We know that Mrs. Dall, an American lady, has taken up this subject, and has written a book on it, in which great good sense and honesty of purpose is shown.  Mrs. Dall is a strong advocate for the increased employment of women, and I, with great deference, disagree with her.  I allude to her book now because she has pointed out, I think very strongly, the great reason why women do not engage themselves advantageously in trade pursuits.  She by no means overpraises her own sex, and openly declares that young women will not consent to place themselves in fair competition with men.  They will not undergo the labor and servitude of long study at their trades.  They will not give themselves up to an apprenticeship.  They will not enter upon their tasks as though they were to be the tasks of their lives.  They may have the same physical and mental aptitudes for learning a trade as men, but they have not the same devotion to the pursuit, and will not bind themselves to it thoroughly as men do.  In all which I quite agree with Mrs. Dall; and the English of it is—­that the young women want to get married.

God forbid that they should not so want.  Indeed, God has forbidden in a very express way that there should be any lack of such a desire on the part of women.  There has of late years arisen a feeling among masses of the best of our English ladies that this feminine propensity should be checked.  We are told that unmarried women may be respectable, which we always knew; that they may be useful, which we also acknowledge—­thinking still that, if married, they would be more useful; and that they may be happy, which we trust—­feeling confident, however, that they might in another position be more happy.  But the question is not only as to the respectability, usefulness, and happiness of womankind, but as to that of men also.  If women can do without marriage, can men do so?  And if not, how are the men to get wives, if the women elect to remain single?

It will be thought that I am treating the subject as though it were simply jocose, but I beg to assure my reader that such is not my intention.  It certainly is the fact that that disinclination to an apprenticeship and unwillingness to bear the long training for a trade, of which Mrs. Dall complains on the part of young women, arise from the fact that they have other hopes with which such apprenticeships would jar; and it is also certain that if such disinclination be overcome on the part of any great number, it must be overcome by the destruction or banishment of such hopes.  The question is whether good or evil would result from such a change.  It is often said that whatever difficulty a woman may have in getting a husband, no man need encounter difficulty in finding a wife.  But, in spite of this seeming fact, I think it must be allowed that if women are withdrawn from the marriage market, men must be withdrawn from it also to the same extent.