MAN'S EMANCIPATION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3035, 18 March 1881, Page 4

MAN'S EMANCIPATION.

BY THB HAWK Ey/E PHIiOSOPHEB

She looked just like that kind of a woman when she came into the sanctum, and all the seniors became instinctively very busy and so absorbed in their work that "they did not see her, which left the youngest man on the staff an easy pray, for he looked at the visitor with a little natural politeness, and was even soft enough to offer her a chair. " You are the editor ?" she said in a deep bass voice.

He tried to say « Yes " so that she could Hear him while his colleagues in the sane-' *nm couldn't, but it was a failure, for the --> gave him dead away in a minute, worn*.. , ■" ? she shouted, " then listen to " Yoti a. v. . what ami?" mc; look at me ; . - man '] ookod fc hv The foolish yotingeß. timidly, and ventured to .•» , fovfv . ;voice, "that she looked to be a>ul foity--8 «"___ I not a woman ? " she said. The youngest young man weakly tiieri to correct Ms f and said she seemed more like a gir— —" ~ But again she bro_9'mi> on Inu. t»iui scornful hiss : " G-ir-r-1!" she said, " I d_i : a'WO_ltttr; & , woman with all the h(_ven-born. aspirations,.! the fathomless feelings, the aggress'i/?6'cour> age and the indomitable will of a -r#»an. What can you see on my face?" The position of the youngest man on the \ staff was pitiful, but none of the old headc- ' : appeared to observe it—at least, they didn't | offer to- help him out. So hclooked at her face for a moment,, and said, timidly ; ■ "Freckl '"' " Nursling !" she shrieked, " had' you thesoulful eyes of a free' man you could see 'shining on my .brow the rising light of a ; brighter dawn." " Could I ?" asked the youngest man,. ' ; 'nidly. t( -ye* you could," the woman said, in , S . * __ -"isurable scorn. Now hear tones of imm™. - ~ T . , • , . • I cannot bring myme : have you a—bu». ■ • .i t. . _i i tc i - session m the self to use the hateful e_i_. ■ . i _ t • ... ou anystyle of masculine possession —are j. J body's husband ?" The youngest man blushed bitterly, and said that he wasn't as yet, but he had some hopes " And you expect your—that is, you expect the woman whose husband you will bo to support you ?" Tho youngest man blushed more keenly than before, and tremblingly admitted that he had some expectations — that —■ that being tho only daughter of his proposed father-in-law, if he might put it that way " " Yah !" snarled the woman ; " now let me tell you, the day of woman's emancipation is at hand. Prom this time we are free, fer-ree! You must look for other slaves to bend and cringe before your majes- ■ ties, and wait upon you like slaves. You will feel the change in your affairs since we ! have burst our chains, and how will you ] I live without the aid of women ? Who ! makes your shirts now ?" she added, fiercely. The youngest man miserably said that a tailor on Jefferson-street made his.

" Hid," said the woman, somewhat discon* certed. " Well, who washes 'em then ?" she added triumphantly. "A Chinaman just west of Fifth-street,"' the youngest man said with a hopeful light in his eyes. The woman glared at him and groaned: under her breath, but she came at him again with : " Proud worm, who cooks your victuals ?" The youngest man said truly that he didn't know the name of the cook at his restaurant, but he was a darkey about forty years old, and round as a barrel, whiskers like the stuffing of a sofa. The woman looked as though she was going to strike him. " Well," she said, as one who was leading a forlorn hope, "who makes up your bed and takes care of your room ? "

The youngest man replied, with an air of truth and frankness, that he roomed with a railroad conductor, and an ex-Pullman sleeping car porter took care of their room, She paused when she reached the door, and turned upon him with tho face of a drowning man who is only five feet away from a life-buoy.

" Miserable dependent,/ she cried, " who sews on your buttons ? " The youngest man on the staff rose to his feet with a proud, happy look on his face. " Haven't a sewed button on a single clothes!" he cried, triumphantly—"patents every one of 'em, fastened on like copper rivets, and nothing but studs and collar buttons on my shirts. Haven't had a button sewed on for three years. Patent buttons last for years after the garments have gone to decay." And the woman fled down the winding passage and the labyrinthine stairs with a hollow groan, while the other members of the staff, breaking through their heroic re? serve, clustered around tho youngest man, and congratulated him upon the emancipation of his sex.