You reduce salaries, you press into an already overcrowded field, you injure even your own sex by making it impossible for men to marry, who, if they earned enough, would be supporting a wife.' To-day, continued Miss Barfoot, it was not her purpose to debate the economic aspects of the question.

She would consider it from another point of view, repeating, perhaps, much that she had already said to them on other occasions, but doing so because these thoughts had just now very strong possession of her mind.
This abusive correspondent, who declared that he was supplanted by a young woman who did his work for smaller payment, doubtless had a grievance.

But, in the miserable disorder of our social state, one grievance had to be weighed against another, and Miss Barfoot held that there was much more to be urged on behalf of women who invaded what had been exclusively the men's sphere, than on behalf of the men who began to complain of this invasion.
'They point to half a dozen occupations which are deemed strictly suitable for women.

Why don't we confine ourselves to this ground?
Why don't I encourage girls to become governesses, hospital nurses, and so on?
You think I ought to reply that already there are too many applicants for such places.

It would be true, but I don't care to make use of the argument, which at once involves us in a debate with the out-crowded clerk.