, 1890-01-19

seuu-fArTihEe on e-sOtO n nehr or on
SIC, DOC
Copyright, 1901
No doubt it is a truism to say that the
code of unwritten law regulating social
matters in '"these United States has
within the memory of man undergone a
very extensive revision, and ''things are
not as they used to be-" But, as some
body says, ''Truisms are generally very
true" and this n is SO true that it
forces itself upon ones attention when
ever one reads or hears of how social life
was conducted in New York or PhiIa-
delphia or Boston fifty or seventy-fve
years ago, when Chicago was a bowling
wilderness and San Francisco a sleepy
little mission hamlet.
In those good old days, which | for
one am very glad ended before l began,
the country was still in that compare
lively new condition when there was
space and occupation and demand for a
great many more people thar applied for
them. In a word, the demand for men
exceeded the supply, and the conse-
quence was that such men as there were
desired to marry and become the heads
of families. Probably, also, all the
women felt like Cornelia, who paraded
her two boys as her chiefest Jewels and
her stake in the country"
In those days the standard of social
life was far simpler, less expensive and
less burdensome han is ours. The
young wife provided herself with cotton
gowns and big aprons and went into her
kitchen daily, not simply to hold up her
skirts in one jeweled hand and daintilv
point the other at this and that. She
took hold of her housekeeping literally
with both hands, and the dainty and
elaborate cooking of the ladies of that
day remains unrivaled by the hired SER
vice of today, even though one subsi-
dies a chef at ten thousand a year and
a piano. The next time you meet your
grandmother ask her to tell you what
she used to provide for Christmas and
New Years dinners and wedding sup
pers; it will make you mouth water and
your heart ache.
Well, this thrifty young housekeeper
had one good, faithful family servant.
ghn did whatever her hands found to
do, and whose pride and interest wac in
her masters house. By and by, when
the babies came, perhaps there was a
nurse for them, but in the generality of
families this was all the retinue unless a
man was kept for the horse and garden,
and an income of two or three thousand
dollars supported the modest and con-
tented menage of many even of the
'best families" while a man with a hun
dred thousand dollars was wealthy, and
N p,tt1fNnofra rraa g-Nnl-ap 90 r;.l, Io..l
breath and looked at as he passed by.
Well, we have changed all this with
the rapidity of a lightning transforma-
ton" in a ~pantomime. The bride of to-
day possesses no cotton gowns except
some dainty cretonnes and mulls and
diaphanous white cambria and valen-
ciennes wrappers. She has aprons, to
be sure, for afternoon teas and negligee
wear, but "they ont wash as those of
her grandmother did. She, probably,
has no kitchen of her own, but lives in a
hotel or boarding house, or in a suite
with a cafe in the building. II she does
keep house" her mother or aunt spends
some anxious days in finding two or
three good servants, especially a cook
who can 'bone, lard and dress" without
any further instruction or oversight, for,
as l heard n mother complacently re-
mark, my daughter does not know
whether the dressing is put inside of a
fowl or grows there"
l am not saying that the bride of to-
day is less commendable than the bride
of fifty years ago;s she knows a great deal
of what that sweet creature was ignorant;
she is, perhaps, better trained to be a
companion and sympathizer with her
husband; she knows more of the world
and of human nature, and is very likely
either as wise or wiser than her prede-
cessor; but she is not a housewife, and
can neither perform the duties of one
nor instruct anybody else how to do
them. l know whereof | speak, for my
mother was of the old school and | am
of the new. When | was married and
went to housekeeping she came too, and
while her capable and wise hands held
the reins the wheels of the domestic
chariot ran upon velvet. or if they did
not, nobody ever knew it.
But, alas, the day came when those
same reins fell into my unaccustomed
grasp, and the result was as when Phaeton
essayed to drive the chariot of his father
1 ioSpuo' II Sletho ran away, anu IL L
was not consumed by the solar fires our
dinner very often was by the s~ublunary-
Ihad almost said the infernal-fres, and
finally, when the cook fell through a
glass doc because she was too much in
toxicated to stand up. and l was sum-
moned from entertaining my hungry
and expectant guests to superintend her
removal to the hospital, then we con
cluded that housekeeping was not alto
gether my role, and so went to board, a
condition of life in which l expect to live
and die.
Now to provide an accomplished cook
with two or three other servants, and 10
pay for the windows they fall through,
and the carriages 10 take them to the
hospital. and the dinners they burn up,
even not mentioning the back door out
goes, and the general waste and unthrift
of a house without a housewife, costs II
great deal more than two or three thou
sand n year-that is, in New York. In
fact, the hundred thousand dollar man
will need to be wise and to have n wise
helpmeet if the ends of the year are to
meet. To be sure, a young couple may
board very comfortably upon five or six
thousand a year, and go into company
and dir, GO vrall into tha barrain p,t if