The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-08-08
Men, as a Rule, Behave Themselves
Pretty Well, All Things
Considered.
Performing on Deacon Shepard
the Operation of Pulling
His Leg.
Clarkson ON the Evcr-InterestinE subject
of C~ookery-Tho North Side-COs-
mopolitan Gotham
Especial Correspondence of THn I~NprpENpEsr.l

INneClnl CORRESPONDENCE Oh IAE INDEPENDENT
-EW YORK, AUG. 5.-BY THE NUM-
III Der and populousness of watering
TX places near and far, by the annua,
~ flight to Europe and by the dispro.
portion of women to men in all these sum
mer movements of population one may get
some idea of the number of men left al
home in New York whose wives are out OF
town.
For years the humorists have gloated
upon the vicious possibilities of this ar
rangement, limited at the gay life of the
man thus disenthralled and described in
comic terms his disgust at the close of the
season and the return of the family. We
are led to infer wholesale breaking of mar
rage osths-nothin0 less. And God knows
there be many repetitions of such catrasto-
Plies. But what is the use Of dwelling upon
them? Why can't we face the fact that
most men are of better stuff than the butt
of the humorist's wit? A ~virtuous man
Is not q funny sight, it is admitted, but he
is q cheerful one; and that is q million
times better.
BY my pen I live, but I have never yet
eaten bread earned by representing my fell
low men as worse than they are, or helping
make printed pages bear false witness to
posterity Of exaggerated vice.
This is the type Of the husband whose
wife is out of town. You all know him. He
is a somewhat distraught man. given to
reading letters and writing others not ca
pable of dictation to his stenographer. He
ia absent-minded at times, A trifie irregu-
having no one to care for him. One morn
ing he will come to work an hou earlier
than usual, from his rising early and having
nothing better to do. The next
he may be half Al hour late. He
read a love story far into the night
and oversight himself. He looks up
old friends whom he hasn't seen since last
summer. Their wives are away, too. They
dine together at restaurants and hold pro-
traeted conversations. He may even, if the
stay be a long one, get to visiting relatives
in the suburbs. That is an extreme case.
or farther afield to kill time. Whatever he
does, wherever he is, he looks a little visit
fully at other men whose wives and children
are with them. He knows it is we'll for his
wife and babies to breathe a fresher air
than Gotham's and tries to be patient. Yet
it is not easy to avoid being a little %envious
OF others who are poorer in wealth but
richer in the continual presence of their
home ones.
Why cannot We add, speaking the whole
truth, that the summer fitting of wives is a
source Of danger and sin to weak men, but
that the true metal rings all the clearer for
the absence? The summer parting, the old
practice of letter writing resumed, the I'M
expected trips into the country so see
jane the JOY of all concerned when the
city home is homelike again with the
wanderer baok-why these things bring
back into marriage something of tho spirit
of courtship. Why should any one be
ashamed to think 80 we'll of his fellows as
to now that this is true?