Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-01-05
GO A LITTLE SLOWER.
Bessie Bramble Moralizes, on the
Hurry Of Modern Existence.
NO LEISURE FOx SOCIETY WOMEN
Who Are Constantly Crowded by Pleasures
and Duties.
THE ONLY TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
lwn1rrrn FOE rHr prsPArcu.1

WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATCH.1
In the good old-fashioned times-sbout
which the grandmothers do so dearly love
to talk-when there we're no sewing ma
chimes and everything was made by hand,
people had time to visit each other and en-
joy themselves, but in these days of labor
saving inventions, it seems, as Rev. Hodges
remarks, that the people have everything
but leisure. Hurry, push, driVe-ahead
seem to have conquered everything and
captured everybody. Even if the great
boon of working day of eight hours were
in force, is it likely that the present scram-
Bile would be at all diminished?
Is it probable that people would learn to
go little slower and enjoy the luck in
leisure? 1t may be true, as good old Bax-
ter, of "Saints' Rest" fame, has said, that
"Idleness is constant sin, and labor is a
duty" but il all the restless hurryings to
and fro and constant scurryings around and
flying to fill engagements and ceaseless
tramping and toiling and moiling and rush.
ing are indicative of the worlds conversion
from the constant sin of idleness, then is it
not much 10 be desired had the world stayed
wicked little longer-at least for the sake
of the old stagers.
This is the sentiment of one of the afore-
said grandmothers who cannot be per-
suaded to see the sense of living in rush
and whirl from morning till night. People
who are born to it can stand it, perhaps. but
while some of the women of halt century
ago sewsd themselves to death, those of the
present seem bent upon running themselves
ant k0f int he g.
ing. With intense industry they CAD, and
CAD, and gad.
To church meetings and school meetings,
and W. G. T. U.s., and sisterhoods. and
guilds and clubs and weddings and recep-
tions and luncheons and progressive
euchres and charitable societies and all the
rest of them under whatever name.
woMAN's FIELD.
"oughts" and "duties" and pleasures COM
bined, crowding upon each other constantly,
what are women to do? Missionaries must
be supported, as everybody says, and who
would attend these meetings for the aiding
of the heather If not women? The |
crusade for temperance must be |
kept up and sustained, and |
who could be founl to attend to this |
great matter except women? Church meet |
ings must be attended, and who would go if |
women stayed at home? Church fairs and
dinners and 'socials" must be held, or how
would the dollars and dimes be collected for
church uses from the pockets of men who
can never be caught on Sunday? No
one can be counted upon to
poach upon those preserves save women,
and on them it is laid as duty. Then there
are mothers meetings and benevolent So
,ieties and sewing schools and domestic
raining schools-all of these have to be
attended to, and carried on by women, who
have their minds burdened with their care,
ind their wits put to work to insure their
Iuccess. Then there are the "Kings' Daugh-
ers,'' who are supposed to put in their
ime in doing good unto all men, and all the
world for that matter. When the magnitude
# the work and the enormous seIf-sacrifce
included in all of these associations are
AIKEN into consideration, some idea of how
women give services and time, for which
hey receive no wages, save the reward to be
,aid in the great hereafter, is gained.
Ministers are paid for preaching, choir
fingers are paid for singing, janitors are
,aid for dustlng, but women work for love,
nd their labor counts for little, because
t is so cheap. II the beloved brethren
hould devote themselves to the enforcement
# the apostolic injunction for women to be
,eepers at home, it would be hard on the
hurches, but it would perhaps be q good
leal easier for the sisters in the way of pro-
'iding them with some leisure to have
est and
A LITTLE FUN
f their own. But it could not be done.
,he women, in the first place, would not
eed the injunction unless it suited them,
nd in the second, there is the calamity
oretold by a reverend doctor at a recent
Meeting, that if ''it was not for the work of
Tomen Che churches would go to pieces"
borrower, the women are as possessed by the
pirit of the age as men. They must push,
nd rush too to keep up with the procession,
Thether o. church or state.
But while those intent upon doing good
houId receive all due credit and apprecia-
ion for their efforts and self-sacrifcing de-
'otion to what they deem duty, the society
7omen are wearing themselves out with an
qual abandon and enthusiasm, giving and
adding at weddings, and teas, and recep-
ions, and luncheons, and dinners and
uchres.
Grandmothers open their eyes with won
er and amaze and solemnly shake their
eads as they tell how things were done in
heir day. They ponder profoundly over
be perplexing problem of what sort of peo-
nc lHc VI VIC pASoChb Will SIOH
D be. They can never be induced to be-
ieve that such goings on can come to good.
To them with their wreck of illusions and
Of the worlds shams the con-
tant toll and endeavor of women to honor
he claims of society and keep in "the
win" is not so much the demand of the
ge as the folly of the individual. Nobody
build persuade them that the good old tea
arties they so often virtuously deplore
'ere the form of precisely the same thing
n their day. The age of telephones, of
apid transit, of electric lights, OF convenient
nd competent caterers all enters into the
ush and whirl of society as it exists. But
here is one thing certain, and that is that
Mess more days can be got into a week,
nd women can put up higher the strain OF ;
heir endurance, or their circle of acquaint- .
noes be thinned out, or something be done
" relief from the
ExACTIoNs OF SOCIAL sERvITUDE
II IL. ~ r.oad Co., =