain this proposi- 
 tion. 
 
 Looking to an extended tenure of human life, by conform- 
 ing more understandingly to the laws of health, which are be- 
 ing better understood through the active influence of the press, 
 and when women rise to that social elevation they are to have, 
 
472 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 longevity will not be regarded as a wonder, as it has been, but 
 a natural consequence of conforming to those principles which 
 science demonstrates to be the way to health and long life.* 
 
 * The last census presents the following curious facts : 
 
 The total population of the country is about 38,250,000. 
 
 Total number of deaths in the current census year, 492,263, or about 1,349 
 per diem. 
 
 March seeins to be the most fatal month, leading all others by about 1,000. 
 March, April, and May form the most fatal quarter, exceeding any other 
 three consecutive months by over 13,000. 
 
 The births number 1,100,475, or about 3,000 per diem. 
 
 The blind number about 20,000. 
 
 The deaf and dumb about 16,000. 
 
 The idiotic about 24,000. 
 
 The insane about 37,000, nearly one-third of whom are of foreign birth. 
 
 Persons over 80 years of age number about 150,000. 
 
 Persons over 90 years of age number about 7,000. 
 
 Persons over 100 years of age number about 3,500. 
 
 Of those over 90 years, the females are in excess by about 1,200. 
 
 Of those over 100 years, the females exceed the males by about 1,000. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 THEIK FUTUEE iir THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Women Considered in Law Political Status Mixed Schools Vulgar 
 Men The Evidence of Low Breeding Schools for Separating Girls and 
 Boys Russian Apprehension Annual Teapot Tempests School Im- 
 provements Political Equality of the Sexes. 
 
 IN every period of human history, women have been con- 
 sidered inferior to men. All laws for the regulation of society 
 have invariably been so framed as to perpetuate the absurd idea, 
 that they have neither capacity nor a right to participate in 
 concerns of common interest, which tradition, custom, and the 
 Eovereign power exclusively confide to male members of the 
 community. 
 
 Among savages and barbarians, where that theory must have 
 originated, females are estimated as necessary appendages, but 
 not equals. Before the spread of Christianity their condition, 
 even under the most favorable aspect, was that of slavery. All 
 that has been accomplished for their elevation, and protection 
 in the enjoyment of privileges, such as they are, even in the 
 most enlightened states of Europe and the United States, is 
 due to the influence of Christianity. 
 
 Women will rise higher, and be sustained in their claims to 
 an equal share of whatever contributes most to the security, 
 happiness, and progress in the world, in proportion to the heed 
 given to those divine truths which were revealed and inculcated 
 by our Lord and Saviour. 
 
 There have been fortunate individuals among women in all 
 ages. Some were born to renown. Very few of them have 
 
474: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 reached political distinction by the mere exercise of superior 
 skill or intelligence, and simply because barriers were inter- 
 posed between them and the objects of their ambition by the craf- 
 tiness of men. When they have held the reins of government 
 by hereditary claims that could not be set aside, they have in- 
 variably exhibited qualities that incontestably proved they were 
 not inferior to kings. 
 
 Notwithstanding the Queen can do no wrong under the 
 Constitution of Great Britain, the laws of England take cog- 
 nizance of a fearful array of illegal acts which her female sub- 
 jects may commit, and are punished for, without troubling men 
 of low degree, who are guilty of betraying them and destroying 
 their prospects and happiness. 
 
 A husband may cruelly abuse his own wife, bone of his 
 bone and flesh of his flesh, and yet she has no redress, or next 
 to none, in one of the most enlightened countries on the globe. 
 How much better is it here ? 
 
 What does it amount to towards securing better treat- 
 ment, by putting an infamous, drunken husband under bonds 
 in the sum of seventy-five cents, to keep the peace, who re- 
 turns home from the police office and breaks his wife's ribs 
 in revenge for having his conduct exposed in court ? 
 
