New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-11-11
4 NEY REFORM.

4 NEW REFORM.
The moro We think of it the more we are
inclined to revoke our slurs upon the club of
Odd Women. What if they did levy twOpence
q head for alef Did not every woman sub
scribe her wit to enliven the meetingW Witt
jokesf and, women! In this country woman
can not only, like SOlomon's ideal housewife,
brew, bake, and weave fine linen for her hus-
band, but her words Of wisdom are heard
instead of his "among the elders in the gates;"
her eloqucnce in6ames our souls to noble
deeds her pathOs wrings tears from our eyes.
But tell good storyf Taught Alas! these
arc some lost arts whereof Mr.. Phillips has
forgotten to even write the epitaphs. We con
the reports Of those jolly meetings of genial
good-humOred easy -gOers in Northampton,
and smack our lips with dismal relish; ms a
ghost might catching glimpse OF Christ
mas dinner across the memorable Styx.
How it may be elsewhere We know not, but
we protest that the American nation, male and
female, is afflicted with universal migroine
1t grows sallow, dyspeptc, fanatical, weak
atop, and all for tho lack of the nutriment of
Il wholesome laugh. Jonathan is well-fed,
we'll to do, has freer, richer fields for body and
under heaven carries ab0ut n cOuntenance so
lachrymose and lugubrious. He can invent,
make money. phlosophize, reform, do every
thing but joke. He is never i'll at ease but
when hidden 10 enjoy himself. If he is a
young man he goes through waltz with the
very misery of endurance stamped on his un-
smiling visage if be is old he finds his morn
ing's recreation in Il business paper, and keeps
the report Of the Stock Exchange for bonnie
bouche. lie looks at the German in his
beer garden. the Frcnchman with the
violet 10 his butonhOle, with like
cynical contempt: he never really APP
precated either nation ut its full value
until they took each other by the throat and
furnished new horrors of bloodshed and starry
alton for his daily digestion. 1t is not the
desire to grow rich alone that has made Jona-
than the nervous, irritable, anxious wretch he
is, and that under the fairest heavens where
Gods sun shines. He wants to be rich, but
he wants more to be master-to conquer new
land, science, society. party. what not men
and women arc alike bitten and rabid with
this mania. Or he wants TO reform. The
world is ont of joint, and its Creator appa-
rently has done nothing but wait for this
modern Hamlet TO DO born to set it right
So, what between money getting, struggle, and
REFORM the face of life is worn down for us
10 the bare bone the smile and flesh and color
are gone long ago; it is rs hard for us to
realize in it the genial idleness and jollity Of
the Club at WolyerhamptOn as it would have
been for Hamlet 20 hear again tho testers in
finite fancy and jibes from the lips of his
bleached skull. Now, If you bind man too
strictly to duty, his original depravity grows
rampant. We confess that the doings at
Wolverbampton are calculated to stir up revo-
lutionary and vagabond blood in our veins. We
are tempted TO profess ourselves heartily tired
of soiouniug in this vale of tears, and willing
20 make of 1t more comfortable quarters. What
If VIC give up Reform for q while, and try
amusementf What if our women ut least
would follow now and then the example of
these odd sisters Divorce and Poverty and
WOman's Wrongs are hideous skeletons, and
real enough we know. But need they be kept
swinging continually in front OF every front
d0Ort What if they lei Humanity lumber on
its way nnaided occasionally. and gave the
children swing over the rough places by fun
and frolic at home. perpetual bright faces,
songs, stories, hearty downright laughter9
The shadow and strain Of our own war are
gone there are as heavy shadows from pow
erty and vice, perhaps. But the true course is
to bring the sick and vicious up into our
clear. wholesome sunshine, not TO ill our
homes with their foul miasma. What with
Journals brimful Of murders and adulteries,
with the clamor of the war which we cannot
silence, with conventions, lectures, sermons,
all aimed to right abuses, we not only sup.
but breakfast and lunch, on horrors and
abnormal diseased ideas. Would it not
be quite az helpful to remember that
the sun shines and the sky is blue. and that
1t is, after oil, good, hearty, joyous world,
over which the good God reignsf That the
nation is sick of this unnatural, incessant
strain and rasping is proved by the bears hug
1t gives 70 ANYBODY who makes il laugh.