Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1885-12-18
Woman and Home.
THE WHrRLISG METROPOLIS AND ITS CEAs-
LESS ARTIFcIALITY.

There is less domesticity among the womer
Of New York than in any other American
city. There is less home life in New Yorl
than any other American city. There il
hardly house from one end Of the city to
the other that looks like home. The streets
are unhomelike--the elevated railroads.&c.
the hard. jangling mass of stone and iron,
are only suggestive of a makeshift, Temporal
~ style of existence. 1t is like living in q
hotel close to railroad depot where ones
ears are constantly belabored with the ring.
ing of bells and the sizzIng of steam.
Take look Up and down one of our streets
whether up or Obwn town. The houses are
jammed together as if they were packed for
shipment. the streets are made of granite
boulders and the endless stream of horses
and vehicles is shod with steel. Fifth ave-
pue looks like barren waste Not tree
or bit of grassy yard softens its hard and
unsympathetic aspect. The sun shines. bu,
| in summer that but makes the stones dryer
and hotter; the wind blows, but in winter
that but makes the prospect bleaker and
more cherries. Nature is almost denied
admission. Artiiciality reigns over all, and
dominates all with remorseless will. pri-
vate residence in New York is private hotel
hence there is not much difference between
living at home and living at a public house.
| People come to New York from every
where. The death rate is far greater than
the birth rate. People are born before they
come here, but they stay here to die. The
| only memories of home most of US have are
founded back in Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky,
Missouri, France, England, Ireland. Germa-
ny or somewhere else. People come here to
make money, just as they focked into Cali
fornia IN l849 and 1850. and many of them
grow very rich and build fine houses and
have troops of servants and go to Europe
every summer and hive yatchs and build cot
tages at watering places and amaze the whole
world with their extravagsnces. But all this
involves the neglect the destruction of home
and home life.
From mans standpoint this is not dis
tressing; at least it is not so as long as he
looks at the present only and takes a selfish
view of life. A man is very we'll adapted to
living in hotel or in steam yacht or on a
railroad car. He can even camp out, 90 SOL
diering. live around the borders of the north
pole or put up with the accommodations of
Central Africa. But how about the women
and children? What a life it is for them in
New York. The children that grow up in
this great whiring metropolis are much like
the chickens made by patent incubators. flaw
orless and characterless. Mothers farm out
tnelT CnlluTeu I'd tte nursery malu ana go out
to enjoy themselves in the theatre or at re-
ceptions. The glare of ceaseless artif1ciality
comes in to dry up every tender and enno-
bling impulse.
Home is woman's kingdom. If it is not,
she has none at all. All her efforts to get
outside and make something else her king
dom have been disastrous to society in gen.
general and fatal to herself in particular
She is the natural csnservator of all the sim
pie virtues, the first teacher of the primary
lessons of life, the appointed guardian of the
infant race, and it is around the fireside that
her sweet and gentle influences fall upon the
heart like the sumner rain falls upon the
grateful earth. She is the first leader. The
first footsteps follow after hers. To her the
hands are first held out, and she goes astray
and is lost in the gay world; what becomes
of the future? The whole tendency of New
York life is to destroy all the associations and
endearments of home and turn womanhood
adrift on restless sea of dissipation, extrav-
| agance and waste. The result of this is that
New York will become nothing but center
| OF exhaustion-a sort of remorseless Moloch,
where people are thrown in to be eaten up
and destroyed with no aftergrowth. 1t is a
happy circumstance that New York does not
include the whole country.-N Y. World.