The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1875-10-22
Separate Pocket-Books.


Husbands and wives are not one in
any such sense as to obviate the neces-
sity, or at least the propriety, of each
having a purse with money in it that
each shall feel free to use as he or she
chooses. Tastes differ, and it is not fair
that men or women shall be required
entirely to subordinate their wishes in
trifling matters to those of the other
part. If they choose to do so, we'll and
good. Such Difference to the opinions
of husband by the wife is all the more
becoming when known to be voluntary
and not compulsory. A wife often
wishes to give money in charity, and
she may sometimes like to make q
pleasant surprise for her husband in the
shape of some appropriate present.
How can she do this if she has to go to
him and explain in detail what money
she needs and what use she proposes to
make of it? In bestowing charity, we
are told not to let the left hand know
what the right hand giveth; but how is
this precept to be fulfilled by the thous-
ands of women who are the fright
hand" of so many households in works
of charity where the "1eft hand" their
husbands, keeps all the money? A
lady, evidently farmers wife, writes
very sensibly on this topic in the West
erTl Rural, as follows:
"Every woman ought to have her
own pocket-book and some way of MAX
ing money that is her own. There are
a number of ways on a farm that this
can be done, if one has a mind to find
them. have friend who has all the
butter she sells, or rather all the money
she gets for it, for her own; she does
with it as she pleases and accounts for it
to no one, and her husband Sensible
mani thinks it all right. would not
give q snap to make my husband a
present bought with the money had
by hard exertions coaxed from him.
Who would? He perhaps would not
see what I wanted with it. L do not
want to tell him just then; therefore he
does not think I need it. Perhaps I
don't; but I notice that the slippers
I got bottomed with it and gave to him
on his birthday or Christmas were
thought by him to be all right, and he
didn't see how he had ever got along
without them.' Had told him at the
time what / wanted of the money, half
the pleasure of receiving and all the
pleasure of giving would have been
gone. aa - -
"Suppose you are out in company and
the ladies are raising a little private
fund of their own, as is often the case,
how small q woman feels to be COM
PEELED to say, 4 would like to give
Something; but Mr.. d. has the pocket
book, and he is not here = Don't you
think Mr.. D. would feel rather mean
over it when she went home and told
him about it, as she would be sure to
do?
Chow many men can we pick out
who have every kind of improved ma
chinery to help along their work, who
are every now and then buying some
patent right concern, of no use to them
selves or anybody else, while the wife
doesn't have any of the helps there are
for her sex-often not even a washer
and wringer I can find plenty such.
Would it be so if she had some of the
money to spend
"Does not a woman look better with a
neat dress, nice collar, and bow of
bright ribbon, than with the dress
minus the collar and bow2 Still, if she
had asked you to get them, you would
probably have told her it was all fool
ishness having such fixins'-she could
do just as well without them.' The
woman who never has a little money
for her own use soon gets tired of trying,
and then is pretty sure to go to the
other extreme. Give me the woman
that carries her own poeket-book, and
the man who thinks it all right for her
to do so. AUNT PATSY.n