The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1876-03-28
DOMESTIC sHAms.

A Little Plain Talk From Masculine Sufferer.
Don't lie down on those pillow
shamsw
Don't put your feet on the counter
panep
Don't lean your head against the
white knit tidyl'
That is the way darling wife talks to
her precious husband, when he comes
home at night tired out with public
shams, and seeking for domestic reai-
tiles. While she, poor thing, tired out
with domestic realities, seeks to beguile
her MUD with social and conventional
shams.
Pillow shams! Do you know what
they are? Did you eyer.try to lie down
on themy They are hard, starchythings,
with Beautiful monograms embroidered
all over them. They won't fold up, but
rustic and slip OF OF the bed on the floor;
they are always ready for launch out
into some place where they ought not to
be. Back OF them, as they are pinned
on to the pillows, you can see the Sing
Sing strips OF the vulgar ticking in which
the imaginary goose-feathers are in
closed. Then, too, there is broad,
white, hard piece Of embroidered linen,
which goes across the bed, with stiff,
large monogram on it. This is also a
sham, and is always put on when stran-
gers are coming into the room.
1t looks like piece OF fancy pie-crust,
and the people who sleep in these beds
are supposed to be like the four-and-
twenty blackbirds, Of nursery history,
who were baked in a pie; that is, they
were not in the pie because of any
natural fitness, but simply because OF
the conventional decree Of the King be-
fore whom this pretty dish was placed.
Oh, how man hates these shams; how
he filings them away when he is alone in
the house, and tells the chambermaid
never TO bring them out while the vile
and family are awayl How he remem.
hers the days when he was at college,
and piled up the pillows under him, and
put his feet at ali times and at all places
on every cubic inch of the bed he called
his own, and moved the bed un-
der the light, aud read himself to sleep
over "Henry Esmond" and "Poor PEN
dennisw But now the night-lamp for
the baby, and the pillows by night for a
fertilization around his precious arms
and legs, and the pillow shams by day
for the sake OF admiring feminine critics,
take the luxurious aroma OF life away
from the once idealized domesticities;
and the man submits, wondering why on
earth the Creator put such queer ways
into woman's nature, and then made
man so miserable without her that, by
contrast with this negative misery he
puts up silently with quantities OF mis-
cry which is positive.
Domestic shams! That is what these
wretched pillowcases make us men think
about. Why do women take such COM
fort in them? Why is the white counter
pane SO religiously guarded from the
tired man when he wants to lie down,
but don't want to fold that thick article
into its lawful creases, and put it away
in the closet, and then take of those I'm
manageable shams and stow them away,
and then unbutt0n his shoes and lie
down, but "not OH the baby's side of the
bed."
Then there are the tides. They are al
WAYS coming eff on your head and shoul-
ders. "Pick up the tidy, dear!" This
is ALWAYS the last word from madam as
YOU leave the room. "Don'B put your
head on the tidy" This is the booming
minute-gun of domestic danger when
the cigar Is lighted, and the newspaper
is opened, aud the home-circle Tor the
evening is begun. Then there are the
white dresses Tor the children. OF course
they will play on their hands and knees,
and will get soiled and marred with
nursery warfare; Of course the servants
will complain OF the big wash, and the
quantity Of starched clothes required
for the demands of the family wardrobe.
Silk dresses form another department of
domestic shams.
plaids and cashmeres, woolens and
serges, may charm with look, and tex
ture, and price, never SO wiSely--but
they are like chatf before the wind, as
they pale before the attractiveness Of
the cheap-silk department. Oh, how
these women.buyers and their consult
ing cabinet Of advisers feel and rustic
the silk, and hold it up to the light, and
compare its thickness with that which
is twenty-five cents more q yard! How
they rattle over the different French
manufacturers how the mild-mannered
and obsequious men-clerks go over their
same stock OF remarks thousands and
thousands of times How the candidate
for this article OF clothing compares silk
with silk, and searches down among the
roots of things to find out just which adj
wiser she can most rely ont And then
the black silk dress is bought, "ior a
black silk dress is always dressy, you
know, dear; one always looks well in a
black silk dress, doesn't one, Mary?'
Now what, as man, l maintain about
this phase OF domestic shams is simply
this: The black silk dress idea, which
is the normal type OF American womeh's
dressing, is simply an attempt to be
always in o superlative condition OF
dress-which is too commonly the aver
age American ambition English wo-
men dress in woolens; French women
draw their wardrobes from variety OF
textures-but our American women,
with this pervading pillow sham idea
running through their lives, can not be
happy unless they are continually, In
mud and rain, in horse cars and in
trains, at their social best. Conse-
quently they are arrayed in thin and
SHINY silks, cheap they may be, but at
least they are silks.