Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-11-03
THE "PISEN.CLEAN" WOMAN.

Cleanliness is an excellent requirement.
tits so great an requirement that one does
not wonder thet the sentence "Cleanli-
ness is next to Godliness" was popularity
supposed, for an indefinite period, to be
quotation from the Bible. Cleanliness is
the chief distinction between the tramp
and many millionaires, albeit there have
been many millionaires who could not
claim even this advantage over the tramp.
But the sentence, Cleanliness is next to
Godlness, cannot be found in the Bible,
nevertheless. You cannot have too much
Godliness, too much temperance, too much
discretion, too much wisdom, but you
can have too much neatness. There have
been overneat men. We have met one or
two in our time. They always get up in
the night to eat, and are enemies of sleep
as they are of dirt. But they are not so
numerous nor SO pestiferous as the over
neat woman.
Who has not met the overneat woman
We do not need to describe her. But we
will. Revenge is sweet. She makes her
husband exchange his boots for slippers
on the door step. No matter how low the
thermometer or barometer, the poor fel-
low must doff his boots in the porch. Is
he wet? He must stay on the stoop till
he has done dripping. Consumption?
What is that compared with soiled car
pet? The small boy, what a life he leads
with such a mother! Followed about by
dust pan and brush and scolding voice
(the hyperneat woman is always cross)
all of childhood's days, he early runs to
club-room or a beer-saloon where he can
see little rubbish and find the luxury of
dirt. We once knew lady of this char
acter who, when lightning providentially
struck her house and killed servant,
swept up the evidencing dirt the shock
had dislodged, before the coroner could
be called.
These 'pizen-clean" women always
hate to have company. .'Guests are SO
dirty, you know" The parlor is kept
dark and unused from year to year. The
carpets would fade and dust would accrue.
We once knew a woman who refused to
open her parlor for the wedding of her
daughter. 1.-The street is too dusty" she
said. She is dust now They opened the
parlor for the funeral, and one almost
wonders that she did not turn over in her
coffin.
| The Overneat woman cleans house twice
a year. Twice year the uncomfortable
husband and children are made doubly
uncomfortable. The weakness of the flesh
alone deters her from house-cleaning
every moon. The overneat woman de-
lights to make people uncomfortable.
She is thin, dyspeptic, has nerves, is trou-
bled with dirt on the brain. Dirt on the
brain is very wearing to the constitution,
and the hyperneat woman nearly always
dies Young. If she did not all her house,
hold would Her husband always has
another chance. This is dispensation
of Providence. We write with some feel
ing ON this subject, although, thank God,
we have only seen the Overneat woman
afar off. But we have seen the lives of
good men embttered, we have seen boys
driven to ruin, and girls imbued with such
a hatred of cleanliness that they have be
come very slatterns, by overneat wives
and mothers.
All, mother, do you not mind cluttered
floor, a little gravel or sand on the carpet,
a finger mark on wallpaper or mirror.
The day may come when a little dirt
spread by baby feet or laid on by busy
baby fingers would be the gladest sight in
the world.
"We wandered sadly round the room,
No relic could we find;
No toy of hers to soothe our gloom
She left not one behind.
''But look! there is misty trace,
Faint, underlined and broken.
Of fingers on the mirrors face
A dear, though simple token"
All, friends, how clean such dirt is