Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-03

+ Lii ISDOH HSd D1OI A1Ohs
the linen was spotless and fresh every day
the glass was without blemish and the
china, though not of the finest, was pretty
and tasty. and the servants were trained TO
attention and quick observation. The same
master hand and master eye were every
where throughout the house. No slattern-
illness was tolerated-the rule of trst come
first served, was as the laws of the Medes
and Persians-as matter of course, 1t be-
came
A PRECIOUS PRIVILEGE
to dwell within that house. A list of names
ever waiting for vacancies or lucky turns
was on hand. With the utmost tact, with
unvarying good treatment of her guests
with a heart full of sympathy for their
woes and crosses, she was woman In
thousand.
With that woman as superintendent OF
the cuisine, score of homes might have
been made happy-a score of failures pre-
vented-a score of women or more set free
from work for which they were incompetent,
and able to turn their hands to that for
which they were cut out by nature.
What is needed in housekeeping is ali ap-
plication of business rules and business
brains through which might be secured the
at the least expen1 1iture of capital and
muscle. Women as class do not apply
their minds to their business, or they would
long ago have reached some method of con-
Quoting housekeeping that would do away
with martyrdom. They would long ago
have discovered that an inscription on
tombstone testifying to selfsacrihce and en-
tire devotion to housework was not the
highest testimonial to common sense-that
leaving family of children to the kindly
care of stepmother was not the best indi-
cation of regard for their welfare, or the
sweetest memorial of a mothers love.
Women by this time should know enough,
of their physical nature to appreciate the
value of health, vigor and sound nerves as
essentials to happiness, not only for them
selves individually, but for all in their
household.
USELESS MARTYRDoM
It is no credit to a woman nowadays to
dig and delve, to uselessly waste their
efforts to economize and scrimp on them
selves for the benefit of those they so dearly
love. Such economy, such wear and tear,
such immolation of self lead only to the
grave, and of what benefit then are their
self-sacrifce, their martyrdom, when all
that remains is the sad memory of over
work, the waste of brain and body to no
appreciable end, but rather to the loss and
detriment of those bereft, who might have
been blessed with their love and compan-
ionship.
Housekeeping nowadays is mostly mar
tyrdom, slow in most cases, but sure, if
there Is not income enough to mitigate its
direst features and not sense enough to
throw off the yoke of society's most urgent
and rigorous demands. When a young couple
go to housekeeping with all things bright
about them, and doing the necessary house
work, is up to the limit of wife's physical
powers without taxing them too strongly,
the world is blissful-marriage is an insti-
tuition that falls in the highest desires and
noblest ideals, but the cares and trials of
maternity come, and then with the cradle
and the house-as things now go-the
strain of overwork begins, especially if the
income is limited and the struggle to make
both ends meet is hard. In such case,
either the house or the children have to suf-
fer from neglect-usually the latter. The
wife grows discouraged by her inability to
achieve eimpossibilities, and becomes nervous
and irritable.
DEATH WELCOME.
The measure of her powers falls far short
of the tax imposed, and in the vain effort to
keep up, she loses health, strength, youth,
and becomes peevish invalid, cross and
cranky housewife, whose ways and notions
Danish comfort from the freside, while the
worries and cares and incessant aggrava-
tons of daily toll beyond the limit Of endur-
ance, tend to break down the constitution
and destroy the vital forces, so that death is
welcomed as a refuge, and rest from the un-
equal struggle. This is not fancy picture
but an everyday reality. No one with an
observing eye or thoughtful mind can fail
to see the testimony in the faces of women
in the streets, the highways, In the churches,
the cars, the receptions, and wherever
women are found.
One of the worst features of housekeeping
is to be found in the incapacity of domestic
service. No more incompetent, exasperat-
ing, soul-harrowing human being is to be
found on earth than the average maid of all
work, or the usual ignorant alleged aids to
housekeeping service. Most married
women should have their time free to attend
to the morals and manners of their children,
but to run the house with such help as the
times afford would require the hundred eyes
of Argus, and the fifty heads and hundred
hands of Briarens. As things 60 now,
housekeeping is largely failure. 1t fails
in providing the sweet home. the castle of
content, the bower of bliss that furnish
theme for song and story, but is rarely
reality.
DON'T BOARD.
A boarding house as at present conducted
does not provide a suitable or agreeable
alternative. 1t relieves from the care of
the butcher, the baker, and candlestick-
maker-it provides for the living expenses
at certain fixed sum. 1t releases from the
worst drudgery, and takes away some of the
most tiresome features of housekeeping, but,
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lightful aloneness, the sweet privacy of the
home. A boarding house puts person al
ways on parade. His dress, his ways, his
manners, his hobbies, his weaknesses are
all on exhibition, and subject to the carping
criticisms of his fellows. In boarding
house, with little or nothing to do, the ave-
rage woman grows narrow and puerile and
inclined to sit in judgment on her fellows,
and gossip over small matters and putter
over bits of work, that are little else than
ingenious methods of killing time.
But never until women become independ-
ent, thinking beings, who understand their
business, and mean to make the most and
best of it, will the golden mean be reached
problem of sweeter manners, purer laws and
brighter homes will not be solved until they
take hold for themselves and devise such
plan of relief, such way of living, as well as
provide for the privacy, the comfort, the
sweetness of the ideal home by the accept
ance of such improvements as will do away
with the discomforts and drawbacks to
housekeeping. Apart from any sentiment
on the subject the matter of economy will
justify change.
THE PROBLEM SOLVED.
In six houses it may be said six kitchen
fires are lighted and an equal amount of
fuel wasted when one fire would do the
whole work required. Six cooks are en-
ployed to do work which one or two at the
most could do. Six laundries and their