What can the ballot do towards equal-
izing wages, where work is already equal-
ized without affecting wages, as is not
unfrequently the case ? There are shops
of the same sort, on the same street, with
male clerks in one and female clerks in
another, where the former work fewer
hours and receive higher wages than the
latter. There is a wrong, an injustice,
but the law cannot interfere. It cannot
force a haberdasher to pay ten dollars
for service which he can secure for six.
Moreover, the question of female clerk-



IpyGOOgIC



134 WOMAS'S WROKGS.
silip is not yet settled. There are con-
scientious, intelligent, and obliging shop-
keepers, who say that female clerks are
not satisfactory. Their strength is not
equal to the draughts made upon it.
They are not able to stand so long as
clerks are required to stand. They have
not the patience, the civility, the tact
that male clerks have. I do not know-
how this is ; I only «ay these things are
alleged. I have never noticed any espe-
cial incivihty in female clerks, and I see
no objection to their sitting when they
have nothing to do. But the persons
who hire are the persons to require and
to define service, and if they do not
choose girls, or do not value them so
highly as boys, how can legislation help
it ? All the voting in the world can
never add a cubit to a woman's stature.
