Midland & Northern Coal & Iron Trades Gazette – Wednesday 04 April 1877
Virogus
The behavior of the termagant females at Denaby Main has caused some comment, and no wonder, considering that we happen to live in the nineteenth century and in civilised England. It is all very well for the female population of a mining village to take so much interest in the general welfare as to be seen as they are in South Wales attired in a sort of ” Bloomer” costume and working on the top of the pit bank.
Even from this the heart shrinks, and I believe I have mentioned the only district where such an exhibition may be witnessed. But to carry the assumption of the masculine to such lengths as those miners wives did at Denaby Main—it is perfectly disgusting.
Women have fought prize fights and run races to the present day, they may be seen feeding the gaze of a French multitude while bicycle riding for public prizes. All these things have been done, are done, but it was understood that in England all such vice, immorality, and violent brutality had been relegated to the limbo of forgotten sins. In this country a woman is elevated to the highest pinnacle of social respect—and those members of the sex at Denaby, lower themselves to the level of rowdies, it is to be hoped they are ashamed of themselves.