 A woman is by law held to be inferior to a man in this 
 blessed American Union. While single, she is manager of her 
 own property ; but the moment of entering upon the holy state 
 of matrimony, her individuality is lost. She is then Mrs. No- 
 body in all legal transactions. 
 
 As a spinster, she is compelled to pay taxes, can be assessed 
 for public expenditures which do not meet her approbation, but 
 she is not allowed to vote for officers placed in authority over 
 her, nor is she elegible to any place or position of honor or 
 trust under the law. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 475 
 
 As a married woman, she loses the privilege she had before 
 of deeding away land, making a will, of doing anything, in 
 short, which her lord and master forbids. On becoming a 
 widow, she regains her suspended privileges, and then buys, 
 sells, and bequeathes her estate to whom she chooses. 
 
 Women, certainly, have legal rights here, as wives, but 
 they are very much mixed and obscured by lawmakers, who 
 thus far have contrived to keep the balance of power in their 
 own hands. 
 
 In Turkey, a wife is property. If she does wrong, the 
 husband, as proprietor, is notified, he being accountable for her 
 acts. There are no tedious investigations into the particulars of 
 the wrong-doing of which she is accused. If, in his estimation, 
 punishment should be inflicted, he is both jury, judge, and 
 executive officer. The public sympathy is never excited when 
 a member of the harem disappears, if the fact is noised abroad, 
 because it is nothing that concerns the public. A Turkish 
 gentleman may sink a woman once a week in the Bosphorus, 
 without disturbing the placidity of her acquaintances or his 
 own. 
 
 Women are worse treated where the standard of moral ac- 
 countability claims to be far above that of the Koran. Turks 
 are careful of their property. They neither beat, bruise, nor 
 maim their wives. They put them to death when the law re- 
 quires them to protect the community against a repetition of a 
 crime of which his property, his woman, is guilty. That is 
 government economy, and saves the expense of a public 
 execution. 
 
 POLITICAL STATUS. 
 
 We believe a woman is man's equal, and entitled to all 
 privileges and immunities accorded to men by laws made for 
 
476 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 monopolizing what by nature and the eternal, unchangeable 
 principles of justice, belongs to her, in making fast their own. 
 
 That doctrine is gaining ground rapidly. Until their rights 
 are restored, of which they have for fifty centuries been de- 
 prived, civilization cannot be thorough and complete. The 
 millennium will commence when that great day of doing as 
 we would be done by is ushered in, by acknowledging that 
 women are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness accorded to men, whether they have brain, capacity, moral 
 integrity, or not. 
 
 Under no ancient or modern form of government have 
 they ever had accorded to them the privileges to which they 
 are entitled. They are of as much importance as men. They 
 were created for one another, and must associate. Being 
 equals by nature, women should share equally and equitably 
 with men in all things. It is only' in a republic that a pro- 
 spect of restoring to them that which has been taken, can be ex- 
 pected. It is rank hypocrisy to boast of republican equality 
 when one half the population is exercising all the power, not 
 even permitting the voice of the injured party to be heard, 
 when the plea is simply in accordance with the Constitution, 
 that taxation and representation shall go together. 
 
 We are examining a fundamental principle, not because it 
 would be a gratification to see half the members of the House 
 and Senate at Washington old ladies, alternately taking part in 
 debates on great national questions, and then taking snuff. 
 There are not many women qualified for those arm-chairs in 
 Congress ; and if there were, but few would consent to be 
 associated with such rude, boisterous, uncouth specimens of un- 
 polished humanity as are seen there, singularly contrasting with 
 gentlemen of talents, learning, and polished manners, who can 
 rarely be elected. 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 477 
 
 Women can have equal rights with men, without supposing 
 that every one of them will corrupt voters to get themselves 
 elected a judge, a member of the City Council, or chief of 
 police. Their characteristic honesty and good sense forbids the 
 idea, that they would stoop so low as to accept places notorious 
 for the corruptions of those usually occupying them in these 
 degenerate days of political integrity. 
 
