Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1878 — The Women Clerks at Washington. [ARTICLE]

The Women Clerks at Washington.

Copying and figuring is the work mostly done by the women. In the Department of the Interior 500 girls and women are employed. Their wages range from SSO a month to $1,400 a year. Few get the latter price. One young lady, Miss Cook, a stenographer in the Indian Office, gets $1,600 a year, the highest price to a woman official in Washington. But lest all the bright young lady short-hand writers who read this should at once start off in a bodv to get $1,600 a year at the Capital,‘it may be as well to state that there are only places for about six stenographers in the whole Interior Department. These six places are filled, and the occupants are healthy. They do not intend to marry. They are afraid every man wouldn’t be worth $1,600 a year to them. Women clerks are -more troublesome to manage, than . men. This is the verdict in most o£ the departments. They are mort regular and faithful in their duties than the men; at the same time they are more quarrelsome among one another. A standing cause of war among them, ridiculous enough, iB the opening and shutting of windows. This one wants ventilation, while the one next to her

is dead sure to be afraid of a draft. This one slaps the window up, and that one runs after her and slams it down, and so the game goes on, slap, slam, while the ladies' eyes dart fire, and their little throats choke up too full for speech. This cattish quarreling went so far in the Postoffice Department that at last the United States authorities had to interfere, and make the rule that windows should not be raised till a certain time of day, so. that the windows of the United States General PostotHce are now opened and shut according to Government orders.— Cor. Cincinnati Commercial.