Weekly North Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1850-1858, 1856-12-31

HONE INFLuENcE.-Let us look into several cot.
tages inhabited by working men and women. Here
is where there is health and strength and regu-
lar wages, and little children, and kind. hearted
husband and an affectionate wife What prevents
it from being happy homes What sends its mas
ter, cross and discontented evening after evening,
the jovial tavern, and brings him back night after
night, staggering and brutal? The want of comfort
Instead Of bright little rcside comfortable arm
chair, a singing tea-kettle, tidy room and merry
children, which would make the weary mans re-
turn a pleasure and a comfort he finds the fire out
no food prepared-the children squalng-eyery
chair filed with dirty clothes candle sticks or
unwashed diShes-the wife dirty and forlorn chang
cd, OH how changed, from the smiling Jean of his
early courting days. He had few pence in his
pocket. The tavern is not far off Whiskey is
cheap, and does instead Of food and fire. WhiSkey
is cheap and the sellers and buyers thereof are COM
Portable and merry. Little wonder, then, that the
working takes up his hat and is off to drown his
cares in poison Yet the husband is blamed and the
wife pitied! Very likely the want Of order in the
mistress of this uncomfortable home proceeds from
want of knowledge. Perhaps she was factory girl,
and after working hours she did nothing but dress
and visit and gossip. So she ignorant of cook
ing, darning, washing, and managing house, and
she has had no time to learn since.
The consequence is, that instead Of having nice,
wholesome, cheap, hot little dinners, her husband
dimes upon bread and cheese, oatmea: or potatos.
His porridge in the morning full of knots and soot
at night is made with unboIed water in dirty tea
pot; the washings last twice long as they need
to the fire smokes because the chimney is never
swept; the stockings full of holes and the Sum-
day clothes illkept and moth-eat.
Let us try another cottage and we find an active,
bustng mistress. but still the weary story the
wife wanting in all good Influence, the husband
drinking away the wages which would lift his family
above hunger and misery. Here the cause is want
of temper. The husband comes home tired and irri-
tated by the unpleasant tolls of the day, and, in
stead of being soothcd and comforted. he finds his
wife in what is popularity known "the sorts."-
The poor children scolded and slapped till they
cry-the husband interferes angrly, and is answer.
cd by rude and rough rcproaches for some offence Of
the day before, and comes q miserable quarrel
and the husband rushes to the good tempered host
of the tavern Perhaps he is not given to drinking,
but he cannot sit by the bright fire. and join in the
talk, without taking ut least glass for the
benefit of the house; and oh the thousands who
are ruined by the beginning of "just one glass -
Wives and mothers Of our working m n, when will
We learn that unkind words and rude manners are
crimes, because they produce crimes, awful and
eternal in their consequences? When will We re.
member that the wav TO convince q husband of his
wrong and unkndness is not to scold, but to love-
not to rcpulse, but to win?
godly woman who lived fifteen hundred years
ago used to say that il the fists of the husband
rough, the tongues of their wives were sharp and
that she knew the truth Of the proverb, that soft
answer turneth away wrath" Her method of man.
Ssement and success in domestic life she described
in tSsse words When my lord and master scolds,
| I-nr.vS when he is angry, forgive him. or give
him kindly words; and thus have not only calmed
his anger but it has come to this blessed issue tina,
| he As been converted, and is fan.n :
Sua5esAes n tks C6ftods,