Los Angeles herald., 1891-09-05
woMANs WORLD IN PARAGRAPHS.
Women who Get Money from Their Hus-
bands Under False Pretenses,

Women Who Get Money from Their Hus-
bands Under False Pretenses.
Financial independence is what wo-
men, married or single. most need now,
and have said it repeatedly. If wives
had an income Of their own for their
services as housekeepers and home
makers, they would not be compelled to
lie to their husbands as probably half Of
them now do. Two ladies were telling
me lately how they managed to get pin
money out of their husbands, and money
to save up little sums of their own Said
one: ~ buy dress pattern or floor
rug Charley asks me how much 1t
cost. tell him, but always add on a
dollar or fifty cents more, so that he
will think spent that much more than
l really did. Then can keep the money
for myself" "Oh, yes," said the first
lady's friend, "Tve always done that
too. Most of the married women know
get money the same way, by pretending
to their husbands that things cost more
than they do. Mrs. M. helps her mother
a good deal by the money she skimps in
that way. Old M. would raise the roof of
the house if he knew it." could not help
expressing surprise at this, to me, new
method Of economy. "Oh," said the
first woman, "that's nothing. I'd never
have cent of my own to bless myself
with if I didn't fool Frank about what
pay for things" The strangest part of
all this confession was the fact that the
xxyixyacs wxyh0 - b. e.
sense of shame or degradation in the
fact that they thus were as dependent as
slaves on their husbands for money, and
like slaves were obliged to cheat their
masters to get what they were de-
termined to have. But the thing is a
degradation to the name of wife and to
all womankind. If women are driven
to deceive their husbands in this thing
they will finally think nothing of deceiv-
ing them in anything else. Further
more, one who practices deception and
falsehood does more harm to himself and
his own character than to anybody else.
1t is thoroughly despicable business all
through. Better square stand up fight
for her rights in the beginning than that
wife should thus demean and degrade
herself. Then, if the fight avails not, it
is better to take in washing or to go out
scrubbing and earn her own spending
money than thus to cringe and crawl
and lie. Moreover, if wife tells her
husband frankly, courageously and kind
ly her needs he will nearly always see
the reasonableness of them. But the
regular allowance is best, unless the wife
has inherited or can earn her own in
come.
In New York has been established in
the last year or two something for which
there is room in all the largest cities of
the Union. An enterprising, accom-
plished woman, Mrs. Annie G. Hardy,
has founded Ladies' Guide and Wis
itors' bureau in the metropolis. Wom-
en- who are strangers in New York can
arrive in the city any time of night or
day, and if notice has been previously
sent to the bureau messenger there
from will meet the stranger at the sta
ton and conduct her to the woman's ho-
tel which is connected with the bureau,
or anywhere else she wishes. For a
moderate charge typewriters are found,
expert women guides and interpreters
are sent out shopping and sight seeing
with those who need them, escorts and
chaperons to theaters and other places
of amusement are furnished, and many
other things are done for women who
are unfamiliar with New York or for
busy women who wish to accomplish
the most in the least time. The bureau
also keeps list of select boarding
houses and hotels, and directs strangers
to them. It is pleasant to record that
this enterprise, established by woman
for women, is meeting with success.
Nothing more amusing has been laid
before the public in a long time than the
appeal of a number of self styled "Wom-
en- Remonstrants" against having wom-
an suffrage put upon them. They depre-
cate the going out of women to the
wage earning field, declaring in so many
words that women must in the indus
tries "always compete with men and al
ways be beaten" 1t is true that in their
peculiar line no man can compare with
the women whose work it is to detect
counterfeit money in the departments
at Washington. 1t is also true that
women do the heaviest and most respon-
sible figuring in the bureaus of statistics
in Sweden and Norway, and that the
Norwegian minister of finance employs
only women mathematicians It is also
true that woman, Cynthia Westover,
secretary in the street commissioner
Office in New York city, is the mathe-
matician and statistician for depart
ment that employs 1900 laborers, and
that she has SO organized the Office work
that it never ran so smoothly as it
does now. But facts are nothing to
these persons who assert out of their
own heads that women must always be
beaten in competition with men in the
industrial walks. In truth, the solicitude
of these mysterious and sly ''remon-
strants" about breaking up of home and
the cruelty of forcing weak women to
compete with strong and godlike men is
something touching. But now let me
tell you the funny part. tits beginning
to leak out slowly and delightfully."- that
it is men themselves and nobody else
who are behind this movement of re-
monstrance against women. 1t is they
who have SO wrought on the sympathies
of the women nearest them as to induce
Al. l. IL oI,s 81 hnHx