is
now afforded to pedestrians was lacking in the eighteenth century.
It was out of the question for any gentlewoman to attend the theatre
unaccompanied by male escort. There were always loiterers about the
streets, and any man of rank whose character was bad enough to permit
him to do so felt at liberty to salute a woman with insults--which,
when they came from such a source, were then styled as gallantries;
and women who adopted the stage as a profession, being looked upon as
having forfeited their claims to gentility, were regarded as fair game
by the rakes of the day. Notwithstanding the attempts of Queen Anne to
reform the manners of theatre-goers by the passage of edicts looking
to that end, the evils which made it so unpleasant to a respectable
person to attend the theatre and which brought the playhouse under
odium continued to be flagrant.

In the nineteenth century came a great uplift of the status of the
stage and workers upon it, and, in contrast to the opinions
which prevailed in the eighteenth century, an actress suffered
no disparagement and had the same opportunity for cherishing her
reputation as any others of the sex. The stage no longer brought its
followers into disrepute, for it rested with the actress herself to
preserve or to tarnish her character. She was no longer, by virtue of
being an actress, regarded as a Bohemian, and it was not considered a
regrettable thing for a girl of character to enter upon a histrionic
career. It was her course and conduct after she had entered the
profession, and the nature of the plays in which she appeared and the
parts which she allowed herself to present, that determined the public
verdict with regard to her. As a result of the changed character of
the theatre,--although it was by no means cleared of all the odium
that had so long attached to it,--a larger number of men and women
attended dramatic performances than ever before.

The introduction of women into commercial life was followed by the
opening up of civil service appointments and a change of sentiment
with regard to women engaging in trade. In 1870, when the government
bought the interests of the telegraph company, the officials were
brought under the existing civil service rules. Some of them happened
to be women, and thus, inadvertently, women were admitted to
civil service appointments under the government. In 1871 the
postmaster-general bore striking testimony to the efficiency of the
women emplo