The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1872-10-26
2aiscellaneous.
Nice Old Ladies.


They are the ones who hold together our
present beautiful social system, are the Old La
dies. They are the conservators OF the uni
verse. 1t is altogether probable that we should
go to sticks in a years time but for the Nice
Old Ladies. OF "a surety no power upon earth
but theirs, could make us hold together min
ute with all our absurdlties, our lncongruites,
and our nonsense.
Your Nice Old Lady is soclety's guardian OF
propriety. She decides on the proper am be-
coming mode Of conduct for every human be
ing. and there she sets her foot down and holds
it. Bless the Nice Old Lady How ever would
the world go on without her? She is especial.
y forcible on the point, first, OF what is proper
for lovers and spoony young people and young
ladies next, on the point whatis proper for wo-
men of her own age, and little younger than
herself. An elderly woman, no matter how
sprightly, spirited and young in heart she may
have kept herself through fear of the Nice Old
Lady, daren't devate the breath of split hair
from the sombre, long faced, cheerless old wo-
man track which the Nice Old Lady has pre-
ever the sprightly, spirited, youthful, elderly
woman may do, the Nice Old Lady raises the
crv solely in the interests Of propriety:
.Shame on her, an old thing like her!
bonnet like that for an old thing like her !
She'd better be thinking of something else, an
old thing like her!"
Pve noticed that they put in always that par
ticular expression, "an old thing like her." II
I've heard those words once, declare to you
that I've heard 'em fifty times, and every sim
gle time they came from the mouth OF some
contemplate, spiteful woman who was jealous
of some other woman. If woman doesn't like
another woman, she always calls her ian old
thing" Women are very mean to each other,
ANYHOW, / often think. If Pm mistaken, l
hon 70 ha fnrui for II
likewise your nice Old Lady has habit Of
laying down the law as to funerals, babies md
matters between man and wife. Her kEe ~
edge with regard to funerals is something ap-
pallng. She portions out exactly the amount
of grief which is proper to be manifested by
each particular relative, to the last cousin-in-
law. She has a mental memorandum, to the
last homeopathic vialful, of the quantity or
tears proper to be shed by each individual. If
body doesn't shed tears enough, she tells
folks about it the rest of her life, if body
sheds too many, it's worse yet. She tells her
neighbors and acquaintance precisely how
deep a shade of mourning everybody must
wear for everybody, and holds Up her ha-s1i a
horror and makes frightful powwow AS5Lt.
proper respect for the dead. She knows to
the minute, how long time must elapse after
any body is dead and buried, before his bereav-
ed family may venture to untwist their faces
into smile If they smile half a minute too
soon, the Nice Old Lady rolls up her eyes and
folds her hands and says in q voice of solemn
warning:
81 never thought to see such carryings-on SO
soon after poor Mr.. Brown was in his grave
Before he's cold you may say"
The Nice Old Lady has her little supersti-
tons, which you could no more reason her out
of, than you could keep schoolgirl from buy
ing candy. She believes infallibly that all
babies get oliver grown" that ever and anon
ho1l Iah hu boo1 nd
'em, or the precious little livers will grow fast
to their blessed Sides Doctors say it's all non
sense, but the Nice Old Lady is a mighter
thority than the doctors. In her secret heart
she believes that she knows more than all the
doctors in the universe. She has mysterious,
occult notions on the subject of livers in gener-
al. Her own livers in general. Her own liver
is an object of the utmost solicitude to her, and
she thinkers at it as if it were an old clock. At
stated intervals, when her liver runs down, for
her liver's sake she swallows suspicious-look-
ing dose of what she calls "blue mass" Heav-
en- only knows what that is, I'm sure / don't,
any more than know why the Nice Old La
dies won't ever let baby see into a looking
glass, l never lad the advantage of having
anybody instruct me in the magic and mystery
of lvers and "blue mass"
Your Nice Old Lady regulates her own fami-
ly down to the last shoe-string. Her husband
doesn't dare to crook his finger, unless she gives
him to understand he may; and as to going out
| nights, he'd no more go out nights than he'd
ride to Heaven on q broomstck. But he goes
to see the Black Crook, when he's hundred
miles or so from home. And it is a little queer
that while the Nice Old Lady is eminently the
head of the family in her own case, she recon-
mends and earnestly insists upon implicit sub
mission in the case of all other married women,
and quotes Scripture about wives being obedi-
ent to their husbands. The husband should
be master of the house, she declares; that is to
say, of every house but her own, and every
husband but hers. If her daughter shows
symptoms of going into decline, it is con-
| sum ption-if her daughter in law manifests
the same symptoms, it is nothing but want
of energy. She never NEEDLES Oh, y
But she has way of getting whole fami-
lies and neighborhoods by the ears. She
does it from a sense of duty. And she invari-
ably shovels upon others the quarrel she her.
self sets a-brewing. She is never to blame, in
any quarrels whatsoever. Not she. She is a
woman who always conducts herself with the
utmost propriety, and never gives way to her
| temper.
Finally, viewed in the light of an old fogy,
the Nice Old Lady is sublime success. She
throws the whole of her ample weight against
| the wheels of progress and blocks 'em. She de
votes herself to the noble work of maintaining
| the established order of things. To her, new
idea is always wrong just because it is new
Especially she sets her face like iron against
any of the modern Improvements. with refer
ence to women's work, wages and welfare. II
a lady study medicine, for instance, no matter
how capable, earnest, and well-informed she
may be your Nice Old Lady opposes her with
all the 0is iaertiG of old fogyism.
you can say what you please" says oui
Nice Old Lady, "but when Pm sick I'd rather
have man about me-"
She even approaches the verge of coarsenes'
in her denuncations of those daring womer
who refuse the bit and bride of propriety and
venture to skip aside from ye ancient bark mil
round of shirt buttons and cooking stoves: II
a word, to everything new under the shining
machine, this Nice Old Lady, bless her! op
poses, like a solid stone wall, the one insur
mountable, all-sufiicient objection
"That wasn't the way was brought up
That's her clincher.-Zig, II, Saturday EUem'n!
Post.