Eagle River Democrat. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1893-1896, 1896-05-18

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Give them outright, or else don't send
them at all. If | lived in two rooms, and
happened to be the mother of seven small
children, fathered by man who earned
S14 week, and | had picture OF La
Glaconda" hanging before me, would
get up and smash it without regard to
its owner. That eternal smile may be
artistic and mystic and nOn-underStand-
able, but it is eXasperating to the last de-
gree. To grin, and grin, and grin, and
never cease to grin is very objection
able thing to do. Then. on a warm day.
when the family dinner waste consist of
corned beef and cabbage, and the baby
was crying with collie, and two of the
children were grooming with pain as
natural result of eating unripe fruit,
what joy would come to a woman, or
what rest, from gazing at the "Huguenot
LOverSw They look so cool that any
woman who was warm and who smelt
the healthful but not delicate odor OF
cabbage and corned beef would want
them to go, even in a picture. down,
down, down to where it was warmer
even than in that kitchen. and where
ever.
When the thermometer is at 80, how
can you call those places homes where
the workingmen live? The wife takes
no interest in anything except hanging
out of the window or over the fire es-
cape, SOSSlpIuS Will u0F u0lSuUOIo anu
indulging in an occasional glass of beer;
the children lie around and fight death.
There is no knowledge of the different
kinds of food; that a dinner may be
cheap, good and yet cool never enters
the head of the woman. That cleanll-
ness and GOODNESS are almost synonymous
is unknown The chances are that be-.
fore her marriage the wife was a house
hold servant. She spent all her money
in clothes, and she is ignorant OF every
thing that she should know. Economy
in preparing the food, little care to
it's presentation, and a little thought as
to the rooms themselves. never come to
her. She is always untidy looking, she
is always hot, and she is always ready
for a quarrel. She takes no interest in
anything, except the dreadful crimes of
the day as they are told in the most vul-
gar of newspapers. She likes those
newspapers that are, really, colleges for
day because he is hungry is taught by
such newspapers to rob his employer to-
morrow, and how to break a bank the
next day This woman of the tenements
takes great pleasure, as she is usually
of foreign birth or descent, in laughing
York city. Murders are committed and
forgotten. jewels are. stolen, and my
lady Of the tenement announces with
happy giggle, "An' shure, it TUX the gen
tlemen from Scotland yard to foind the
robbers" and then, in way more eX-
pressive than polite, she uniteS her nose
and her thumb and waves her distended
fingers at the bobby who stands on the
street below.
Personally, I believe that many man
would have been clean of mind if he
had ever had an opportunity to be clean
of body. There is work for the
charitable people, and good work. In
troduce free baths wherever you can.
Not merely sucn baths as mean going
into the river. but baths in houses, where
women and children can go, and where
they will come out more Self-respectlng
than when they went in. don't believe
that cleanliness is next to goodness. L
believe that you can't be dirty and godly.
The cleanliness has got to come first.
The worship of soap and water was in
culcated into me at an early day and by
means of high-heeled red satin slipper.
Since then, regret to say, that have
grown older, but have never forgotten.
And I would recommend to any mother
whose child objects to bath the use
of a slipper with Louis QuartorZe heel;
this heel affords good grip, and the
slipper flies up and down in way that
suggests perpetual motion, and which
produces heat of body, with calm aft
erspirit. Those old saints, who used to
let their hair grow and wear robes that
rotted on them, and refused to be intro
duced to water, are, to my thinking;
frauds. 1t cannot please the good God
who made you in His own image to see
that image defiled by ordinary dirt. It
was meant that we should keep the body,
that entrances the soul, sweet and pure
and pleasant to look upon. The man
who believes dirt will increase his godli-
ness is most awfully mistaken.
A woman? Oh, don't like to think
of woman and dirt together. She
ought to be really too much of woman
for that OF course, the heat of the
day sometimes makes the dust of the
day accumulate on one, but that is cas-
lily gotten rid of. It doesn't come to
stay; it will disappear when acquaint-
ance is made with warm water, good
soap and a wash cloth. Not one of
those hard-knitted things, nor one of
those dreadful brushes, but an old piece
Of damask that is soft and pliable, and
doesn't treat your skin as if it were
parchment. There are good many
quite willing to be clean. There is
cheap soap-I mean that which is
strongly perfumed-let it alone. Use in
it's place good plain soap that has no
perfume except that Of cleanliness.
Don't be mean with the water, and 1e
member that the fountain of eternal
youth is really, after all, in the bath
tub.
Who invented thermometers? Satan,
l am sure. Nobody else would have
had the art, when you feel uncomfort-
able, mussy. warm, cross and certain
that it is 1O2, to have that horrid thing
mark it only 81. 1t is hard to pray in
summer time, but here is a fervent
prayer: "From too much heat and all its
attendant evils, good Lord deliver