Litchfield enquirer., 1857-01-22


 B. ROCKWELL.
 Domestic Slavery.
 We talk great deal about the slavery of others, aud yet how few of us are willing to acknowledge an enslaved condition of our own. See yonder old woman--her spare form, silver hair, and feeble step bespeak years of toll, of domestic servitude and neser-ending drudgery Her table has ever been famous for it's well at- sorted vianda. it's delicious pastry, and it's won derful preserves. A poor African toilng ul,- der the eye of his task master, never performed more diligently at his daily labor, than she who has prepared choice dishes for her household, till the very atmosphere around her was redo lent of fried doughnuts, hot cakes, and dainties of every kind and degree. Who ia made better by this weary round of labor and care, and who happier for this perpetual sacrifice of time and strength, aud bodily comfort? Said Addison, when I behold table set out with every thing calculated to please the palate and provoke the appetite, fancy that see gouts and dropsies, levers and lethargies, and unen- ding distempers lying in ambuscadc among the dishes" And yet we daily see men choos- ing wives, satisfied if they possess no higher qualification than that of procuring for them this honest, most transient and enervating of pleasures, while they themselves believing that the chief end of woman consists in catering to mems appetites, and increasing their stock of enjoyment alone in this way, toll on, till some day finds them stepping out of the kitchen into the grave. This however, is but one, form of domestic slavery. Men there are as well as women, whs year after year, blindly yield themselves up to the most tyrsnnical and un- relenting of task masters. Men, who are found both ID country and town, lowing down and worshiping the God of this world. Teilng early and working late, sacrificing health and strength, and every better feeling to the most grovelling and degrading pursuits, aye, perng their souls even, that their coffers may be filled and their goods increased, and their children known in the land
 But there is still another form of slavery more absolute, and more degrading than even these. What task master 50 relentless, what tyrant so exacting as FasAion? Who among us desires simply to please himself? Who that does not daily and hourly sacrifice comfort to conventional forms and usages2 Look at the Hats that men have so long worn, formed more Ike instruments of torture, than Ike articles designed for comfort or convenience. Every six mouths compelled to have new one, for what mau of standing would dare to appear in hat of two CT three years sgo7 We buy a garment that pleases us exactly how com placently we array ourselves within it's comfort able folds, how strongly we commend it's pecu- liar fitness and beauty. Before it is half worn out, before even one stitch has started, we be- gin shrewdly to suspect that it is looking little out of date, while our wife suggests that poor Peter is sadly in need of coat, or old Mr. Smith don't go to meeting for the want of one aud if we steel our hearts against her importunities ns we count the cost of some thing newer and more fashionable. We are still pretty sure to find little Willy or Johnny ap- bearing some morning, in a juvenile arrange ment of the identical garment once so admired and so comfortable.
  In our enslaved condition, it is not little amusing to hear durability commented upon What do we want of any article of dress that will survive longer period of time, than fash ion prescribes for it! What is it good for 1? will the china peddler give us anything more valuable in exchange, because the fabric is strong and the color unfaded? Are we rich enough, or possessed of moral courage enough to wear it ourselves, when we know that something else is warn more ?" What would the Grandmothers of another generation have said, had the contents of modern lady's wardrobe been disclosed to their astouished vision? The simple article of Furs, as worn bY hundredsof ladies both in town and country would have carried an old fashioned New Eng land clergyman with his whole family through lns0re tAaa haH yeas. May aaaa. many .