Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/52

 WOMAN'S WORK 34 companions, shorthand typists, etc. £ don't mean the few girls who have exceptional talent and achieve outstanding success, but that large majority who earn from £20 a year with board, and from £1 a week with- out it ; who lead cramped, monotonous hves, have little chance of marrying happily, and no chance at all of saving sufficient to keep them when they grow too old to work. In a colony, such a girl may or may not have more chance of marrying — I fancy that in the cities there is a fairly adequate supply of charming colonial girls, and that the young men whom we hear of as having such a difficulty in finding wives are usually those who live on remote farms to which colonial girls absolutely dechne to follow them, because the lonehness and the hard- ships are so great. But though she may not marry, she certainly will meet many opportunities for improving her position which she would never ^ have found at home. For i n - stance, one gi r I in a Canadian city supports herself and her invaUd mother by going out as a daily cook. In a country where maids are scarce and often untrained, where a single good woman ser- vant is as much a luxury as a butler is in England, and where a col- lege profes- The healthy, operi'air loving girls of Canada are generally good riders. Many of them have abandoned the side saddle and ride astride Copyi-ighi. Canadian Pacific Kaihuay sor's wife will think nothing of doing all the work of her flat, and giving weekly dinner parties, at which she officiates as cook and parlourmaid as well as hostess, it is obvious that a girl who will come and cook this dinner admirably well — for colonials, as a rule, cook far better than ordinary Enghsh people — is in great request, and able to command very different remuneration from what she could expect over here. Another girl is a first-rate dressmaker; she also goes out to work at the house, and charges £ a day. The usual rate is about 6s.. but this girl commands more because she devotes herself to cutting out, fitting, draping, and to showing her employer how to make up the garments she prepares. The employer does a good deal of sewing herself, and has in a couf !e of women to help, and between the four of them they will start several elaborate garments. Later in the week the lady dressmaker comes for another day to see the final fitting and put the finishing touches. I do not suggest that there are large numbers of women doing precisely this particular kind of work in the Colonies, but quote them as instances of what can be done by a girl with initiative and adaptabihty. and one who is really expert in some branch of domestic work. Another girl — but she was Canadian-born — took a secretaryship at ^100 a year, with no prospect of a rise. However, the concern expanded with the expansion of the country; she worked it up, gave complete satisfaction, and now receives ^220 a year. This is the sort of thing which can happen in a new country far more easily than it can, even to the ables-t worker, in crowded England. Many girls, too. possess a few hundred pounds capital, which they would have far ,_, more oppor- tunity of in- vesting well in a colony than here. One, with less than three hun- dred pounds, started a boarding- hcuse, which developed into a really big concern, paying cent. per cent, on 1 he original capital; another, in A u s t r alia, runs a big fruit farm. Three hun- dred pounds capital is what the Australian authori ties quote as necessary for a. working farmer, but £Q0 would start a poultry farm, and these and all other businesses may be carried on without any loss of social standing, such as is the bugbear of " gentlewomen " in trade over here. But before touching her capital, a woman should spend a year or two in the colony in some paid situation, learning the ropes, the local requirements. To go out from England and start a business, no matter of what kind, on the advice of some interested agent or over-sanguine friend, before one knows' one's way about, is fatal, yet it is a mistake constantly made. English people would not dream of setting ' up for themselves in Paris before serving an apprenticeship there, but they will buy land in Canada or Australia in full confidence of immediate success. Their capital, too. frequently melts away in paying for mistakes