UNUSUAL EMPLOYMENTS.

520. United States.

Last summer, a lady ascended alone in a balloon, from Palace Garden, N. Y. She went up once in a balloon filled with hot air. She received part of the profits derived from the admittance fees, and the keeper of the garden the other portion, neither of which were very large. Several women have gone up with their husbands. We take the following items from the summary of the San Francisco

Alta California

, of December 5th: "At the recent election, two women were elected to fill office in Placer County—one as justice of the peace, and the other as constable. Each received one vote in the precinct, and there was no opposition." It is seldom that a lady's exertions are called forth as were those of Mrs. Patton, wife of the captain of the ship

Neptune's Car

. Yet, it goes to confirm what we have stated in some other place, that any valuable information acquired will always come in use. We will quote the extract as we saw it in a newspaper, copied from a San Francisco letter: "Fifty days ago, Captain Patton was attacked with the brain fever, and for the last twenty-five days has been blind. Previous to his illness, he had put the first mate off duty on account of his incompetency. After the captain's illness, the second mate took charge of the ship, but he did not understand navigation. The first mate wrote Mrs. Patton a letter, reminding her of the dangers of the coast, and of the great responsibility she had assumed, and offered to take charge of the ship; but she stood by the decision of her husband and declined the offer. She worked up the reckoning every day, and brought the ship safely into port. During all this time she acted as nurse to the captain. She studied medicine to learn how to treat his case, and shaved his head, and by competent care and watchfulness kept him alive. She said that for fifty nights she had not undressed herself. Few women could have done so much and done it so well. She was at once navigator, nurse, and physician, and protector of the property intrusted to her husband." The Geneva

Courier

notices the appearance in that village "of a strong-armed, strong-backed, and, of course, strong-minded woman, in charge of a canal boat, of which she is owner and captain. She is of German origin, and manages her craft with great ability." In New York, I saw a woman driving a bread wagon, one rolling a wheelbarrow, and another drawing a similar wagon filled with ashes. A few women are employed in charcoal burning in New Jersey.

521. England.

In looking over the census of Great Britain, for 1850, we are surprised to find that in some of those occupations most suitable for women, as physicians, music composers, teachers of mathematics, macaroni packers, mask makers, honey dealers, lecturers, reporters, and spice merchants, not one female is reported; while, in occupations altogether unsuitable, many women are employed—in some, even hundreds. No doubt many of these women, perhaps a majority, and in some occupations it may be all, are the widows of men who have been engaged in the business, and who employ others to do the work. In some of the other occupations, the women probably do only the lighter work, under the direction of the masters or competent foremen. Circumstances, as regards occupation, certainly do much to influence the fate of every one. But in no respect is there a greater need of reform, than in the proper appreciation of employments by the sexes. Men have, in bygone times, seized upon the lightest and most lucrative occupations, and by custom still retain them. The most laborious and disagreeable work is left for women, and what is still worse, they are paid only from one third to one half as much as men, doing the same kind of work. Of the occupations that strike us as odd for women, in the census of Great Britain, are makers of agricultural implements, anchor smiths, barge women, barge boat builders, bell hangers, bedstead makers, bill stickers, blacksmiths, brass manufacturers, brick makers, bristle manufacturers, builders, carpenters, case (packing) makers, chimney sweepers, coke burners, commercial travellers, engine and machinery makers, ferriers, goldbeaters, grindstone cutters, gun makers, hawkers, hemp manufacturers, hinge makers, nail manufacturers, oil refiners, paper hangers, parasol and umbrella stick manufacturers, peat cutters, plasterers, potato merchants, railway-station attendants, razor makers, ring-chain makers, rivet makers, rope makers, saddle-tree makers, sail makers, scale makers, sawyers, scavengers, sextons, ship agents, ship builders, small steel-ware manufacturers, snuff and tobacco manufacturers, spade makers, spar cutters, spirit and wine merchants, stone breakers, stone quarriers, stove, grate, and range makers, sugar refiners, surgical-instrument makers, timber merchants, timber choppers and benders, tin manufacturers, trunk makers, turners, turpentine manufacturers, undertakers, vermin destroyers, well sinkers, wheelwrights, white-metal manufacturers, wine manufacturers, wood dealers, and zinc manufacturers. In the furniture trade of Great Britain, 5,763 women are employed, while 7,479 are engaged in conveyance. I would also add, that in Great Britain, women have been, and still are, to some extent, employed in coal, copper, iron, lead, manganese, salt, tin, and other mineral mines. Of those for men extremely inappropriate, are reported three hundred and sixty-six dress makers, and sixty-one embroiderers. "In the reign of George II. (says Mrs. Childs), the minister of Clerkenwell was chosen by a majority of women. The office of champion has frequently been held by a woman, and was so at the coronation of George I. The office of grand chamberlain, in 1822, was filled by two women; and that of clerk of the crown, in the court of king's bench, has been granted to a female. The celebrated Anne, Countess of Pembroke, held the hereditary office of sheriff of Westmoreland, and exercised it in person, sitting on the bench of the judges. In ancient councils, mention is made of deaconesses; and in an edition of the New Testament printed in 1574, a woman is spoken of as minister of a church." Miss Betsy Miller has for years commanded the Scotch brig, Cleotus. Her father commanded a vessel plying between England and France. After his wife died, the daughter frequently accompanied him. On his death, being without a home on land, she took command of the vessel, and remained in the capacity of captain several years. An English correspondent of an American paper writes: "Walking, lately, near some white-lead works, about the hour of closing, we observed the sudden egress of about a hundred women from the establishment, all Irish, and all decently clad and well conducted. On inquiry, we found that they are employed continuously in the works, piling the lead for oxidation, and in various other processes, not by any means coming under the denomination of light labor." A few years ago, a singular death occurred in England. It was that of a woman, who, owing to harsh treatment from her parents when a child, left her home at the age of eight, dressed in boy's clothes, got work as a boy, learned the trade of a mason, and worked at it until about middle age, when the business was changed for that of a beer house, in which occupation the individual continued until her death, at the age of sixty. She always dressed as a man. When quite young, she was very industrious and hard-working. Many of the large houses and tall chimneys in Manchester and Salford were built by her. "The 7,000 women returned in the census under the head of miners, are, no doubt, for the most part, the dressers of the ores in the Cornish and Welsh mines. The work is dirty, but not too laborious; less laborious than the work which may perhaps be included under the same head—the supplying porcelain clay from the same regions of country. Travellers in Devonshire and Cornwall are familiar with the ugly scenery of hillsides where turf is taken up, and the series of clay pits is overflowing, and the plastered women are stirring the mess, or sifting and straining, or drying or moulding the refined clay. The mineral interest is, however, one of the smallest in the schedule of female industry; and it is likely to contract, rather than expand—except the labor of sorting the ores." In Great Britain, some women work in alabaster, and some in alum mines. In what is called the Black country, some women are employed on the pit banks, and some about the furnace yards. A London paper says: "Melton and its neighborhood can boast of three public characters, which, perhaps, no other can; namely, two independent ladies, who have taken out game certificates, and who enter the field, and can bring down the game equal to any sportsman, as well as those indulging in fishing, hunting over the country with hounds, &c. The third is a female blacksmith, a daughter of Mr. William Hinman, who is such an adept at shoeing a horse or working at the anvil, as to cause universal excitement. It was but the other day that she took off the old shoes of a horse, pared the feet, and fitted the shoes at the fire, and affixed them in the most scientific manner possible, and in considerably less time than her father could, who is called one of the quickest shoers in Melton." Some women are employed as kelp burners in Great Britain; and some, as bathers, manage the bathing machines used on the coast. In the census of Great Britain are reported some women as hack proprietors.

