The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1885-03-20

| nlbcnQcu W DuSlutSS. gov over my sur
prise then, and last week received with per-
| feet calmness the announcement that Dan had
been made Secretary OF the Treasury by
President Cleveland" Is there any better
instance anywhere of the breadth of the
American opportunity?
| Husbands and Wives
From the Baltimore Sun.
| An article published in the Sun some days
ago, from the Louisville er.Journal, enti-
| tied "a Plea for Deserving Wives" seems to
have attracted good deal of attention. Other
wives "who know how it is themselves" con-
| fess that the complaint made by the writer
| against stingy or inconsiderate husbands is only
too well founded, and the Sun has been asked
| to ilaunt the wrong before the eyes of peecant
| husbands until they see the error of their ways
and make glad the hearts Of innumerable wives
whose days are embittered by having the money
necessary for the provisioning and maintenance
| of the household doled out to them in pitiful
| sums and not unfrequently with grumbling.
| The plea of the Louisville writer is that wom-
| an worthy of the confidence of her husband
ought not to be subject to the modification of
constantly having to ask him "tor every five
cents she has to spend'' or "for the money for
| the dinners marketing" and an instance is CT
| ted in which woman who had been married
| forty years was obliged to exert "the greatest
| tact, courage, patience and gentleness to coax
| from her husband sufficient money to buy for
| herself or her children the clothes demanded by
| the customs of decency and civilization" We
presume the complaint of the indignant writer
is intended to apply TO persons occupying a
middle station in the social economy, and yet,
of husbands in that sphere of life, it would. be
manifestly unjust to include all of them in
| sweeping generalization. There are mean as
there are generous, and as there are good, bad
and indifferent heads of families. There are also
men who would be liberal to their wives in the
way of money if the condition of their business
would admit of it. Few women know the strain
that some men are put to for the purpose of
keeping up appearances and preserving their
credit. OF such ii is not their will that forces
them TO keep vigorously down the expenses of
their households and to deny their wives the
small allowance of money that it would be q
pleasure to them to have in their pocket books,
not SO much from q passion for spending as be-
cause of the sense of independence that it gives.
1t is one of the faults of our modern civilization
that men do not often make confdants of their
wives. They keep their business troubles to
themselves, they become morose and gloomy
and irritable, and in many cases it is only when
the crash comes that the apparently neglected
wife can appreciate the chivalrous feeling, mis-
taken though 1t was, that induced the husband
to bear his burden alone. He would have found
comfort and consolation to have shared it with
an atlectionate and sensible woman; to have
done so with shallow one would have been to
subject himself to another and sharper thorn
In the flesh. 1t is an everyday experience that
persons are well mated, the man tender and con-
siderate, the woman careful, affectionate and
economical within just bounds-where the hus-
band makes the wife the partner of his joys and
sorrows, and the wife, wise and prudent coun-
selor in many things, has no secrets from her
husband There are many such households in
this land, and in them the question of pocket
money is anticipated either by the thoughtful
liberaity of the husband, or by his making
the wife the custodian of such sums as he may
be able &c lay by for personal or domestic
needs. The worst husbands are the intensely
selfish and the intensely mean. The one spends
all he has to spare in his own qualification, in
cudes in it the allowance he ought to set aside
for his wife, and affects to be astonshed that she
wants anything beyond ''her board, lodging
and Clothes" The other begrudges every dol
lar spent, even in things necessary for the fam
lily, looks closely after bits of soap and candle
ends lives meanly, boards avarcously, looks
upon his wife as dependent and his children as
lncum brances, and would no more make the pa
tient and shrinking woman whom he has sub
dued to his hand, whose life he has blighted,
and whose affection he has destroyed, an allow
ance of pin money than he would take off five
cents from the bill of customer unless he ex-
pected to make ten cents out oil him in some
other way. 1t is these two classes of men that
are the blight of so many households, and it 10
against them and Others of kindred neglectful-
ness and stinginess that the bitterness and scorn
of the Louisville writer are directed. That
other sad and sorrowful wives
share the same feelings and are sufferers from
the same utter dependence and neglect is mani
fest from the request made of the San 'to pub
fish the article again and again, In order that
the man the cap fits may have the benefit of it,"
The San can hardly do that, but it has in this
way called attention TO great household wrong,
however little it hopes to see it corrected.