The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-02-28
In WOMAN'S BEHALF.
WOMAN'S TIME.


She Is FORCED to Occupy It Largely Ii
Useless Employment Instead of Helping
to Solve Political Problems.
The craze for decorative art has en-
tered almost every household in tn,
land, and such hold has it taken OF
femfninity, writes Josephine X
Henry, in Woman's Journal, ltha
Mrge numbers of women are suf
fering from a disease which, fol
lack of better name. might be call
ed decorative jim-jams." Throughout
the length and breadth of the land fe-
malesAmerica is busy decorating the. in
terror of her ,domicile with a 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's 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 worn
out masculines who have impaired their
eyesight by looking at the walls of their
homes decorated after the fashion of a
Chinese junk, CT the veritable "Old
Curiosity Shopr' 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 a sheep-skin, with head-rest
of hand-painted, apoplectic roses and
consumptive Gala lilies. He sits be-
hind fire-screen representing tableau
taken from 'Humpty3 Dumpty sat on
the wall, !" and the puzzle is to tell which
is III. 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,
churrs 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
eye-glass.
This decorative craze, if nothing else
is needed to pursue it, requires time.
The great cry against the equal rights
women is that the sex have no time to
devote to the solution of social or polit-
ical problems because the home and
ShliuitH NoGiu suiIcT lTOul neDlcCU- L ne
average American housewife can put her
house in order, and minister to the
needs of husband and children. read a
on social reform or political
aoauaint herself with the con-
gressional and legislative news. and not
spend as much time as the art (?) decor
ator does in painting butterfly or
mermaid on the coal-scuttle. Though
there may not be a whole stocking in |
the house, and the children remind one |
Of the little Jellabys. there is not hint !
Of neglect in regard to such women. As |
soon. however, as a woman breaks the |
of social custom. and asks |
the why and wherefore of the laws that |
are made, for her, and the methods of |
President. Governor or Legislator, the |
cry runs along the line, ''Unwomanly."
'Out of her sphe.e.. |
The work of the interior decorator finds |
its way to the attic or the cellar in due |
time, but the work CT the woman who |
has force of character sufficient to ask |
for civil and political liberty is helping
10 evolve the. new civilization which |
will eliminate every vestige of injustice
from its codes, and establish the law of |
human rights" that will usher in the
lawn Of the millennium.