Text: N. P. Willis (?), Female Stock-Brokers, Evening Mirror (New York), February 21, 1845, vol. I, no. 117, p. 2, col. 4

[page 2, top of column 4:]

Female Stock-brokers, etc.

A letter from Paris to the London Times (received yesterday) describes the Stock Exchange of Paris, (the Bourse) as thronged by female speculators — not less than a hundred in attendance, on any one day, To do this, too, they are obliged to stand in the open square in front of the building, as they have been excluded from the interior by a special regulation! Every five minutes dining the sale of Stocks, two or three bare-headed agents rush down the steps of the Bourse to announce to the fair speculators the state of the market; and they buy and sell accordingly.

Fancy a few of the customs of the “most polite nation” introduced into New York! What would “Mrs. Grundy” say of a hundred ladies standing about on the sidewalk in Wall street, speculating in Stocks, and excluded by a vote of the stock-brokers from the floor of the Exchange. When will the New York ladies begin to smoke in their carriages, as they do in Paris? When will they wear Wellinton boots with high heels ? When will they frequent the billiard-rooms and public eating-houses? When will those who are not rich enough to keep house, use “home” only as birds do their nests, to sleep in — breakfasting, dining, and amusing themselves, at all other hours, out of doors, or in cafes and restaurants? When will the more fashionable ladies receive morning calls in the prettiest room in the house — then bed room — themselves in bed, with coquettish caps and the most soignée demi-toilette any way contrivable ? Funny place, France! Yet in no country that we were ever in, seemed woman so insincerely worshipped — so mocked with the shadow of power over men. We should think it as great a curiosity to see a well-bred Frenchman love-sick (when. he supposed himself alone) as to see an angel tipsy, or a marble bust in tears. This condition of the “love of the country,” and the dissipation of female habits, are mutual consequences — so to speak. Men are constituted by nature to love women, and in proportion as women become man-ified they feel toward them as men do to each other — selfish and unimpressible. We remember once asking a French nobleman who was very fond of London, what was the most marked point of difference which he (as a professed love-maker) found, between French and English women. The reply was an unfeeling one, but it will be a guide to an estimate of the effect of the different national manners on female character. “The expense of a love affair,” said he, “falls on the man in France, and on the woman in England. English women make you uncomfortable by. the quantity of presents they give you, and French women quite as uncomfortable by the quantity they exact from you.” We only quote this remark as made by a very great beau and a very keen observer — the fact that a high-bred man weighed women at all in such abominable scales, being a good argument (at least) against inviting the ladies to Wall street and the billiard-rooms!

And now let us say a word of what made the letter in the Times more suggestive than it otherwise would have been — Miss Fuller's new book on “WOMAN IN THE 19TH CENTURY,” just published by our friends of the Tribune.

This book begins with an emblematic device resembling, at first view, the knightly decoration called by our English neighbors a Star. On further examination, a Garter seems to be included in the figure; but upon still closer view, we discover, within the rays which form the outer border, first an eternal serpent — then the deeper mystery of two tri-angles — one of light, the other of darkness and shadow. We should not have been thus particular in describing a new decoration, but we conceive that the figure is very significant on the tone and design of the book. It belongs to what is called the transcendental school — a school which we believe to have mixed -up much of what is noble and true with much of what is merely imaginary and fantastic. Truth, freedom, love, light — these are high and holy objects ; and though they may be sought, sometimes, by modes which we may think susceptible of improvement, we honor those who propose to themselves such objects, according to their aims and not according to their ability of accomplishment. The character and rights of woman form naturally the principal subject of Miss Fuller's book; and we hope it may have an influence in convincing if not “man,” at least some men, that woman was born for better things than to “cook him something good.”