 MIXED SCHOOLS. 
 
 Common schools, those elementary, free institutions which 
 are the pride of the people, the nurseries of the national mind, 
 fountains from whence flows a current which both develops 
 and fertilizes every order of intellect, must be sustained, if our 
 liberties are to be preserved. 
 
 Throughout the interior of the country, common-school 
 pupils are of both sexes. Boys and girls meet on a common 
 level, pursue the same studies, and stand in classes together. 
 Such are called mixed schools, and they are always the best, 
 distinguished for the progress of the scholars, and the care with 
 which they are governed. 
 
 Boys by themselves, or girls in schools exclusively for 
 them, are neither so successful in study or discipline, as when 
 they are associated in their educational pursuits. Mixed 
 schools exert a happy influence on the sexes thus brought into 
 relations which refine their manners, improve their deport- 
 ment, and lay the foundation for that courtesy, politeness, 
 and civility, which gentlemen, with the slightest preten- 
 sions to good breeding, always manifest in the presence of 
 ladies. 
 
 When a man walks the whole length of a church without 
 removing his hat till he enters the pew, it is quite certain such 
 
478 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 vulgarity is in consequence of never having had the civilizing 
 eyes of girls in a school-room on him, or a sister or mother to 
 explain to him that such contempt for the usages of society re- 
 dound to his injury. If another strolls through a parlor, in the 
 presence of ladies, with his hat on, assuming an air of inde- 
 pendent nonchalance^ it is another ordinary phase of vulgarity 
 common with men who had no early advantages of female 
 society. 
 
 Those coarse, foul-mouthed specimens of ignorance and 
 presumption, observable in men who pretend to consider 
 women their inferiors, simply because they are not in panta- 
 loons, are to be commiserated for having had no advantages 
 accruing from female society in their early years, when impres- 
 sions would have been lasting. 
 
 They are the men who have disagreeable wives, deserving 
 no others. Without circumlocution, it may be assumed as true, 
 that, by associating while young, boys and girls improve and 
 polish one another. In large families of brothers and sisters, 
 they are usually far in advance of those only sons, or only 
 daughters, who are more remarkable for extreme selfishness 
 than kindness, suavity, and consideration for others not of their 
 kith or kin. 
 
 Unfortunately, the plan of separate schools is prevailing. 
 It is a mistake. The old system is the best, and the children 
 educated in mixed schools will have the best culture and the 
 best morals. 
 
 This view is beginning to be entertained in the higher 
 seminaries and universities. Young ladies now enter colleges. 
 The idea of educating a woman as men are educated, would 
 have been ridiculed once as preposterous. One serious objec- 
 tion to permitting them to enter, was the shocking demoraliza- 
 tion and scandal that would follow, from allowing pretty girls 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 479 
 
 and sophomores to meet in the same recitation-room together, 
 attend the usual exercises under professorial instruction, and 
 then graduate bachelors, since no charter provides for a degree 
 not conveying to the possessor distinctions belonging to the 
 masculine gender. 
 
 All those antiquated objections have been overturned by 
 the good sense and intelligence of a new generation, immeasur- 
 ably in advance of the buckram of fifty years ago. But there 
 they are, model students, above reproach, and bright examples 
 of what a woman may attain to in the loftiest regions of litera- 
 ture and technical science. So far from exerting, by their 
 presence, a bad influence on frivolous undergraduates, de- 
 corum is insured where formerly there were boisterous 
 displays, and industry, where there was formerly inattention 
 and idleness. Young college ladies are a blessing, because 
 order, civility, and politeness are in the ascendant when they 
 appear. 
 