522. France.

A Paris correspondent of the New York

Times

writes: "My washerwoman is a man. He lives in the Rue Blanc, and any one may see him up to his elbows in soap suds, or ironing frills on bosoms. His wife is a wood sawyer." It is not unusual, in the public gardens of Germany, and on the broad sidewalks of the Boulevards in Paris, for men and women to hire a chair for a sou to a passer by who wishes to rest. In France, some women are engaged in cutting and drying seaweeds, and some in making wooden shoes. "In the department of Somme, France, women alone have the right to go into the fields and gather stones to repair the roads. In the cantons where peat is dug, the privilege of loading and unloading the boats which carry it is given them. At Cistal, in Provence, women alone have been authorized to sell the water which was brought from a fountain some distance from the city. No man could be a carrier of water. In other parts, to women is given the transport of trunks, valises, clothes bags, and effects for the use of travellers on packets. These resources are momentary. Accorded by one mayor, they can be withdrawn by another." "In Paris, women cry the rate of exchange, after Bourse hours." They also "undertake the moving of furniture, agree with you as to price, and you find them quite as responsible as men." The author of "Parisian Sights and French Principles" mentions a number of female employments rather novel to Americans: "I will say nothing of their laboring in the field, their driving huge carts through the streets of Paris, and other rude labors which soon rub out of them all feminine softness; but confine myself to the more agreeable duties which they have here usurped from men. Indeed, a man is but a secondary being in the scale of French civilization. The 'dames à comptoir' are as essential to the success of a Parisian

café

as the cook himself. More hats are donned at their shrines than before the most brilliant belles of the metropolis. My boot maker, or the head of the establishment, is a woman; my porter is of the same sex, older in years and worse in looks; my butcher, milkman, and the old-clothes man, newsboy, and rag gatherer beneath my window, ditto. They are waiters at the baths, doorkeepers at the theatres, ticket sellers, fiddlers, chair letters of the churches; they figure in every revolution, and have a tongue and arms in every fight; in short, they are at the bottom and top of everything in France." In the Hotel des Invalides, at Paris, is Lieutenant Madame Brulow, who entered in 1799, and has been there ever since. Her father, brothers, and husband were soldiers, and were all killed in battle; at the age of twenty she was a widow and a mother. She joined the French army at Corsica, where she behaved very bravely; but was disabled for service by the bursting of a bomb while in the discharge of her duties as sergeant. She is a woman of chaste manners and correct principles. She dresses in the uniform of the Invalides. Louis XVIII. conferred on her the rank of second lieutenant, and by the present Napoleon she was made a member of the society of the Legion of Honor. A female soldier, whose history is similar to Madame Brulow's, died near Paris, a short time since, at the age of eighty-seven. She was a dragoon, and served in Italy, Germany, and Spain, in all the campaigns of the French, from 1793 to 1812. When Bonaparte was first consul, he expressed a wish to see her, and she was kindly received by him at St. Cloud. She received many wounds in battle, and had four horses killed under her. We find the following article, taken from Galignani's

