There's "nothing new under
the sun;"--so I've read, somewhere; either in Ecclesiastes
or Uncle Tom's Cabin; but at any rate, I was forcibly reminded
of the profound wisdom of the remark, upon seeing a great flourish
of trumpets in the papers about a "Sewing Machine,"
that had been lately invented.
Now if I know anything of
history, that discovery dates back as far as the Garden of Eden.
If Mrs. Adam wasn't the first sewing machine, I'll give up
guessing. Didn't she go right to work making aprons, before
she had done receiving her bridal calls from the beasts and beastesses?
Certainly she did, and I honor her for it, too.
Well--do you suppose all her pretty
little descendants who ply their "busy fingers in the upper
lofts of tailors, and hatters, and vest-makers, and 'finding'
establishment," are going to be superseded by that dumb old
thing? Do you suppose their young and enterprising patrons prefer
the creaking of a crazy old machine to the music of their young
voices? Not by a great deal!
It's something, I can tell you,
for them to see their pretty faces light up, when they pay off
their wages of a Saturday night (small fee enough! too often,
God knows!) Pity that the shilling heart so often accompanies
the guinea means.
Oh, launch out, gentlemen! Don't
always look at things with a business eye. Those
fragile forms are young, to toil so unremittingly. God made no
distinction of sex when he said--"The laborer is worthy
of his hire." Man's cupidity puts that interpretation upon
it.
Those young operatives in your employ,
pass, in their daily walks, forms youthful as their own, "clothed
in purple and fine linen" who "toil not, neither
do they spin." Oh, teach them not to look after their
"satin and sheen," purchased at such a fearful cost,
with a discouraged sigh!
For one, I can never pass such a
"fallen angel" with a "stand aside" feeling.
A neglected youth, an early orphanage, poverty, beauty, coarse
fare, the weary day of toil lengthened into night,--a mere pittance
its reward. Youth, health, young blood, and the practised wile
of the ready tempter! Oh, where's the marvel?
Think of all this, when you poise
that hardly earned dollar, on your business finger. What if it
were your own delicate sister? Let a LITTLE heart creep into that
shrewd bargain. 'Twill be an investment in the Bank of Heaven,
that shall return to you four-fold.
more articles by Fanny Fern
In case you missed her argument here, Fern is arguing that if businessmen convert their sweatshops to sewing machines, the poor women who work there and lose their jobs due to the downsizing will be forced to find some other employment, probably prostitution.