Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-06-10
HUSBANDS APT TO BE sTINGY.
Often They Are Not Liberal with Their
Wives in Money Matters.

HUSBANDS APT TO BE sTINGY.
Often They Are Not Liberal with Their
Wives in Money Matters.
ssT SEE A GOOD DEAL OF THE MEAN
Il side of human nature in my business, VI
said a woman hairdresser the other day. "Bpt
the worst of it is shown by husbands. There
isn't anything meaner in all this world than a
mean husband. For instance, one customer Of
mine has husband who is a vegetarian crank.
He never eats any meat himself. and so he will
not have any bought for the household. His
wife used to get pretty nearly starved. For a
while she had an arrangement with the green
grocer by which he procured for her and sent
home beefsteaks. The steaks figured in the
family bills as SO many pecks Of potatoes or 80
many quarts of beans.
''She used to have beefsteak at lunch when
her husband was down town. But one day he
came home Unexpectedly in the middle of the
day and then there was row. He said she was o
deceitful creature, and she replied that it WASH
possible for person to be sincere and truth
full on a diet of bread and butter and green's
However, he used to watch her more closely
after that, keeping an eye on the refrigerator,
and even insisting upon doing the marketing
himself. / believe his theory was that the eat
ing of flesh rendered people more feshly. He
thought that the consumption of cabbage and
green peas reduced the element of animalism in
human beings and was calculated to render
them more soulful.
$50 his wife, not being able to obtain any
substantial food began to grow alarmingly
thinner. Finally she decided on a new plan.
1t was suggested by an accident. A dealer in
secondhand clothing called at the house and
offered the highest cash price for any garments
that might be discarded. The lady bethought
herself of an old coat of her husbands. With
the price of it in her pocket-she always had to
account strictly for every penny that she got
she went down the street and INDUCED in a
luxurious meal at restaurant. She confined
herself to meat; there wasn't vegetable on her
bill of fare.
by and by the old clothes man became a
regular visitor. On each occasion he carried
away pair of trousers, waistcoat or a coat.
With fair but not extreme economy the price
OF one article would frequently pay for two or
three meals. That this sort of thing could not
go on forever was quite evident. One day the
husband discovered that the greater part of his
wardrobe had disappeared. His wife attempted
no concealment. She said frankly that. being
driven by hunger. she had sold the things to
buy food. Furthermore, she was determined
to persist in that course until a proper allow
ance Of money was given to her to buy meat
anything else she liked. She expected that
the furniture would go next. In short, she
openly defied him.
Nov, what do you suppose that man did2
He gave in helplessly, and there has not been
any trouble since, believe. That case affords
q first-rate illustration of theory of mine,
which is that the only way to manage a man is
by firmness. The average husband, IL he can
bully his wife, will do SO, and that is the reason
why most women are bulied more or less
There was lady knew in Chicago whose hus-
band was trifie worse than the vegetarian
crank of whom have been speaking. He was
aphysician. and it was pet notion of his that
people generally ate too much. So he weighed
out portion of each kind Of food for every
member of his family. At each meal he gave
TO each one SO many ounces of meat SO many
ounces of bread and MANY ounces of vege-
tables If his wife had had the nerve to refuse
to stand such nonsense it would have stopped
right there. As it she and her chiloren
always looked half-starved.
Everybody knows that it is practice quite
common with fashionable women to borrow
money of their dressmakers, the loan being
added to the sum total OF the bills when they
come in. There are plenty of men who, while
perfectly willing to allow their wives to run big
accounts at shops and elsewhere. are reluctant
to supply them with a respectable amount
of spending money. Their notion seems to
be that women are not to be trusted with
money to spend. 1t is a very curious
whim, but surprisingly common. The average
wife of rich man rarely has a dollar in her
pocket that she can cali her own. That is one
of the freaks of mean husbands. But. under
such circumstances women get money from
other sources of supply besides the dressmaker.
They get small loans on account from the
butcher, the grocer and other tradesmen. The
grocer and the butcher cannot we'll refuse. be-
cause they do not want to offend customer,
and they know that they will get the money
back. But their obliginSness in such matters
sometimes gets them into scrapes.
There is another variety Of mean husband
worth mentioning. This sort tells his wife that
they must economist. and sends her and the
children to a cheap farm house in some lonely
country place for the summer, while he goes
gallivanting alone to Europe or to a fashionable
watering place. l knew one woman who came
out ahead in a little game of that sort. Her
partner-in-lIfe having gone abroad on pleasure
trip. pretending that business called him away,
she spent the summer at Newport, which was
not far from the hole into which he had poked
her. and at the end of the season the bills were
sent to her husband, who was
rich man. There Is no doubt of the
fact that men would make better husbands if
they were managed with less petting and more
determination. Most of them are only over
grown battles and need to be treated very much
in the same way. The first thing that woman
ought to insist upon when she gets married is
fair share Of the family money and the right to
spend it as she chooses without accounting for
it as if she were a servant. If such measures
were pursued mean husbands would not have
show in this world