Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-09-04

presents of q stove and dishes and other
things from relatives, they began keeping
house. Henry himself. arrayed in q big
apron cleaned windows and scrubbed the
dirty floors of their domicile. They had
fun over their experiences and hardships in
after days, but as Mrs Beecher relates,
there was very little fun in it at the time.
They could not live on the paltry salary,
even aided by the presents of their parish
1onera Mrs. Beecher had to take in sew-
ing, when she could get it to do, and also
help to get along by keeping boarders.
For II years they struggled with poverty
| at Lawrenceburg xnd indianapolis. Mr..
Beecher helped with the housework when
his wife was ill, but always clicked" on
washing dishes and sweeping. In addition
to his preaching, he edited an agricultural
journal, and by hard work in his gar
tie profit BY selling vegetables A
poor preacher can better afford to marry
early and trust to luck than other men be-
cause the congregation are generally enough
interested in their pastor to send him q
bushel OF turnips, or bag of potatoes now
and then, but it will be admitted that a
less impoverished marriage would have
saved them much of hardship. Any young
man with prudence and common sense can
usually save enough to 60 to housekeeping
comfortably in year or two. without such
privations, but still there are some who
rush madly into matrimony with hardly a
dollar and who fight poverty with courage,
industry and economy, and manage to rise
to eminence and afiuence as did Henry
Ward Beecher.
Learned Wisdom in Adversely.
In her story of their straits and struggles
Mru oh = Al t.l
OF not taking the advice of their elders as to
delaying their marriage until they had
something ahead, but this can be inferred
from the statement that "there was no fun
in it. Both of them could we'll afford to
have waited in; Difference to their parents
wishes. Their hardships were the result of
their own rashness, and they learned wis
dom in adversely. Mrs Bucher probably
had her own lesson in mind, when she after
wards wrote ''that en- early marriage was un-
wise when the gentleman's business was not
sufficient to warrant comfortable support"
1t is not nscessary to use many words to
dispose of the excuse made by the young
men that girls all expect to live on the same
scale of luxury and comfort as they do at
home, and that as their incomes are too
small to justify these notions they must re- |
sign all hope of happiness in marriage. The |
proofs that this is not true are all about us
in society. Thousands of girls bright with |
hope and full of courage go from homes of |
comfort, and marry poor preachers with the |
slimmest of salaries that are oftentimes not |
paid promptly. These endure hardships, |
work and slave, and ''put up" with criti- |
worthy of nobler cause. They marry mis- |
sionaries, leave kith and kin, luxury and |
comfort, with courage and devotion as heroic |
as it is mistaken. They leave the pleasures |
of society, and suffer untold hardship on |
ranches and in sod huts on Western plains J
The Question Of Education.
There never was more of heroi,m or
shown than in the present day. |
1t is not, as the writer seems to think, that J
high school education is q drawback to the |
happiness of domestic. lite. If that were |
true, then the best wives would be found |
among the low-down and ignorant Some |
men seem to think that women are only |
lovable and tender hearted, and sweet |
natured in proportion to their ignorance |
and lack Of brains and that those who are |
educated and know thing or two beyond |
beans" are proud, heartless, ill-natured
and undesirable as wives They believe, as
lid Martin Luther. "no gown or garment |
worse becomes woman than that she would |
De wise"
The great barriers to marriage for men
in these days are, as summed up by the
brother, three: The education OF young
v omen which units them to be worse, the
growing independence of girls in the mat
er of maintaining themselves, and their
being too proud to begin life on a small
cale.
These discouragements, as set forth, are
very formidable to young men, and have re-
Iulted in the present stagnation of the mar
.iage market. But what is going to be done
.bout it? 1t cannot be ordained that Young
women shall go back to the ignorance of
he 18th century, when girls were debarred
rom the schools. No legislature can make
law that they must be willing to 90 to
in a log cabin without floor,
IS did the first families of Pittsburg. No
ct of Congress under the constitution can
'e passed to prevent them from becoming
enough to support themselves
the long and the short of it is that people
ave got to adapt themselves to the new So
ial conditions and change in manners, and
make the best of them.
BESSIE BRAMBLE