Messenger

: "In consequence of the success obtained by Madame Isabella in breaking horses for the Russian army, the French Minister of War authorized her to proceed, officially, before a commission of generals and superior officers of cavalry, to a practical demonstration of the method, on a certain number of young cavalry horses. After twenty days' training, the horses were so perfectly broken in, that the Minister no longer hesitated to enter into an arrangement with Madame Isabella to introduce her system into all the imperial schools of cavalry, beginning with that of Saumur."

523. Other Countries.

Professor Ingraham, in his "Pillar of Fire," describing the Hebrews at work in Egypt, says: "The men that carried brick to the smoothly swept ground where they were to be dried, delivered them to women, who, many hundreds in number, placed them side by side on the earth in rows—a lighter task than that of the men. The borders of this busy plain, where it touched the fields of stubble wheat, were thronged with women and children gathering straw for the men who mixed the clay." "The Egyptian ladies," says the same writer, "employed much of their time with the needle, and either with their own hands, or by the agency of their maidens, they embroidered, wove, spun, and did needlework." Herodotus says: "It was expected of the virgins consecrated to the service of the Egyptian temples to gather flowers for the altars, to feed the sacred birds, and daily to fill the vases with pure, fresh water from the Nile." During the middle ages, "women preached in public, supported controversies, published and defended theses, filled the chairs of philosophy and law, harangued the popes in Latin, wrote Greek, and read Hebrew. Nuns wrote poetry, women of rank became divines, and young girls publicly exhorted Christian princes to take up arms for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre." "In the Greek island of Hinnin, the inhabitants gain a livelihood by obtaining sponges for the Turkish baths; and no girl is allowed to marry till she has proved her dexterity by bringing up from the sea a certain quantity of this marketable article." The wife of the Burmese governor was observed, by some Englishmen, to superintend the building of her husband's ship. "In many of the South Sea islands, women assist in the construction of the buildings appropriated to common use. Sometimes a woman of distinction may be seen carrying a heavy stone for the foundation of a building, while a stout attendant carries the light feathered staff to denote her rank." "In Genoa there are marriage brokers, who have pocketbooks filled with the names of marriageable girls of different classes, with an account of their fortunes, personal attractions, &c. When they succeed in arranging connections, they have two or three per cent. commission on the portion. The contract is often drawn up before the parties have seen each other. If a man dislikes the appearance or manners of his future partner, he may break off the match, on condition of paying the brokerage and other expenses." In the "Art Student in Munich," we find this passage: "You know, in Germany, your neighbor's dresses by meeting the laundresses bearing them home through the streets upon tall poles, like gay pennons." "In Munich, a servant girl will be sent around with a number of advertisements and a paste pot, and pastes up the advertisements at the corners of the streets throughout the city." "At Homburg, Germany, four, six, or eight girls, according to the season, dip the water from the spring, by taking three tumblers by the handles in each hand, and filling them without stopping, and supplying those in waiting, so fast that there is no crowd and no jostling and impatience." Mrs. Nicolson says: "Many a poor widow have I seen in Ireland, with some little son or daughter, spreading manure, by moonlight, over her scanty patch of ground; or, before the rising of the sun, going out, with her wisp about her forehead and basket to her back, to gather her turf or potatoes." "In the elevated, cold, dry regions of Thibet, the goats are furnished with a fine down or hair-like wool under the coarse, common outer wool. The long hairs are picked out, the remainder washed out in nice water, and then handspun by women." "In some African tribes, it is common for the women to unite with the men in hunting the lion and the leopard." During the reign of Anne of Austria, the French women often appeared at the head of political factions, wearing scarfs that designated the party to which they belonged. Swords and harps, violins and cuirasses, were seen together in the same saloon. There was a regiment created under the name of mademoiselle. "During the late war, Polish women assisted the men in erecting fortifications, and one of the outworks was called the 'lunette of the women,' because it was built entirely by their hands. The Countess Plater raised and equipped a regiment of five or six hundred Lithuanians at her own expense; and she was uniformly at their head, encouraging them by her brave example in every battle. The women proposed to form three companies of their own sex, to share the fatigues and perils of the army; but their countrymen, wishing to employ their energies in a manner less dangerous, distributed them among the hospitals to attend the wounded." "In the army of the King of Siam, one corps particularly attracts the attention of strangers, which is a battalion of the king's guard, composed of women. This battalion consists of four hundred women, chosen from among the handsomest and most robust girls in the country. They receive excellent pay, and their discipline is perfect. They are admitted to serve at the age of thirteen, and are placed in the army of reserve at twenty-five. From that period they no longer serve about the king's person, but are employed to guard the royal palaces and crown lands."