women so high or so well secured, or their right to
follow an independent career so fully recognised by society at large.
In no other country is so much done to provide for their convenience
and comfort. All the professions are open to them, and the opportunity
has widely been made use of. Teaching, lecturing, journalism,
preaching, and the practice of medicine have long been recognised as
within woman's sphere, and she is by no means unknown at the bar.
There are eighty qualified lady doctors in Boston alone, and
twenty-five lady lawyers in Chicago. A business card before me as I
write reads, "Mesdames Foster & Steuart, Members of the Cotton
Exchange and Board of Trade, Real Estate and Stock Brokers, 143 Main
Street, Houston, Texas." The American woman, however, is often found
in still more unexpected occupations. There are numbers of women
dentists, barbers, and livery-stable keepers. Miss Emily Faithful saw
a railway pointswoman in Georgia; and one of the regular steamers on
Lake Champlain, when I was there, was successfully steered by a pilot
in petticoats. There is one profession that is closed to women in the
United States--that of barmaid. That professional association of woman
with man when he is apt to be in his most animal moods is firmly
tabooed in America--all honour to it!

The career of a lady whose acquaintance I made in New York, and whom I
shall call Miss Undereast, illustrates the possibilities open to the
American girl. Born in Iowa, Miss Undereast lost her mother when she
was three years old, and spent her early childhood in company with her
father, who was a travelling geologist and mining prospector. She
could ride almost before she could walk, and soon became an expert
shot. Once, when only ten years of age, she shot down an Indian who
was in the act of killing a white woman with his tomahawk; and on
another occasion, when her father's camp was surrounded by hostile
Indians, she galloped out upon her pony and brought relief. "She was
so much at home with the shy, wild creatures of the woods that she
learned their calls, and they would come to her like so many domestic
birds and animals. She would come into camp with wild birds and
squirrels on her shoulder. She could lasso a steer with the best of
them. When, at last, she went to graduate at the State University of
Colorado, she paid for her last year's tuition with the proceeds of
her own herd of cattle." After graduating at Colorado State
Univ