 We feel much pleased to express, here, our public recogni- 
 tion of their utility at college in arresting the waves of pro- 
 fanity, cant expressions, and innuendoes that become epidemic 
 where young men are exclusively by themselves, however well 
 reared at home. Those indolent youngsters who used to 
 graduate blockheads, will diminish in number by the admis- 
 sion of female classmates. They would be stimulated to far 
 greater effort, rather than be eclipsed by their accomplished, 
 fascinating inferiors, as women were formerly considered. 
 With all the outcry against the claims of women to political 
 equality, and the spirited determination of the strong-minded 
 representatives of the feminine order for a clear way to the 
 polls, there is not the slightest danger from granting them all 
 they ask. Not one in a thousand would exhibit the slightest 
 ambition for positions they were not abundantly qualified 
 
480 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 for sustaining creditably to themselves and the honor of 
 their constituents.* 
 
 Russia is a despotism. Any aspirations there for privileges 
 corresponding with the developing intelligence of those female 
 students, seem to have alarmed the watch-dogs of the govern- 
 ment. It is not at all probable they conducted themselves improp- 
 erly, or abused their educational privileges in the slightest degree. 
 If the Minister of Public Instruction is excited by apprehensions 
 from the chatty hilarity of a few pretty misses at recess, one 
 such anniversary meeting of antiquated spinsters in green t 
 spectacles, wigs, and bloomers, as proclaim their solemn resolu- 
 tion to lose the horse or win the saddle in 'New York and 
 Boston, would shake that frozen empire from its centre to its 
 circumference. But here, where we are used to annual 
 explosions of threatened destruction from wind-bags, they only 
 create merriment. The people laugh, the Administration 
 laughs, the reformers laugh, also, and then the tempest in the 
 teapot, concocted by a few dozens of old maids to allay their 
 nervousness, subsides, to reappear the following season, as 
 hybernating animals awake from a winter slumber. 
 
 * The Russian Government has just made a remarkable announcement in 
 its official organs relative to the Russian women-students in the University 
 of Zurich. During the last two years, says this document, the number of 
 young Russian women who study at Zurich has rapidly increased; there are 
 now more than a hundred in the University and Polytechnic School in that 
 town. It appears that recent developments indicate that these women- 
 students are politicians, revolutionists, radicals, and inclined to free-love, be 
 coming by reason of these things dangerous alike to society, morals, and the 
 government. The royal announcement, after reciting many of these facts, 
 concludes thus : " In order to put an end to this abnormal state of things, it 
 is hereby announced to all the Russian women who attend the lectures at the 
 University and the Polytechnic School of Zurich, that such of them as shall 
 continue to attend the above lectures after the first of January, 1874, will not 
 be admitted on their return to Russia to any examination, educational estab- 
 lishment, or appointment of any kind under the control of the government." 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 481 
 
 Young women have gained admission to medical colleges 
 and hospitals, both here and in all the principal institutions of 
 that kind in Europe. There was a prodigious outcry against 
 such impropriety at first. Doors were closed against them by 
 the faculty. But the public sentiment was stronger than the 
 obstinacy of fossilized professors, and the law compelled objec- 
 tors to give way to the progress of useful knowledge, to 
 unbar the gates and let them enter, sit and learn. 
 
 Next, as old cocks crow the young ones learn, says an an- 
 cient proverb. Half-fledged medical students pretended they 
 felt themselves insulted by the presence of young female 
 students, whose purity of character, ladylike deportment, and 
 superior culture were a reproach to their own unconcealed 
 coarseness, rudeness, and vulgarity. Time soon corrected their 
 impressions of the deteriorating effects of the quiet attention of 
 feminine intruders, as they saw, to their extreme mortification, 
 that the despised new-comers entirely outstripped them over the 
 course, won distinguished honors, and left those self-righteous, 
 complacent donkies in the rear. 
 
