Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-09-24
Making the Ends Meet.

f0OuefA are COuhuuhlll LilluB w HblNNe
Our farmers wives rise early and sit up
late filling every waking hour with the
varied activities required by their CIR
cumstances, in order that they may help
pay for the farm, or meet necessary
family expenses, or lay up little for q
rainy day. Our mechanics wives are
busy from morning till night with
household tasks, and many of them with
extra work by which they add to the
weekly earnings. A large number Of
the wives of professional men are full of
care and labor, trying TO make little
go a great ways, and on irregular and
scanty collections to "keep up appear
ancesn and secure comfort. Their lives
are filed with uncertainties and they
can depend on no regular income how
ever small. Even the well-to-do, If they
are to remain in that enviable condition,
must do a great deal of housekeeping,
and balance their accounts with exact
ness and regularity, or they will run be-
hind These various classes of women
continually dream of the time when they
will be less burdened with care and la
Dor, and life will be easy to them. Some
of them may realize their dream, but
the great majority will always have to
enonomize, will always have to work,
will always have to carry load of care.
And the question continually recurs as.
to the points where economy shall be
most rigidly exercised, where labor will
be most profitable, where care may be
most effectively lghtened.
| AS to economy, those women, who in
preference to employing a servant do
| their housework themselves with the as
sistance their children can give, save in
waste and wages and board more
than double what they would
pay servant, besides, as a.
| rule, having their work done better, and
/ having their girls and boys brought up
to know how to perform domestic du-
| ties, and habimated to performing them.
| 1t is the superfluities of life that are
costly. 1t has been shown again and
again that upon very small outlay per
week or per year for edibles comforta-
BILE subsistence may be maintained.
Flour, sugar, vegetables are not eXpen-
sive; it is the extras that cost so much.
The Scotch, the Italians, the Chinese,
are examples of vigorous life on an in
expensive diet. As to clothing, stand
ard goods. as domestics, calicoes, cloths,
may be obtained at reasonable prices,
but when we buy silks and fancy goods
we must pay roundly for them. Those
who must every day be confronted by
the question, How to make the ends
meet, should indulge very sparingly in
super1uities. Plain furniture and up
holstery are cheap and easily taken
care of, while brocades and moquetteS
are costly and require great care to
keep them nice. If those who can af-
ford only plain food, who can indulge
] 81 ay,I 1osV
would spend according to their means,
they would have little trouble in making
the ends meet. We are apt to fancy that
a little display will deceive our neigh
bors and make them think us better off
than we are, but we deceive ourselves
wofully if we trust to such fancies.
Every body knows Just about how well
off every body else in the neighborhood
is, no matter what the superficial ap-.
pearance may be. And those who are
brave enough and honest enough to live
according to their means and according
to their ideas of right living, command
universal respect.
As to hard work. Here it is the SUI
perfuities that cost. 1t is an easy task,
comparatively, to prepare simple meal,
= where the dishes are few and plain. 1t
is easy to ''clear away" after such q
meal. But where one must have pie
and cake and crullers and jellies and
| creams in addition to meats and vegeta-
: bles, the labor before and after meals
3 becomes formidable. Simplicity in liv-
ing is the solution which will help many
+ over-worked women. The hard-work-
3 ing man who can not make satisfactory
l meal on meats, vegetables, bread and
fruit, each perfectly prepared, ought to
go hungry. The fact is, great many
Y housekeepers take little pains with these
: standard dishes, and trust to the excel
l lence of their pies and desserts to make
9 up their deficiencies in cooking the plain
4 dishes. Then as to clothing. Since the
Q era of the sewing-machine 50 much
g tucking and ruffling and pulling and
I knife-plaiting and stitching and braiding
y has become possible and fashionable
J, that to many woman the sewing-ma-
e chine has been made curse rather than
s a blessing. To those who can afford
= them these superhuities are all well
enough, but to those who can not and
yet indulge in them they are millstOnes
about their necks. Plain clothes are
easily made, are easily washed and
Q ironed, and require little care to keep
n them in order.
: +" Living in style" is very costly
IL way of living. 1t costs in money, in
/ labor, in care. People who have hard
T time to make the ends meet and yet in
g sist on living in style have a very labori-
J. Gus life. There is no slavery more
IS wearing, no bondage more degrading,
, than that endured by those who
IL are under the dominion of fashion,
: of the desire to keep up appearances
IS and the fear of what people will say or
. think of them. Such people live as in a
$ balloon, which may at any moment col
lapse or be carried no one knows where
4 by sudden currents, unexpected and .ir-
> resistible. The man, the woman, who
. lives within ones income, who lives as
70 he or she can afford to live in respect to
v style, to fashion, to expenditure, is the
X happy man, the happy woman. They
n dare TO make the ends meet by daring
o to dispense with whatever will keep the
u ends apart; and thus they escape debt,
7, care, anxiety. They may not escape
II labor, and it is not desirable to escape
's labor, for that is "our portion under
, the sum-" and when not exaggerated by
II artificial demands is wholesome and
e profitable to us. There are no unhap-
10 pier, no more restless and unsatisfable
& people breathing than those who are
3 '' depraved with ease" There is no
r happier class than the class that by
daily labor earns daily bread, whether
oonrpallpd IN earn IL or NOT N. y