Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-09-30
WHAT WOMEN READ.
The Marriages, the Deaths, the Scandals, and
the Hints on Etiquette
BROOKLYN Eagle


A man who has started a number of
papers and who is keen on all newspaper
subjects told me the other day that he
had at last hit upon a highly valuable
scheme.
"I have ascertained through a careful
series of observations" he said, '.that
women who read the newspapers are in
terested in four subjects: scandals, mar
riages, deaths and etiquette. Take any
woman in town and toss paper in her
lap while she is working on a 'splasher'
depicting the everlasting Three Little
Maids or is engaged in some equally alb
sorbing work and what does she do? First
she chances along the headlines until she
comes to the Victoria Morosini episode.
She at once drops her work, taps her
teeth meditatively with her thimble, and
wades through every word of the report.
The moral she draws from the story is
usually that she doesn't see why so much
fuss is made about that Morosini crea-
ture whom she saw one night on
the stage at the Casino and found to
be as awkward as a COW. Then she stops
abruptly and skins over the paper till she
finds the columns headed Deaths Here
she reveIs for long time, wondering if
the Johnson who has just died is any re-
ton to the Johnsons who boarded at the
second farmhouse down the turnpike
near the crossroads from where she spent
the summer in connecticut four years
ago. After arguing this over for some time
and settling it positively one way or the
other, she goes on to the next name. If
she discovers the death of a child she
diyines at once that it was scarlet fever,
and decides to have the doctor look at
that rash On Lucy's neck the instant she
returns from school. Then she comes to
the marriage column. Did you ever see
anything more amusing than the absorp-
t1on of the woman over the marriages
An earthquake wouldn't disturb her. She
invests every couple with the romance of
her own courtship, and goes off into spec
ulat1ons on the grOOms prospects and
the style of the brides wedding outfit. As
for the etiquette column. that makes her
chatter. Here she says, is the most
absurd young woman writes to the editor
to know whether she ought to go to a
theater with her young man without a
chaperon. l remember the first time
dear Henry took me to the theater,' and
so on. After she had waded through this
| column she threw the paper aside, and
that night when her husband comes home
she tells how much she was interested in
the newspaper. yes he says, the pa
pers are mighty readable now. That was
an awful catastrophe in Charleston, wasn't
it?' His wife looks up at him and says:
What was that, dear?' why, the earth
quake WAS there one. Well, there,
that stupid old paper didn't have word
about it," The husband goes and gets
the papers and shows her six column
article on the first page. She had not
seen it, of course. Now there's pointer
for any man with brains," continued the
protector of newspapers somewhat out of
BREATH but very much in earnest, "and
I'm going to work it out. Every woman
in America will buy paper that puts
forth intelligence on scandal, marriage
death, and etiquette in the most alluring
style of the art"