Milford chronicle., 1888-02-17

powered with wine and beer that they can
hardly st up, while there arc many SC
| called respectable restaurants where they car
60 and take their champagne and hot toddy
all alone Mighty temperance voters thos,
women would make Besides that, tn
wives Of the rum sellers would have to VOTE
in the interest of their husbands business, or
have time the inverse Of felicitcus. Be
sides that, millions of respectable and re
fined women in America would probably
not vote at all, because they do not want to
/ 60 to the polls, and, on the other hand,
womanly roughs would all go to the polls,
/ and that might make make woman's vote on
the wrong side. There is not, in my mind,
much prospect of the expulsion of drunken
ness by female suffrage.
As to woman's wages to be corrected by
woman's vote, have not much faith in that
| Women are harder on women than men are
Masculine employers are mean enough in
/ treatment Of women, but If you want to hear
beating down of prices and wages in perfect
/ ion, listen how some women treat washerwO-
menand dressmakers and female servants
/ Mrs. Shylock is more merciess than Mr.
| Shylock Women, l fear, will never get
righteous wages through woman's vote, and
as to unfortunate womanhoOd, woman are
far more cruel and unfOrgiving than men are.
After a woman has made shipwreck Of her
character men generally drop her, but wo-
men do not so much drop her as hurl her
with the force of a catapult clear out and off
and down and under
have not much faith that women viii
ever get merciful consideration and justice
through woman suffrage, yet 1 like expert
ments, and some of my friends in whose judg-
ment have confidence are so certain that al
deviation would come by such process that /
would if 1 had the power, put in every
womans hand tho vote. 1 cannot see what
right you haye to make a woman to pay
taxes on her property to help support city,
state and national government and yet deny
her tho opportunity of helping to decide who
shall be mayor, governor or president. But
let every wife, not waiting for the vote she
may never get, or, getting it, find it outbal-
anced by some other vote not fit to be cast,
arise now in the might Of the eternal God and
WELD the power Of a sanctified wifely ambi-
ton for a good approxinating the infinite.
No one can so inspire a man to noble pur-
poses as a noble woman, and no one so thor
oughly degrade a man as a wife of unworthy
tendencies. While in my text we have illus
tration of wifely ambition employed in the
wrong direction, society and history are full
of instances of wifely ambition gloriOusly
triumphant in right directions. All that was
worth admiration in the character of Henry
VI was reflection Of the heroics of his wife
Margaret. William Prince of Orange, was
restored to the right path by the grand
qualities of his wife Mary. Justinian, the
Roman emperor, confesses that his wise laws
were the suggestion of his wife Theodora.
Andrew jackson, the warrior and president,
had his mightest reinforcement in his plain
wife, whose inartistic attire was the anuse-
ment Of the elegant circles in which she was
invited Washington, who broke the chain
that held America in foreign vassal9ge, wore
for forty years chain around his own neck,
that chain holding the miniature likeness Of
her who had been his greatest inspiration,
whether among the SHOWS at Valley Forge or
amid the honors of the presidential chair.
Phny's pen was driven through all its poetic
and historical dominions by his wife Calpur-
MIA, who sang his stanzas to the sound Of
flute and sat among audiences enraptured
at her husbands genius, herself the most
enraptured. Pericles said he got all his
eloauence and statCsmanship from his wife.
When the wife Of GrOtius rescued him from
long imprisonment at LOvestein by means of
a bookcase that went in and out, carrying
his books to and fro, he one day transported,
hidden amid the folios, and the women of
besieged Weinsberg, getting permission from
the victorious army to take with them SO
much of their vaiuables as they could carry,
under cover Of the promise shouldered and
took with them as the most important valu-
ables their husbands-both achievements in
a literal way illustrated what thousands of
times has been done in a figurative way, that
a.. Il r.
men.
De Tocqueville, whose writings viii be po-
tential and quoted while the world lasts,
ascribes his success to his wife, and says: "Of
all the blessings which God has given to me,
the greatest of all in my eyes is to have
lighted ON Maria Motley Martin Luther
says of his wife: 81 would not exchange my
poverty with her for all the riches of Crocsus
without her." Isabella OF Spain, by her su-
perior faith in Columbus, put into the hand
of Ferdinand, her husband, America John
Adams, president of the United States, said
of his wife: "She never, by word or look,
discouraged me from running all hazards for
the salvation of my cOuntry's liberties"
Thomas Carlyle spent the last twenty years
of his life in trying by his pen to atone
for the fact that during his wife's
life he never appreciated her influ-
ence on his career and destiny. Alas
that having taken her from a beautiful home
and brilliant career, he should have buried
her III the home of a recluse and scolded her
in such language as only a dyspeptic genius
could manage until one day, while in her in
validism riding in Hyde Park, her pet dog
got run over and under the excitement the
coachman found her dead. Then the liter
airy giant woke from his conjugal injustice
and wrote the lamentations of Craigen-Put- |
took ard Cheyne Row. The elegant and ful-
some epitaphs chat husbands put upon their
wives tombstones are often an attempt to
make up for lack Of appreciative words that
should have been uttered in the ears Of the |
living. A whole Greenwood of monumental |
inscriptions will not do wife so much good |
after she has quit the world, as one plain SEN
tence like that which Tom Hood wrote to his |
living wife when he said: Il never was any
thing till knew you"
Oh, woman, what is your wifely ambition, |
noble or ignob'el Is it high social positionl |
That will then probably direct your husband, |
and he will climb and scramble and slip and /
fall and rise and tumble, and ON what level |
or in what depth or on what height he will !
after while be found 1 cannot even guess.
The contest for social position is the most un-
y
It is so uncertain about your getting it, and |
so insecure a possession after you have OBJ /
tained it, and so unsatisfactory even if you /
keep it, The whisk Of a lady's fan may blow .
it out The growl Of one bear or the below
ing of one bull on Wall street may scatter it.
Is the wife's ambition the political prefcr-
luent Of her husbandl Then that will prob /
ably direct him. What a God forsal1en
realm is American politics those best know
who have dabbled in them. After they have
assessed man who is candidate for Office
which he does not get, or assessed him for
some Office attained, and he has been whirled
round and round and round and round among
the drinking, smoking, swearing crowd who
often get control Of public affairs, all that is
left Of his sef-respect or moral stamina
would find plenty of room on a geomeuical
point, which is said to have neither length,
breadth or thickness. Many wife has not
been satisfied till her husband went into poll