CO-EDUCATION.

131

fashionable sisters in the polite world. All unite in pushing the hateful thing out of sight and out of mind ; and all are punished by similar weakness, degeneration, and disease.

There are two reasons why female opera­tives of all sorts are likely to suffer less, and actually do suffer less, from such persistent work, than female students ; why Jane in the factory can work more steadily with the loom, than Jane in college with the diction­ary ; why the girl who makes the bed can safely work more steadily the whole year through, than her little mistress of sixteen who goes to school. The first reason is, that the female operative, of whatever sort, has, as a rule, passed through the first critical epoch of womans life : she has got fairly by it. In her case, as a rule, unfortunately there are too many exceptions to it, the cata­menia have been established ; the function is in good running order; the reproduc­tive apparatus the engine within an en­gine has been constructed, and she will