Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1890-03-13
IN W0MAN'S BEHALF.
WOMAN'S TIME.

She Is Forced to Occupy 1t Largely In
Useless Employment Instead of Helping |
to Solve Political Problems.
The craze for decorative art has en-
tered almost every household in the
land, and such hold has it taken on
femininity writes Josephine X.
Henry, in Woman's Journal, that
large numbers of women are suf-
fering from a disease which, for
lack of better name, might be call
ed decorative jim-jams." Throughout
the length and breadth of the land fe-
male America is busy decorating the in
terror of her domicile with sort Of art
istic erysipelas that is calculated to in
duce painters collie, or make one feel
that he is on a journey through the
realms of art seated on cyclone. One
has only to visit about twelve homes
out of fourteen to realize the extent of
this art epidemic, and the malignancy
of the disease. Ones stock of sympathy
can not fail to be reduced when it comes
in contact with the male members of the
household, whose endurance is at ut
most tension, and who give evidence
that a change of ocular diet is needful.
No wonder we have so many club men
in this day and generation, so many dis
gusted, sick and sorry, weary AMI worm
out masculines who have impaired their
eyesight by looking at the walls of their
homes decorated after the fashion of
Chinese junk, or the veritable "Old
Curiosity Shopp' The husband of an
artistic wife reads his paper seated
on a chair upholstered after the man
ner of the oriental palanquin, his feet
resting on sheep-skin, with head-rest
of hand-painted, apoplectic roses and
consumptive Gala lilies. He sits be-
hind fire-screen representing tableau
taken from 'Humpty Dumpty sat on
the wall, and the puzzle is to tell which
is II. ID. and which is the wall. This
same art-pursued husband takes his
after-dinner nap on sofa-pillow of the
crazy pattern, which so adde's his brain
that Morpheus refuses to approach, and
he wiles away the time viewing the
gems OF art that surround him. Fans
and feathers, plaques and palettes, rib
bon-bowed tambourines, with their
sheep-skin heads containing tableaux
of Faust and Marguerite which closely
resemble the historical figures of Jack
and Jill; or the allegory of "Mary Had
a Little Lamb" the lamb only distin-
guishable from Mary by possessing four
legs. Barnum, in the museum business,
is not circumstance to the parlor of
the decorative crank Spinning-wheels
in their holiday dress Of paint and fur
bellows; banners which the Mikado him
self would envy, with designs as soul
stirring as those used in the crusades,
churns converted into umbrella stands,
decorated with flowers that resemble
, the contents of chiropodist's show
, case; pictorial puzzles on every article
of utility and ornamentation, from
Moses in the bulrushes to the dude
.. clad in rainbow attire, with his single
I eye-glass.
: This decorative craze, II nothing else
/ is needed to pursue it, requires time.
Z The great cry against the equal rights
women is that the sex have no time tc
devote to the solution of social or polit
ical problems because the home and
children would suffer from neglect. The
a average American housewife can put hel
!, house in order, and minister to the
! needs of husband and children, read {
dissertation on social reform or politica
economy, acquaint herself with the con
= gressional and legislative news, and no
' spend as much time as the art (?) decor
:. ator does in painting a butterfly or 1
= mermaid on the coal-scuttle. Though
there may not be whole stocking IL
5 the house, and the children remind one
of the little Jellabys, there is not hin
, of neglect in regard to such women. A
" soon, however, as woman breaks thu
y leading-string of social custom, and ask
the why and wherefore of the laws tina
s. are made for her, aid the methods o
o President, Governor or Legislator, tn,
= cry runs along the line, "Unwomanly,
o ''Strong-minded, ''Out of her sphere!
h The work of the interior decorator find
+ its way to the attic or the cellar in du
r time, but the work of the woman VIII
has force of character sufficient to asl
u for civil and political liberty is helping
q to evolve the new civilization whic'
l will eliminate every vestige Of injustic
& from its codes, and establish the law @
n "human rights" that will usher in tn
1t dawn of the millennium.