CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
FEMALE PROFESSIONALS.
THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.
DECEPTIVE ADVERTISEMENTS.
A JOURNEY IN TURKESTAN.
READY-MONEY.
ON SOME ODD FISHES.
| No. 684. | SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1877. | Price 1½d. |
FEMALE PROFESSIONALS.
Discussions respecting suitable employments for women have for the lastfew years caused much unpleasant excitement. Society is divided on thesubject. Shall women study to be medical practitioners or not? Are theynot entitled to compete fairly with men in such occupations as areconsistent with their strength and abilities? Surely you are not goingto treat them as inferior beings? These are the sort of questions thathave been debated, and not always in a very placid humour. Having neverinterfered one way or other in this matter of dispute, we approach itin a perfectly impartial spirit, and desire to treat it not from anyof the partisan views usually presented, but in the broad light ofNature—for to that every temporary and local interest must in a greatdegree eventually give way.
Let us go practically to the point, as that is better than any abstractreasoning. In a late number of our contemporary, The Queen, a Londonperiodical partly devoted to illustrations of ladies' fashionableapparel, it is intimated that a wood-engraver of high standinghad opened a class in London for instructing ladies in the art ofwood-engraving. The announcement proceeds to say that wood-engraving isa lucrative art, in which partial training is valueless, and that theartist referred to being 'deeply interested in the extension of thiswork as an employment for women, does his utmost to impress upon allwhom it may concern that no one can hope to succeed as a wood-engraverwho is not willing to devote six hours a day for six years to learningthe work. It has often been a matter of surprise to us that ladiesdid not study wood-engraving as a profession. If any novelty in dressor millinery is brought to us, and we desire to illustrate it in ourpages, experience has taught us—and we only say this after repeatedtrials—that to Paris it must go to be both drawn and engraved. We havetried artists of fame, as well as unknown men, and always with thesame result—utter failure. The figures may be more natural, and thefaces better drawn perhaps, but as illustrations of dress or bonnetsthe English engravings failed to convey any definite idea of them, andwere practically useless. Now that the use of illustrations in theliterature of the day is constantly on the increase, an