Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-01-29
WOMEN'S DEPARTMENT
EDITED BY BELLE MEADE SMITH.
The ruture Californians

The Future Californians
Are the boys and girls who are now
growing up, amid confusion OF
trunks, tin cans and improvised clos
cts. What influence will such sur
reundings have upon his or her after
life? is the question which naturally
arises. Certainly such associations,
to say the least Of it, do not serve to
educate the taste or refine the percep-
tons. Neither are they conducive to
the cultivation of that home feeling
which in maturer years Is
such q bulwark to the NOR
al character. In innumerable
instances this utter disregard of do
mestic comfort is the result Of cir
cumstances over which the heads of
families have no control, in others it
is due to a determination to speedily
amass fortune; and in many more
cases, it arises from an Indifference,
Improperly called atmospheric, but
which really is born of the absolute
cutting loose from old customs and
acuuaintances. In Los Angeles there
are great many beautifully furnished
and we'll conducted homes,
but the masses of the people
live in an abandoned style un-
worthy of even the poorer neighbor-
hoods of the East. Yet the majority
of these very people, previous to their
migration to the Pacific slope, lived
not only nicely, but elegantly. Of
course the change of residence and
the long journey consequent upon it
necessitated, in most instances, the
sale of all household effects and the
subsequent building up of new homes !;
but it did not necessitate perfect
emancipation from all rules Of
neatness, comfort and beauty.
/ know one respectable family,
consisting of a father, mother and
three children, two of whom are half
grown, who keep lodging-house, and
who sleep and eat in one small room.
1 know another of the same size and
social stratum who live in an apartment
adjoining a butcher shop, and which
is 80 thoroughly saturated with the
odor of fish and meat that night or
day it is impossible while in it to in
hale one breath of pure air.
Unfortunately, these cases are
not exceptional. Then, too, be-
hold the yard which surrounds
the average cottage. Instead
of being covered with grass, and
adorned with flowers, it is the recep-
tacle of every species of rubbish and
Disagreement. Unsightly sheds or
so-called barns, fences without even
an apology of paint, and boxes, and
discarded pans, and papers and rags
heaped in hopeless confusion one
upon another. To these surround
ings, therefore. the children's eyes
become habituated; they know no
more of beauty than they know of ice
and snow. They see, but they do not
observe the majestic grandeur of the
mountains, the celestial blue of the
sky and the gorgeous coloring of the
flowers which bloom so prodigally
about them. A few are born with
the love Of the beautiful, but the
majority are not, and SO, as their
tastes are not cultivated, they are
doomed to go through life with their
esthetic sight blindfolded. The
effect of this general carelessness has
a tendency to make Indifferent boys
develop into Indifferent men, and
slovenly girls develop into slovenly
women. Under such circumstan-
ces it is utterly impossible
for even the most clever girl to
learn how to keep house properly.
rko nd
fined, her clothing and books are
crammed into an overcrowded trunk,
or are tangled up with her brothers.
rubber boots and improvised kite in
the family closet; while she is so used
to seeing the frying pan under the bed
and the soiled linen in the vegetable
basket, that she growsup unconscious
of the domestic discord that would
have turned her New England grand
mothers hair gray in a week. Besides,
she misses the pleasure so dear to
every girl Of having room to herself
and which, at will, she can decorate
with the photographs of her school
mates, souvenirs in the form OF shells,
bits OF wood, illustrated cards, etr.,
and those countless fancy articles
wrought by herself or her COM
panions; and she has no parlor
wherein to entertain her friends-a
serious obstacle in the way of any
young woman, and one which serves
to drive her for amusement into the
streets. Where, then, is the future
Californian to look for a capable wife
unless he imports her from the
East, and what is to become Of
the girls of the present generation
if the boys all take unto them partners
from the more conventional sections
of the States? Possibly, when the
present boom dies out, and trade and
society drift into a more settled con-
dition, children and home will receive
more attention. Yet public sentiment
regulates these matters, and so long
as bad housekeeping is treated as a
jest and not an ofense against good
breeding, slip-shod ways are apt to
prevail.
The Highest sphere.
No woman is SO happy as she who
has been wise or fortunate enough to
marry we'll, and who has thought
full husband and a sunshiny home.
No woman is so unfortunate as she
whom genius or necessity has created
a celebrity. The famous woman, it
is true, gets all of the glory, the i'm
mortality, but the domestic woman
Ill H. l.