The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1878-05-29

have never known OF very iu9Hg "oiANi
who did these things. 1t seems Prt-
ori. as though floral decoration and bou-
quet making belonged by natural right
t. women. | nevertheless have yet TO
hear OF the first woman who can make a
florists bouquet. They say woman
can't do il | don't believe EN-, but
where Is the woman who eau and does
make florists bouquets
The Woman's Society Of Decorative
Art, in New York, was organized by
number Of benevolent ladies to encour-
age working women to master thorough
lv" one branch Of industrial art. 10
''master thoroughly" what she under
taxes is the grand secret Of success for
the surplus woman. She would much
better starve to death than 10 attempt
anything, and merely enlarge the So
cjety Of wretched inc0mpetents." Both
she and the world would be better of If
she were dead, than if she lives and
whiningly and grudgingly dabbles INTO
this or that occupation, and with eyes
and mind off her work, spends her time
gaping around here and there for the
coming man. Il is only when the sur
plus woman does her work so we'll that
by it she can lay up a competency for
her old age, that the world will begin to
think she is somebody. When she can
do that the world will cease to wdg its
head and say, "You cant get husband,
YOU can't because the comfortable sur
plus woman will be able to retort:
"Who wants husband?'
The most fatal mistake the surplus
Z h. IL
ing all her money for clothes. 1t was
certainly not so with working women
formerly. | have seen the portrait OF a
workingwoman who lived in Cincinna ii
thirty-year5 ago, noble looking woman,
with the face of clear thinker. She
was widow, with two children. She
looked about her and found that the work
nearest her hand was the prosaic and not
very hifalutih occupation OF dress-mak
ing So at it she went with all her
might doing her best, saving what she
could as she went along, and investing 1t
shrewdly. She lived comfortably, but
not eXtravagantly, and went on attend
ing strictly to her work, and when she
died the property she had accumulated
was sold for 100000 Sixty thousand
dollars just at dress-making was not so
bad. The excellent lady's portrait was
taken in a rich black silk dress, but she
| didn't have the silk dress when she start
ed out in life. No more did this wise
woman take the first money she earned
and buy the silk dress. 1t did not come
till after the lady had become the owner
Of something which wouldn't wear like
a dress.
Among the weary sad hearted women
who tell me their forlorn stories, are
very often those who have known good
times in their lives. They had silk
dresses in plenty, and servants and car
riages at their command. They could
have saved enough while the sun shone
to last them all the rest of the rainy days
of their lives, but they thought their
good times would last forever. Good
times, though, do not last anybody for
ever. They come in showers; and when
the shower is once past, the chances are
that it will hardly ever overtake the
same individual again. These unhappy
ladies who have had good times spent
their money with a royal hand while they
had it, aud saved nothing, and now they
have nothing left to live on but some
bitter regrets.
eff l only hadn't been fool when l
had money, Is the one cry of them all.
To put by a few savings from time to
time while she has it is the bitterest and
most necessary lesson for a workingwo-
man to learn. [ have asked the ques-
ton, | am sure, fifty times, of women
clerks, schoolmistresses, house servants,
or seamstresSes and woman in all 0ccupa-
tons. Do you save any of your earn
ings2 and with only one e.15pti0n that
l think of now, the answer is invariably
"Not a cent" The one exception Think
of is wise scho0lmistress, SO full of de
termination and electric energy that in
ten years teaching she bought and paid
for with her own savings a neat home
for herself and parents. This proud and
happy little schoolmistress takes more
comfort in decorating and improving her
home than any rich mans wife | ever
saw did in her palatial mansion.
What this one teacher did every other
woman teacher in Cincinnati can do, if
only she has the will and the good sense.
But they don't do it. They spend every
cent OF their wages as they go along, near
" all for clothes. You will notice that
clerks and teachers go to church
and the theatre dressed like a duchess or
a soap and tallow factory mans wife. It's
all very nice to have pretty clothes, but
it does not gain them friend the more in
the world, and-what'n they do when
they get too old to work?
| know three young working women
two sisters and d cousin well who live
alone with the mother of the two sisters.
They are comparatively well paid, and the
united wages of the three amount to per
haps $3.50 a month The mother is hale,
vigorous woman, amply able to do the
lousework for them all, and a woman
who was not too proud to hoe corn and
milk cows in her youth. Well, instead
IF living in a fiat of four rooms, or neat
cottages little outside the city, and con-
less expensive, and their moth
n doing the little homework in a neat,
lainty way herself, these foolish women
'ent $50 house, quite twice as large as
hey need, keep q wasteful servant girl, |
and in all respects live as people with
vice their income ought to live. d Ask |
hem if they save anything, and the an
wer is the old one:
Not a cent"
They have apparently no thought that
his sort of thing can't last forever. Re
nonstrate with them for spending all |
heir income, and they confess privately |
hey are doing it in hopes to entrap |
ich husband. | know l ought to be killed |
or thus telling things out o school, but |
between ourselves the rich husband does
lot come though he's been looked for anx
ously these five years. The prospects
re that he win not come. There are
lot enough of him to go around. Instead
f thus straining every nerve to live be- !
ond their means, and being after all on
Y miserable, jealous, discontinued Great
res, the four women might live in the
reatest comfort and happiness on 500 |