UNSUITABLE JOBS
by Sylvia
(Something To Do - The Young Englishwoman March 1875)
The advertisements which continue to appear in the columns of town and country newspapers, announcing modes of "adding to the income" without involving anything derogatory to personal dignity or social position, point to a fact which has not, to my knowledge, been in any other way publicly recognised. That fact is, that the young ladies of England are all, or nearly all, anxious to obtain employment of some kind, frequently with remuneration attached to it. Many of the letters addressed to Sylvia contain questions on this subject, and therefore it has been thought that a series of letters on the subject may prove interesting to "Young Englishwomen." The advertisements I have alluded to would not continue to be inserted if there were not replies sent in sufficient numbers to encourage the advertisers. I have had the curiosity to answer some of them, and some of my friends have confessed to me that they have answered some. I say "confessed," because this is one of the things that one does not like everybody to know about, because everybody is so sure to say: "You might have guessed it was something absurd." And I am bound to say the answers were, in most cases, "something absurd." One reply suggested that potatoes should be bought at a penny a pound, baked in an oven, and sold at the corners of the streets for a penny each. This, if I recollect aright, was to bring the speculator an income of a pound a week. I do not remember that the preliminary advertisement contained anything about the occupation not being derogatory to the position of a lady or gentlemen; and it was just as well.
Not so, however, was it with another, which announced a "perfectly ladylike occupation," which would increase the income by two or three pounds a week. Ladylike appearance was necessary to pursue this trade which, when inquired about, proved to be as follows: The lady was to "introduce herself into drawing-rooms," armed with a copy of a certain work, and try to persuade the lady of the house, or any visitors she might have with her, to purchase a copy, and if she succeeded in selling one, she would pocket a handsome commission.
What a charming way of making a living! Just imagine with what face a "ladylike person" could force her way into a drawing-room on such an errand!
A reply to an advertisement of another of these dignified modes of adding to one's income, brought by return of post an offer to stock the parlour window of the applicant with mock jewellery for the sum of five pounds! The commission on the sale of the jewellery was to result in an income of at least two pounds a week. Calculating the commission at twenty per cent (and I do not think it was nearly so much), one would have to sell ten pounds' worth every week, in order to realise this sum; so, to say the very least, one's parlour window ought to be in a good thoroughfare!
The lady or gentleman would also have to stay at home all day to attend to her or his customers at the parlour window.
Enough of these absurd things. Let us try to strike out something which will be really useful. English girls often really long for occupation for its own simple sake.
"Get work, get work!
Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get,"
says Mrs. Barrett Browning, and she is right. The primeval curse has turned into a blessing. Really hard work is a far less heavy burden than the miserable ennui which has darkened many a fine mind, and dulled noble energies, ere now, like rust on a good sword.
What would you like to do, then? You cannot spend your lives counting the stitches in a fancywork cushion, nor propelling the needle of your sewing machine up and down long seams. If Sylvia could have her way, she would have every girl's special talent (nearly every girl has a special talent) discovered and cultivated, dug out like a diamond, and cut and perfected, so that every girl should be self-dependent, and if change and dark days should come, there need then be no weary struggle for daily bread, such as is going on in hundreds of cases at this moment. There are gently-nurtured women in England now, fainting and weary with the effort to keep soul and body together, and yet keep up their position, which means that they must teach, or be companions, since these are the only ladylike occupations that are open to women. And more than one-half of them are as unfitted to teach as they would be ashamed to beg, and they know it.
If each had been taught to do one thing perfectly well - had used her talent instead of burying it under a heap of useless and electro-plated accomplishments, her way would be plain before her, and she would be saved the misery of feeling that she has no course but to adopt a mode of life as uncongenial to her, as she is unfitted for it.
Can Sylvia help any one of our Young English readers to develop her special talent? I can but try, and with this end in view, will give a few hints in our next number on the initiatory processes of drawing on wood.