, 1891-02-14
Highest of all in Leavenins POwer-U. S, Govt Report. Aug II. 1889
Roe! BsMas7
ABSOLUTELY PURE
ABSOiUTEY PURE

con implied tidiness. To meet his views,
As well a. to satisfy her own conscience,
his partner became a model .
woman of faculty"
1 saw her last year In the incurable
ward of a madhouse. rom sunrise I'M
til dark, except when forced to take heI
meals, h stood at one window and pol
ished one pane with her apron, a plat
like a trench between her puckered
brows, her mouth pursed into an N
guished knot, her hollow eyes drearily
anxious-the saddest picture 1 ever be-
held, most awfully sad because she was
the type Of q class.
Some men-and they are not all igno-
rant men--are beginning to be alarmed
at the press of women into other-I had
almost said any other-avenues of labor
than that of housewifery. Eagerness to
break up housekeeping and try boarding
for while, in order to get rested out, is
not confined to the incompetent and the
indolent. Nor is it altogether the result
If the national discomfort with "'the
greatest plague of life"-servants.
American women from high to low
keep house too hard because too ambi-
tiously.
~ 20 IL A4OANF ~
knowledge; hence misdirected. We have
the most indifferent domestic service in
the world, but we employ as a rule too
few servants, such as they are. 1t is
considered altogether sensible and be-
coming for the mechanics wife to do her
own Homework as bride and as a matron
of years. Unless her husband prospers
rapidly she is accounted ''shiftless"
al--1I Il Ii LII
to keep a girl" is extravaganza, or a
significant stride toward gentility. The
wife of the English Joiner or mason or
small farmer, if brisk, notable and
healthy, may dispense with the stated
service of a maid Of all work, but she
calls in a charwoman on certain days,
and is content to live as becomes the sta
ton of a housewife who must be her own
domestic staff.
Here is the root of the difference. In
a climate that keeps the pulses in full
leap and the nerves tense we call upon
pride to lash on the quivering body and
spirit to run the unrighteous race, the
goal of which is to seem richer than we
are, and make "smartness" american
smartness) cover the want of capital.
Having created false standards of respect
ability we crowd insane asylums and
cemeteries in trying to live up to them.
The tradesman who begins to ac-
knowledge the probability that he will
become a rich citizen. and whose
wife has feelings on the subject of liv-
ing as her neighbors do, takes the con-
ventional step toward asserting himself
and gratifying her aspirations by NOV
ing into a bigger house han that which
has satisfied him up to now, and fur
nishing it well-that is, smartly, accord
ing to the English acceptance of the
word.
Silks and moquette harmonic as well
as calico and ingram once did. A three
story-and-a-half-w ith-a-high-stoop house
without a piano in the back parlor, and
a long mirror between the front parlor
windows, would be a forlorn contradic-
ton of the genius of American prog
ress. AS fiat a denial would be the en-
deavor to live without what an old lady
once described to me as a 'pair of par
lors." The stereotyped brace are sense
less and ugly, but one of the necessaries
Of life to our ambitious housewife. She
would scout as vulgar the homely cheer
fulness of the middle class Englishman's
single ''parlor," where the table is spread
and the family receives visitors.
Having saddled himself with a house
too big for his family, and stocked the
show rooms with plushings SO fine that
the family are afraid to use them unless
when there is company, the prudent citi-
zen satisfies the economic side of him by
making menials of wife and daughters,
without thought of the opposing circum-
atanra that ha hoa nraCtiro11y iu60raad
their intention to make fine ladies of
themselves. Neither he nor the chief
slave of her own gentility, the wife, who
will maintain her reputation for 'facul-
ty" or perish in the attempt, has a sus-
picion that the strain to make meet tho
ends of frugality and ~pretension is pal
pably and criminally absurd. By keep
ing up a certain appearance of affluence
and fashion they assume the obligation
to employ servants enough to carry out
the design, yet in nine hundred and
ninety-nine times out of every thousand
they ignore the duty.
/ admit without demur that as Amer
lean domestics go they are a burden, an
expense and a vexation. Notwithstand-
ing all these drawbacks, she who will
not risk them should not live in such q
way hat she must make use of such in
struments or overwork herself physically
and mentally.
The entire social and domestic system
of American communities calls loudly
for the reform of simplicity and congru-
ity. We begin to build and are not able
to finish. Our economics are false and
mischievous, our aims are petty and
meretricious. The web of our daily liv-
ing is not round and even threaded. The
homes which are constructed upon the
foundations of deranged, dying and
dead women are a mockery of the holy
name. Our houses should be planned
and kept for those who are to live in
them, not for those who tarry within
the doors for a night OF an hour. When
housekeeping becomes IN intolerable
care there is sin somewhere and danger
everywhere. MARION HARLAND.
Southern Women in New York.
Southern women and girls seem to be
taking the literary ionrnalistjc and