The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1871-02-17

How many pale, lifeless women you
see in the West, and in the East, too,
for that matter Young, fresh. looking
women marry, and in five or ten years
you can scarcely recognize them, while
their husbands look as well as on the
day of their wedding. One cause of
this is complicated housekeeping
When q man undertakes O business, he
| finds learned men ready to assist him !;
he knows what there is to do, and SO.
cures help accordingly. A young wo-
man goes to housekeeping very often
without any help at all, or perhaps
with one awkward girl, like the wife
in this respect. There are three meals
to get every day-that means cooking |;
and then come the dishes to be washed
forty.fve pieces for breakfast and sup.
per, and seventy for dinner for family
of fve-one hundred and sixty.fve
pieces to be carried from the kitchen
to the dining room every day, washed
and carried back. If you have six
rooms in your house, there Is one to be
thoroughly swept and cleaned daily,
besides brushing up the others, making
beds, bringing in wood and carrying
water.
Twice week there is bread-making,
twice a week yeast-making, one day
washing, one day ironing, pantries and
safes to be washed out once a week,
dairy work to be attended to, besides
innumerable jobs in the way of preser-
wing, jelly making, picking, curing
hams, putting down pigs feet, looking
over apples twice in the winter, and
making hogshead cheese, mince.meat,
a thorough house. cleaning twice year,
the sewing on dresses, aprons, shirts,
drawers, gowns, &C., by the dozen.
Then supposing the housekeeper has
q baby-an average six months old ba-
by, that weighs about eighteen pounds.
Suppose she has this child in her arms
ken up more frequently,) and often she
is obliged to work with the right arm
whilst carrying the burden of baby
about with the left. Who is it that
says there is nothing in gymnastics
equal to the endurance of mothers
arm ? Even when the days labor is
accomplished, and she goes to bed, she
still holds her baby, and does nce sleep
soundly for fear of rolling on it or Its
getting uncovered ; she must attend tc
its wants several times in the night
and must be in a constrained condition
for fear of disturbing it.
l have heard women say they would
give almost anything for night of un'
disturbed sleep, with no care on the
mind.' Then in the morning up and
at it again. Don't you see why women
get pale, and why sometimes little
cross, and how their husbands wonder
that their wives don't look pretty ant
dress well, and entertain them as they
did before they were married?
The wives don't reason on the mat.
ter; they think it all the mems fault
and then they turn cross, and so things
go at skies and sevens--and this is the
place where woman's rights should bt
taxed hold of. don't think voting
would help that very much, woman's
labor should be made study. In the
first place, men must realize that it is 6
great labor to keep house. A grea'
many women sink down under the
weight; then everybody says-"Pool
thing, she always was weakly, good
for-nothing creature!" and the "pooi
thing" has been doing more for the past
ten years than two women ought f
have done.