|
Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
society cannot cross the street unaccompanied till she has passed her fortieth year, nor till then may she
open the pages of Victor Hugo or read a newspaper. Even in this "Maison de Retraite" special provision
was made for the privacy of single ladies; whether they liked it or not they were expected to eat in a
separate dining room, and meet for social purposes in a separate salon. As there is no limit to the
emotional period and the age of sentiment, perhaps these safeguards of propriety are not wholly
superfluous.
Of course the economy of such an arrangement is very great. Think of a respectable fairly-educated
young woman getting what good old John Bunyan calls "harbour and good company," in other words, all
the other necessaries of life, with society into the bargain, for L16 a year! The attendance is of course
somewhat rough and ready. We saw a stalwart, rough-haired, rather masculine-looking female setting
one of the dinner-tables with a clatter that would drive the fastidious to distraction. But the good soul had
evidently her heart in her work, and I dare aver that single-handed she got through as much as three
English housemaids with ourselves. Would such a scheme answer in England? I doubt it. The
Anglo-Saxon character is the reverse of sociable, and class distinctions are so in-rooted in the English
nature that it would be very difficult to get ten English women together who considered themselves
belonging to precisely the same class.
Furthermore, are there with us many widows or spinsters of the same class enjoying even such small
independent means as the sums above mentioned? In France, teachers, tradeswomen, female clerks and
others, by dint of rigid economy, usually insure for themselves a small income before reaching old age.
Fortunately habits of thrift are increasing in England, and our women workers have a larger field and
earn higher wages. I had also the privilege of seeing the great wool-combing factory of our countryman
Mr. Jonathan Holden, for upwards of forty years a citizen of Rheims. This town has been for centuries
one of the foremost seats of industry in France. Mr. Holden's chimneys are kept going night and day,
Sundays excepted, with alternating shifts of workmen. All the hands employed are of French nationality
and - a fact speaking volumes - no strike has ever disturbed the amicable relations of English employer
and French employed. The great drawback to an inspection of these workshops is the din of the
machinery and the odour of the skins. But there is something that takes hold of the imagination in the
perfection to which machinery has been carried. As we gaze upon these huge engines, only occasionally
touched by a woman's hand, we are reminded of man, the pigmy guiding an elephant. We seem
conscious, moreover, of what almost approaches human intelligence, so much of the work achieved
appearing voluntary rather than automatic. The skins reach Rheims direct from Australia and are here
dressed, cleaned and prepared for working up into cloth. If machinery is brought almost to the perfection
of manual dexterousness, human beings attain the precision of machinery.
I saw a neatly dressed girl at work whose sole occupation it was to tie up the wool, now white as snow
and soft as silk, into small parcels. The wool already weighed came down by a little trough, and as
swiftly and methodically as wheels set in motion, the girl's fingers folded the paper and tied the string. I
should not like to guess how many of these parcels she turned off in half a minute.
CHAPTER XVI. RHEIMS - (continued ).
Rheims possesses a handsome theatre, the acquaintance of which I was enabled to make under
exceptional circumstances. At the risk of appearing slightly egotistical, I will here describe an incident
which has other than personal interest. My visit to Damon's country, the particulars of which were given
in a former chapter, had an especial object, viz., the setting of a novel of my own having the great
conventionnel for its hero. The story was dramatised by two French collaborators, one of whom was at
|