 Precisely the same conflict, to some extent, has occurred 
 here. Both colleges and medical schools have fought bravely 
 in a bad cause, to prevent women from participating in educa- 
 tional advantages which have been too long exclusively con- 
 sidered the birthright of men. The result has been to 
 bring into existence medical colleges for women, and 
 more are required. With constantly increasing numbers 
 of students, the demand for their professional services the mo- 
 ment they are qualified, is opening the eyes of the exclusives. 
 Quite too late for retrieving lost opportunities, with a certain 
 prospect of being outnumbered in attendants, before many 
 seasons have passed, they are now relaxing, unbolting here 
 and there a door. Colleges are all discussing the policy of 
 
482 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 submitting to what is inevitable, the admission of female 
 pupils. Medical schools are losing what they might have 
 secured, the honor of educating women to assume higher and 
 nobler positions to which they are called by the voice of the 
 people. 
 
 
 
 SCHOOL IMPROVEMENTS SUGGESTED. 
 
 As no two persons precisely resemble each other in expres- 
 sion, so they differ in their mental capacities. That school for 
 girls will be best which recognizes this fact by providing liberally, 
 as circumstances will allow, for developing and directing the 
 predominant faculty of the pupil. 
 
 Heading, writing, grammar, geography, elementary arith- 
 metic, with some few studies besides, comprises a common 
 school education. In cities, where resources are greater than 
 in the country, singing is taught ; sewing, and, indeed, other 
 branches may be taught, supposed to be most necessary for 
 qualifying pupils for duties that may devolve upon them in 
 adult years. 
 
 Some children, with slight instruction, would excel in 
 drawling, others in modelling, their organs of imitation being 
 exceedingly active, craving indulgence. Instrumental music, 
 too, should be systematically taught. There are hundreds of 
 girls in public schools whose genius remains buried forever, just 
 because no proper stimulus to development was ever presented. 
 Musical instruments freely distributed among those who have 
 a taste for music, accompanied by daily instruction from a com- 
 petent teacher, would bring to light many to become distin- 
 guished performers. It would qualify poor girls to rise socially, 
 to earn more with less hard labor, than would otherwise be their 
 lot. Every faculty God has blessed them with, should be cul- 
 tivated. That is what common schools ought to do. When 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 the rich are distributing wealth they cannot carry away to a 
 world to which they are hastening, rather than give to institu- 
 tions burdened with funds, why not direct a thousand orders for 
 pianos, harps, accordeons, music books, violins, guitars, etc., to 
 district or other common schools, with an express condition 
 they are for the use of poor female scholars, to qualify them 
 to become instructors ? That would be a true specimen of 
 Christian benevolence. 
 
 Unfortunately for the world, brilliant talents which the 
 possessors were unconscious of possessing, often remain unde- 
 veloped through life, simply because no opportunity for their 
 exercise was within reach of the individual. 
 
 No calculations can be made of the amount of buried genius 
 that might have been roused into activity with proper appliances 
 in early school-days, with systematic assistance for bringing it 
 out. It is a -duty to assist, to the extent of our means, in the 
 cultivation of all the powers with which girls and boys are 
 blessed. Without aid, scores struggle on, displaying extra- 
 ordinary natural gifts that cannot be utilized, because imper- 
 fectly educated. They know too much of what is unavailable, 
 and not enough in perfection to be instructors in branches for 
 which they have a strong natural bias. 
 
 Singing is occasionally taught in a few schools which are so 
 fortunate as to be under the care of gentlemen and ladies who 
 appreciate the importance of having all such branches taught 
 as may be turned to a practical purpose. Some admirable 
 vocal performers have had their musical talents discovered in 
 those exercises, who are now receiving large salaries in church 
 choirs. 
 
 Let it be remembered, that a large majority of all the 
 children in all the States never have access to other educa- 
 tional institutions. Therefore let them have all the attention 
 
484: THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 in common schools that their claims entitle them to as public 
 beneficiaries. While taking lessons in reading, writing, gram- 
 mar, arithmetic, etc., as an agreeable recreation, they could be 
 taught to play musical instruments, and a conversational famili- 
 arity with some language besides their own. Severe study, 
 long, tedious recitations, committing to memory what they 
 cannot comprehend, is not contemplated in this scheme for im- 
 provement in mixed schools. On the contrary, let them as 
 children learn language by the ear, not by grammatical drillings. 
 Music must not be taught in that way, because they could not 
 read notes if they were not carefully taught the value of each 
 character representing a sound. 
 
