Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1886-03-20
HOW NOT TO LIVE cAeApLY
The System Of Underfeeding-Is stern
Economy Good Thing?
lphsiaaalnht. 49,

The leading French and English Jour
nals have given lately several articles
on the art Of living, or, rather, the art
OF living cheaply. They are addressed,
OF course, 70 the poorest classes. Ger
tain examples are held up for imitation.
NJ. Rousseau, for instance, working file.
maker, receiving about 40 cents per
day. spends 10 cents for food,
and so limits his expenses for
clothes, rent, ETC., as TO save
nearly $3.50 in three months. Install
ces of admirable managers among the
wives of English laborers are cited who
have rednced their EXPENSE for food To
the lowest amount of pennies on which
a human being could subsist. The les
son which all these articles enforce is
that the poor should study how to do
without meat, and other savory morsols
in their daily food, to live on oatmeal.
milk, soup, etc, and that the rich
should combine to enforce this lesson,
and SO help the poor to help them.
selves, instead of giving blankets,
Christmas dolls and grants to sick
women and children
The tone and animus OF these reform
atory articles agree precisely with those
which appear every six months in the
American papers, and which are aimed
at the woes Of laboring men They are
told that the average American menage
Is the most eXtrayagant in the world /:
that two French families would subsist
on the waste in one of our Kitchens,
etc, etc The remedy is Invariably a
system Of economy in food; 10 or Is
cent dinners, compounded chieSy of
beans and bones, soups made of high
tinYors and much water.
Now we do not advocate the waste of
9 crust But VIC do question the wis
Com of stinginess in providing food for
family. The man anil woman who use
their bodies for hard manual labor must
nourish them Let economy begin
somewhere olse. Let the rooms go
without carpets and dresses without
trimming, but let the meals be substan
tial and solid.
Practically the system of underfeed-
ing never has answered. If man does
not get the amount OF nutriment which
his tody requires he viii take stimulant
instead. Wine makes up to JAG ues for
his soupe maigre and whisky to Sandy
for his oatmeal. The nervous Ameri-
can, with his fluctuating extremes OF
climate, 70 }uires variety of food, and
nature has provided it for him. The
economical housekeeper, whose praise is
IN all the papers, who saves out of her
market money enough TO buy hooks and
is committing fatal error,
to which half the female reformers
thoughtlessly egg her on.
1t is worth our while, too, to look
souarely at this question of economy
All English speaking people believe
though they may not practice it that
strict economy is the chief practical vir.
ture-a good and helpful thing to
man an a family. The Scotch taught
this faith to Great Britain AMI the iuri
tans to America. 1t was true to them
both in their hard struggle with pow
erty and niggardly soil.
ut is it always true Is stern, pinch
ing economy good thing Is it help
full thing Toes not the child become
more liberal, generous, happier man,
healthier in body and mind. who has
not from his birth been nagged and
rasped by petty economies, by the per-
petual gnawing Of stomach and brain
for food that was denied them2 Has
not the penny wise system pushe to
extremes produced in individuals and
races a mosose and gloomy temper, in
tolerance, narrow, bigoted habits of
thought aud action Would the Amer.
lean have his characteristic large. care
less good nature, his sweet, tolerant
charity for all men and creeds if he had
been Systematically starved and stinte1
in material goods in his Childhood
Again, the American or Lnglish eco
lomist, who, sitting in his own luxu-
nous home after u comfortable meal,
plans how the workingman must first of
all | @ taught how to live on so many
pennies per diem for food, so many fol
;Oals, so many for clothes, etc, the
whole representing the EXTREMIST con
iitions of poverty, forgets that no hu
nan being ever did or could run this |
lard, Unvary:ng round of work and
1are necessity, month after month, year
lfter year. There must be an outlet
he amusement, the excitement |
he extravaganza - the step be-
'ond bodily necessity, which
makes live worth living. Man
cannot live by bread alone, even when
lis bread is of the finest 1t is among
he laboring class in ngland and cot
aud who are forced down to their
arrest, hardest conditions OF work and
NY that there is the most gin drunk.
hat intemperance and unchastity are
most common. Human nature will and
loes break over somewhere. Cheap.
wholesome amusements provided for
he poor are the most effective, health
III form of modern benevolence. They
re beginning to supply in England and
n this country what the Frenchman
T Italian finds for himself in his dances
nd frequent fetes.