Marshall County Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1855-1859, 1857-01-29

these are often mechanlcs, shop-keepers,
merchants, in debt.and paying interest on
the capital invested in their business, who
are required by some means or other to
raise funds FOL this ostentacious and con
temptible extravaganza. We pity them!--
when we look at their means we pity them
still more when we see how they are toll
ing night and day, undermining their
health and consuming their physical
, strength in order to keep matters square,
we pity them still more and more; when
f we behold their wan and hollow checks.
their careworn countenances, their waning
health their disgust at business, which,
with all'their efforts ande.anxiety, fails to
realize sufficient profit to sustain such an
enormous expenditure, we are ready to sit
down and weep over their melancholy lot.
And yet, when we consider that they are
too imbecile TO assert their rights in their
own domicile, to exercise their lawful au-
thority, and prevent such a condition OF
things, we are almost constrained to ex-
claim: it serves them right, why don't
they rule their household more wisely, and
insist on system of domestic economy
that would relieve them from a state OF
bondage which would compare unfayorably
even with the most abject African slavery
10 the southern States?
What shall we say to the wives and
daughters of these doomed husbands and
fathers? they 40 doubt profess to love the
''dear man. What kind of love is that
which makes slave, a victim, and mar
tyr of its object? We cannot believe that
there is one particle of true affection in the
hearts of those who can infict so much
anxie-y, distress and corroding apprehen-
sion on their husband and father. 1t looks
like a mere mockery and we do not believe
a word of it. We can exercise a large de-
gree of folbearance towards female weak
ness and human infrmity in gene
raj; but when health is undermi-
ned, comfort is invaded, domestic har-
mony and happiness are sacrificed, and
most Of the great ends of the institution oil
the home relation. are utterly destroyed
f1rbearance ceases 70 be virtue. and in
digna;ion takes ia place. Domestic au
thori;y should undoubtedly be asserted on
the part of him, whom God in his unerrine
wisdom hath appointed 20 be the head Of
the family.
A quaint writer once said, ga passion
for dress in man or woman, is an evidence
Of an empty head, a vacant mind and hoF
low heart;" whether true or not, il certain
Lly is anihdcalion of badly educated mind
Eand of perverted heart, Inflated with vanity
land overfowiug with littleness. When
we see lady dccked ont in church o,
Haunting about the streets in costly habili
ments, sparkling jewelry. flowing furbe-
lows, reaching well nigh to her eyes, we
involuntaiily think of her husband; our
thoughts instinc;ively run back to her own
domicil, or her husbands counter or work
shop;and all our sympathy flows towards
the poor man that has to tug and toll, and
wear out soul and body in the management
of the financial department..
Are these the sentiments of an antiquated
niggard. of a sordidly parsimonious misan-
thropist. who is behind the age and un-
worthy of hearing?-fashionable ladies,
young giddy girls who think tawdry dress
and gorgeous robes give them importance;
and upstart dandies and contemplate par
venues may think so. but we doubt wheth-
er sensible fathers and writing husbands
will agree with them.
Let us hear what a foreign writer says
on this subject-the elitor of a French pa
per, respecting city in Belgium
ably Brussels; and let It be remembered
that neither in Brussels nor IN any other
city in the Netherlands, are the ladies as
} extravagant in their external adornmen,s
lsas they are in Baltimore, Boston, or New
J York. The Courier desE Etats Units
says:
That in the city of Belgium extravaganza
has assumed such alarming proportions
that the ladies themselves have been ohlig.
ed to combine fe. the purpose of arresling
its disastrous progress. 1t appears tha
extravaganza has been for some years q
} source of constraint in f,milies and it was
: noticed no marriages were contracted since
\ the young men frightened at the bills tha
D loomed up in the distance preferred to live
! in cehbacy. The mothers recognizing the
2 Inconvenience Of state of affairs encour
( aged by themselves have resolved to bring
, about.a salu'ary reform and with This view
t they have formed committee whi@ meet.
e once a week. They have declared oper
D war with exuavayance, and every member
announces pablicly the reirenchmens made
/. In her own household expenses