 POLITICAL EQUALITY OF THE SEXES. 
 
 From a close examination of the great question of the day, 
 whether women ought to enjoy the political rights and privi- 
 leges which men exercise, we have arrived at a conclusion they 
 are quite as capable as men. 
 
 Four millions of colored people were emancipated from 
 slavery, and all the males above twenty-one years of age became 
 voters instanter. Now, would there be more risk in granting 
 the same political privilege to intelligent, cultivated women ? 
 
 Emigrants from foreign countries, utterly ignorant of our lan- 
 guage, and certainly so of the constitution and laws of the United 
 States, in a few months after their arrival become freemen, 
 voting, and may be voted for ; and yet one-half of the native 
 population, whose patriotism, interest, property, and prayers 
 for the land of their birth cannot be questioned, are resolutely 
 kept under control by the law, as not being as worthy to be 
 intrusted with the franchise as ignorant foreigners, half-breed 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Indians, and negroes who can neither read, write, or know the 
 letters.of the alphabet. 
 
 Wherever the sexes mingle, in the family, primary, common 
 schools, at college, medical institutions, and in society, there is 
 most refinement, courtesy, and intelligence. One more ascend- 
 ing step would place women where they would have political 
 equality, or civilization and the genius of Christianity cannot 
 progress. 
 
 If a concession is to be made to them anywhere, if men are 
 ever honest enough to acknowledge the claims of women to 
 equal rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, the 
 crowning event and the glorious triumph will take place in a 
 republic : and God grant that the honor may belong to the 
 United States of America ! 
 
 The late John Stuart Mill, who dared to speak in favor of 
 the elevation of women to higher responsibilities than the 
 jealousy of men in the old world are disposed to permit, thus 
 reasons : 
 
 " That every step in improvement has been so invariably 
 accompanied by a step made in raising the social position of 
 women, that historians and philosophers have been led to adopt 
 their elevation pr debasement as, on the whole, the surest test 
 and most correct measure of the civilization of a people or an 
 age. Through all the progressive period of human history, the 
 condition of women has been approaching nearer to equality 
 with men. 
 
 " The profoundest knowledge of the laws of the formation 
 of character is indispensable to entitle any one to affirm even 
 that there is any difference, much more what the difference is, 
 between the two sexes, considered as moral and rational beings, 
 and since no one as yet has that knowledge (for there is hardly 
 any subject which, in proportion to its importance, has been so 
 
486 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 little studied), no one is thus far entitled to any positive opinion 
 on the subject. 
 
 " The wife is the actual bond-servant of the husband, no 
 less so, as far as legal obligation goes, than slaves commonly so- 
 called. She vows a life-long obedience to him at the altar, and 
 is held to it all through life by law. Casuists may say that the 
 obligation of obedience stops short of participation in crime, but 
 it certainly extends to everything else. She can do no act what- 
 ever but by his permission at least, tacit. She can acquire 
 no property but for him ; the instant it becomes hers, even if by 
 inheritance, it becomes ipso facto his. In this respect the 
 wife's position, under the Common Law of England, is worse 
 than that of slaves in many countries. By the Roman law, for 
 example, a slave might have his peculium, which, to a certain 
 extent, the law guaranteed to him for his exclusive use. The 
 higher classes in this country have given an analogous advantage 
 to their women through special contracts setting aside the law, 
 by conditions of pin-money, etc., since, parental feelings being 
 stronger than the class feelings of their own sex, a father gene- 
 rally prefers his own daughter to a son-in-law, who is a stranger 
 to him. By means of settlements, the rich usually contrive to 
 withdraw the whole or part of the inherited property of the 
 wife from the absolute control of the husband, but they do not 
 succeed in keeping it under her own control ; the utmost they 
 can do only prevents the husband from squandering it, at the 
 same time debarring the rightful owner from its use. The 
 property is out of the reach of both, and as to the income de- 
 rived from it, the form of settlement most favorable to the wife 
 (that called ' to her separate use ') only precludes the husband 
 from receiving ' it instead of her. It must pass through her 
 hands ; but if he takes it from her by personal violence as soon 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 487 
 
