The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-03-22

" rltten Tor the indianapolis Journal
The love of the chase comes to us from an
cestors who spent their lives killing wild ami
mails. Man expends this hereditary love in ex-
tirpating weeds and killing robins and squirrels.
Woman still pursues the original chase with in
tense hate and exterminating zeal. Woman's
sports do not take her over 'the stubble chapt
1.-THE thistly lawn, "the rushy fen" 'the ragged
furze" and the stony heath Her days hunt
ends not with the sound of the retreating horn,
THAT calls to ghostly halls Of grey renown
With woodland honors graced."
She hunts in her own house. Rats, which
sometimes eat babies, are her largest game.
Rats around, she cleans every Granny, stops
holes, forbids crumbs and sets her trap. In au-
tumn, when the deer mice of the fields scamper
through open doors and windows and whisk be-
hind bookcases, the housewife and her cat have
good sport She often gets ''pot-shot with
fine new trap, and gloats over the bright
eyed, pointed-eared, satin-furred game with
a huntress' gee. Spiders come in
to seek shelter from cold in autumn, and skulk
about the edges of carpet in their black velvet
coats, spotted with yellow. and black silk
fringed leggings; the housewife sweeps down
their webs, knowing they viii soon die and dry
up in corners for lack of food.
Cockroach hunting is intensely interesting.
Cockroaches have to be killed one by one with
''hideous squelch,' sprinklng of hellebore or
stream from the boiling teakettle being the only
weapons known against them. Show the wife
q cockroach sneaking along a crevice, she bris-
ties up and goes at it with fan, book, slipper or
parasol and never rests till the last foe expires
Fleas. also have to be fought one by one; bed
bugs the same, with some help from their an
cient adversary, corrosive sublinate.
The iy-killing of surnmer-when screens are
up, rooms are darkened, and brushes made of
slit paper nailed to bFoonstiels are hourished-
is no mean sport, resulting as it does
in speckless brasses and spotless mirrors
The moths are chased from rooms and
carpets in both spring and fall Shelves and
drawers, window tops and door-tops ceiling
eornces, garnet rafters and furnace registers are
explored with brooms and cloths like thickets in
q forest for stray game.
No lazy woman is good huntress Lazy and
disorderly women's homes are cloud Of moths
in spring The energetic housewife enjoys clean
ing out boxes and closets in search of moths
She likes to look over the half forgotten treas
ures therein, such as shabby old novels, capital
old letters and sketches and drawings, and old
broken-hinged boxes flied with old diaries and
journals. The old journals are torn and ink
splashed. and carelessly written, but the house
wife, grimy of hand and dusty Of hair and grow
ing chilly in the raw spring day, looks at them
with smiles and streaming tears. Sweet, dear
old names, records of old visits, of old guests
also of unexpected happiness and joy, never to
to be equalled again, because it was
the joy of youth. when all was
in anticipation; and then the cheering
tale of dreaded events that never came to pass
are in the old journals, Men ought to be thank
full that women have these sports of the chase;
women are disconnected creatures, and the chief
objects of their discomfort are their husbands.
Many wife who is
"Fretful as the wind
Pent in a crevce"
Becomes quite contented during the spring moth
hunt
If Mistress Much-Afraid, the daughter of
Mister Dependency, had been good house
keeper she would have staid at home content in
the city of Destruction instead of wandering
about. away from home. Women have rather
dry lives
by custom and tradition they live,
And foolish ceremonies Of antique date"
And it is well they have these sports Of thechase
now and then Macy DEAN.