23 FEBRUARY 1856, Page 15

WOMAN'S MISSION.

London, 18th. February 1856. Sre.—I am one of the unfair sex who consider the appointment of a female clerk in. the Civil Service as an injury to her sex. We have been in the habit of believing that woman was created to be the helpmate to man, the companion of his joys and his woes, the moderator of his passions, the mother of his children, and the former of the habita and opinions of the rising generation,—a most noble mission ; and she certainly was never intended, at least in a civilized society, to be his competitor in the labour-market.

In an economical point of view, the man and the woman, or rather the husband and the wife, should be considered as but one individual, having only one interest ; and in a well-ordered society,. the wages of the man should be equal to support the two and their offspring : but this cannot.be the case if the woman isolates herself, and places her labour in competition with man, thus reducing his wages in the market to the standard of the sin- gle or unmarried person.

I am aware the women say we are obliged to do so because many. of ua are in a state of single blessedness i forgetting that every effort on their part to obtain man-employment is to increase the numbers of those who must remain in that state.

The evil, on the other hand, partly corrects itself, but equally to the disad- vantageof the female sex ; for whenever the woman labours, whether as the i drudge in the field, as in the Highlands of Scotland, in Ireland, in Nor- mandy, or Germany, or as a bookkeeper, clerk, or manager of a business, in the more highly civilized society of Paris, the men are generally idle in the cafés, or only occupy themselves in some amusing work,. such as the richer women in this country engage in to destroy their ennui„ or else in soldiering, sporting, or gambling, which they profess. to consider a more honourable kind of industry. In England, whenever you see the wife occupied in either the fine arts, literature, or even teaching, if it is followed as a trade, or even as a fashion- able marchand de modes, you may almost be sure to find the husband living or rather idling on her labours, if not ruining her with his drunken and dissipated habits ; and the single women who have taken to such indus- trious occupations to support themselves seldom have the opportunity_ of entering into the condition of life which it is evidently the intention of Na- ture they should occupy—that of a wife or a mother. If you see a police case of a wife being ill-used by her husband, you will

generally find that it arises from the woman having given the man reason to be idle, from her having entered into competition with his labour, and from the husband's desire to obtain the result of her labour for dissipation, which she is not will,to relinquish for such a purpose—hence. the bicker-