 as she receives it, he can neither be punished nor compelled to 
 restitution." 
 
 Enlightened England ! Such . is the law. Is it, on the 
 whole, a whit better among our enlightened selves ? 
 
 In the Westminster Review occurs the following mortify- 
 ing acknowledgment of injustice towards women. It is true 
 enough to make the ears of legislators tingle : 
 
 " This is the wife's status with respect to her individual in- 
 terest, and her status in regard to her children is of a piece 
 with it. They are called in law the husband's children, and he 
 alone has legal right over them. The wife can do nothing in 
 relation to them, except by delegation from him, and, even af- 
 ter his death, she does not become their guardian unless she 
 has been appointed so by him. 
 
 " The natural sequence and corollary from the state of things 
 here described would be, that since a woman's whole comfort 
 and happiness in life depend on. her finding a good master, 
 she should be allowed to change, again and again, until she 
 finds one.' ' : 
 
 Here is the opinion of another English thinker, who fully 
 comprehends a problem that political demagogues neither wish 
 to study or understand : 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer, speaking of the rights of women, 
 says : " Three positions only are open to us. It may be said 
 that women have no rights at all ; that their rights are not so 
 great as those of men ; or that they are equal, to those of men. 
 
 " Whoever maintains the first of those dogmas, that women 
 have no rights at all, must show that the Creator intended wo- 
 men to be wholly at the mercy of men their happiness, their 
 their liberties, their lives, at men's disposal ; or, in other words, 
 that they were meant to be treated as creatures of an inferior 
 order. Few will have the hardihood to assert this. 
 
488 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 " From the second proposition, that the rights of women are 
 not so great as those of men, there immediately arise such 
 queries as : If they are not so great, by how much are they 
 less ? What is the exact ratio between the legitimate claims of 
 the two sexes ? How shall we tell which rights are common to 
 both, and where those of the male exceed those of the female ? 
 Who can show us a scale that will serve for the apportionment ? 
 Or, putting the question practically, it is required to determine, 
 by some logical method, whether the Turk is justified in plung- 
 ing an offending Circassian into the Bosphorus? Whether 
 the rights of women were violated by the Athenian law, which 
 allowed a citizen, under certain circumstances, to sell his 
 daughter or sister ? Whether our own statute, which permits a 
 man to beat his wife in moderation, and to imprison her in any 
 room in his house, is morally defensible ? Whether it is equit- 
 able that a married woman should be incapable of holding pro- 
 perty? Whether a husband niay justly take possession of his 
 wife's earnings against her will, as our law allows him to do ? 
 and so forth. These, and a multitude of similar problems, 
 present themselves for solution. 
 
 " In this connection it is also curious to contemplate that the 
 only things which women are ordinarily excluded from doing, 
 are just those things w T hich they have proved themselves best 
 able to do. There is no law or custom in force to prevent a 
 woman from writing plays like Shakespeare, or operas like 
 Mozart, but there are laws and customs to prevent them from 
 embracing a military or political career, and Joan of Arc and 
 Queen Elizabeth are historical characters." 
 
