The Portland daily press., 1873-10-25
A Special Lecture Season.

1t is not our purpose az this time to notice
the regular lecture course, which every well reg
ulated town of twenty Thousand inhabitants
has come to regard as much an established
institution as the church and school. Nor is
it our purpose to urge upon less pretentious
towns to engage and be satisfied to applaud
lesser lights than Bpecher. Phillips, Curtis,
and even Cough. In short, it is not our pur-
pose at this time to lecture at all.
But the reader of list of newspapers can
not fail to perceive how the late financial pam
ic and its consequences have been succeeded
by regular series of lectures, not all brilliant,
or new or interesting, but more or less true.
The stock gambling operations OF Wall street
have been fruitful topic for lectures full of
sage advice, and pregnant with fearful warn
inss to -ouug men.
Other papers have devoted themselves to
more practical topics. The New York Times
for instance, heads long editorial, "Advice
to Wives,' in which its lady readers are told
that by properly looking after their household
expenses they may help their husbands over
fhe financial shoals that threaten so many.
That journal is of the opinion that thousands
OF men in the country go to the bad financial
ly, if not morally, by the thoughtless expendi-
lures of their wives, who are ambitious not to
be excelled by their neighbors. Indeed, there
is great deal Of this sort of lecturng the
ladies'; and if the advice of some of our con-
temporaries should be followed, the dry goods
I'D -, l..
well displayed wares; the milliners' openings
will fail to draw admirers, and the winter
fashion plates will be no better than lost
pieces of art.
This TRADE against the women is both un
generous and unjust. They may ask very
properly, by whose folly and villainy has the
business of the country been deranged, and its
industries paralyzed? 1t would be trouble
some question to answer, and might set a
great many lecturing men to asking them
selves if they are not as fond of, and as fast
to indulge in useless luxury as the women. 1t
would be well for man to curtail his needless
expenses before he goes to soaring his wife
about financial troubles, and beseeching her
to take in sail to meet the threatening storm.
No man who does much at billiards, or drinks
costly liquors many times day, or keeps a
fast horse, can go to his wife full of homilies
of economy.
In view of the scarcity of money and the
stagnation that is likely to stop mills AMI
make business dull for the next six months,
some of our contemporaries are urging all
people who depend upon these for livelihood
to crtail their expenses. The advice is time
ly, and those who heed the warning of such
lecturers, will tide over difficulties that now
seem certain.
There is no doubt but what we are very
extravagant people, fond of display, and usu-
ally measuring comfort by its cost and its gilt
ter, and any wide depression in business that
will compel us to realize that there is as much
real comfort in style of living that scruti
nizes the outlay Of every dollar, will prove a
blessing in disguise.
Nor is the special lecture season without its
humorous side. Since the October elections,
the Democratic papers of the country have
taken new courage, add prophesy that the old
party organization has renewed its age. They
declare that the resolutions of '98 are living
political truths. They see vast tidal wave, a
Democratic President in 1876, and the party
leaders look to post Offices and custom houses
with longing, but expectant eyes. This spec
tacle to men who full realize that we are liv-
ing in the yeac 1878, is the widest delusion of
political monomaniacs.