 Profoundly impressed with the importance of manfully aid- 
 ing and assisting in the great revolution that is to be ultimately 
 achieved, we offer no apology for strengthening our position 
 from any available source. Another transatlantic view of the 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 489 
 
 women-question, as it is called, here introduced, is too sound 
 and logical not to gain the approval of reasonable men : 
 
 " Whoso urges the mental inferiority of women, in bar to 
 their claim to equal rights with men, may be met in various 
 ways. In the first place, the alleged fact may be disputed. A 
 defender of her sex might name many whose achievements in 
 government, in science, in literature, and in art, have obtained 
 no smftll share of renown. Powerful and sagacious queens the 
 world has seen in plenty, from Zenobia down to the Empresses 
 Catherine and Maria Theresa. In the exact sciences, Mrs. 
 Somerville, Miss Herschel, and Miss Zornlin have gained ap- 
 plause ; in political economy, Miss Marlineau ; in general philo- 
 sophy, Madame de Stael ; in politics, Madame Roland. Poetry 
 has its Tiglies, its Hemanses, its Landons, its Brownings ; the 
 drama, its Joanna Baillies ; and fiction, its Austens, Bremers, 
 Gores, Dude van ts, etc., without end. In sculpture, fame has 
 been acquired by a princess ; a picture like ' The Momentous 
 Question ' is tolerable proof of female capacity for painting ; 
 and, 011 the stage, it is certain that women are on a level with 
 men, if they do not even bear away the palm. Joining to such 
 facts the important consideration, that women have always been, 
 and are still, placed at a disadvantage in every department of 
 learning, thought, or skill seeing that they are not admissible 
 to the academies and universities in which men get their train- 
 ing ; that the kind of life they have to look forward to does not 
 present so great a range of ambitions ; that they are rarely ex- 
 posed to that most powerful of all stimulants necessity ; that 
 the education custom dictates for them is one that leaves un- 
 cultivated many of the higher faculties ; and that the prejudice 
 against blue-stockings, hitherto so prevalent amongst men, has 
 greatly tended to deter women from the pursuit of literary 
 honors : adding these considerations to the above facts, we shall 
 
490 THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 
 
 see good reason for thinking that the alleged inferiority of the 
 femine mind is by no means self-evident. 
 
 " If we contrast the literary and artistic works of women 
 with those of men in modern days, we shall find that their 
 inferiority resolves itself into one, but still a most material 
 defect, namely, 'a deficiency of originality.' They do not, 
 indeed, exhibit a total want of it, for no production of mind of 
 substantive value can do so ; but they have not up to the present 
 been marked < by any of those great and luminous new ideas 
 which form an era in thought, nor those fundamentally new 
 conceptions in art, which open a vista of possible effects not 
 before thought of, and found a new school.' Their composi- 
 tions are mostly based on the existing fund of thought, and 
 their creations do not deviate widely from existing types ; but 
 in point of execution, in the treatment of details, and in per- 
 fection of style, their works are quite on a par with those of 
 their male rivals. 
 
 " They are deprived of all the advantages, and most of the 
 motives, which men possess for acquiring even a decent amount 
 of systematic education ; and if we turn from philosophy and 
 science to literature, in the narrow sense of the term, there are 
 other obvious reasons why women's productions are, in general 
 conception and in their leading features, more or less imitations 
 of those of men." 
 
 Finally, the signs of the times plainly indicate the success 
 of importunate petitioners and aspirants for equal rights. 
 Pioneers and public agitators in the cause of woman's emanci- 
 pation are indomitable and irrepressible. Concessions are 
 slowly made of unimportant places to their management, which 
 have been singularly well sustained, to the mortification of 
 those who are fighting windmills. More they will have. 
 
 What ! if a few women should be sent to the legislature, or 
 
THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 491 
 
 to Congress, they would have too much self-respect to have 
 anything to do with any rings but diamond rings, nor would 
 they disgrace themselves by entering into combinations to 
 defraud the Government, foist their imbecile relatives into 
 office, or vote to raise their own pay at the expense of the 
 people already overburdened by excessive taxation. 
 
 When women vote, respectable men will be elected over 
 rascals, swindlers, defaulters, and demoralized politicians who 
 are a curse to the country. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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