The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1897-03-24
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
Complaints of Grip and Rheumatism do
no Good.
atlanta Constitution.

atlanta Constitution.
I like to work when I feel like it,
but my wife likes forme to work when
she feels like it, and so between the
two have to work nearly all the time.
Yesterday I was grunting around with
rheumatism. but she took a notion
that was a good day to take down the
verandah trellis down and clean away
all dead vines, and thought it would
help me to get warmed up by exercise
and it did. She knows-she has
heard me try to play off on grippe and
rheumat;cs beforc-you cant fool the
woman you have been living with for
forty-cight years-so I got the ladder
and climbed up to the top and cut
away the tangled web, and trimmed
the running rosevines and the wisto-
ria and Virginia crceper and then tore
away the old canes and cleaned up all
the trash and burned it. 1t was big
Job, for the verandah is fifty feet long,
and | had to move the old rickety lad
der dozen times-several times | got
sortcr dizzy and liked to have fallen,
but my folks don't believe I am as old
as I am, and they never will believe it
until I break my arm or my leg or my
neck. Then I reckon they will be
sorry. A man never grows old to his
own family; no man is a stranger to
his own servant. The servant knows
him too we'll, and just so my wife
won t admit that l am too old to be
useful, she keeps me trotting around.
She gives me prccepts and examples,
for she is never idle-makcs up the
beds, cleans up her room, puts out the
washing and distributes it when it
comes in, mends my clothes, darns
my stockings, sews on the missing
buttons, hides my best pants to keep
me from working in them and scolds
me ever and anon about my careless
ness. She keeps on making little
garments for the grand children and
still finds time to boss me in the flow
er garden and go to the missionary
meeting, and writes letters to the
boys. She never reads until almost
bedtime, but next morning can tell us
all the news worth knowing, and has
her opinions about Cleveland and Nc
Kinley and Lyman Abbott and Dr.
Broughton and female suffrage. l
read to her the rent vote in parliament
about thu. and asked her what she
thought of it. 'Well," said she, Il
don't care to vote, of course I don't
but if female suffrage will lessen fe-
male SUFFRAGE, [ hope it will pass.
1t makes my heart bleed to read about
these heartless men deceiving and be-
traying foolish young girls who trust
ed them. What a pitiful scene it was,
that ruined girl following that man
and bis bride into the parlor cars in
Atlanta, and in her presence upbraid-
ing him with his infamy. And just
look around all over this country at
the young married women who have
been abandoned by their unprincipled
husbands, and now have to work and
toll and almost beg for a living for
themselves and their little ones. If
a jury of women could try these de-
ceivers and these faithless husbands
they would be sent to the chaingang,
where they belong. If a young man
embezzles rich mans money and
runs away, the judge and the grand
jury and the newspapers make an aw-
full fuss about it and send kilograms
all over the country to catch him, but
if he ruins woman and break her
heart and makes a wreck of her life it
is hushed up and nothing is done. l
am not woman s-rig ghts woman. She
has rights enough, but there ought
to be some way Of avenging her
wrongs.
That is fact, and my opinion is
that her wrongs never will be avenged
until she is not only empowered to
vote, but also to hold Office in school
rooms and in the government Of the
towns and villages. The age Of gal
lantry and chiyalry towards woman has
passed. This is the unfeeling age, and
woman has to shift for herself. Thirty
years ago she worked at seventeen oc-
cupations, and now at 13O, and gets
about half price for her labor-half
the price that the men get who do it
no better. am ashamed Of my sex,
and I never buy shirt for fifty cents
but what l remember that poor wo-
man made it in some garret-workcd
all day and part of the night,
"With fingers weary and worn
With eyelids heavy and red"
And yet these lords Of creation pre-
tend that if woman is allowed to vote
she will get down in the slums and
lose her purity. She is down in the
slums now and would get out if she
could. I know women who are at
work for less than a dollar day and
have to support themselves and little
children out Of it, while their rich en-
ploycrs sit high up in the churches
and say amen and amen to the preach
crs prayers. l know women, good
women, accomplished women, whom
men have ruined by neglect or aban-
donmcnt, and all they can do is suffer
and be silent. I know women whose
unprinciplcd husbands have been
breaking their marriage VOWS ever
since they made them, and still they
pass and repass in the community as
gentlemen. But this is the same old
story--who cares
Now it is said that although the wo
mans suffrage bill has passed the
house Of commons by large majority
it will be ANONYMOUSLY killed in the
house of lords-why, l should like to
know. The lords are not senate
whose age and dignity might cor
.:cct hasty or unwisc legislation,
out they arc a pampcrcd, purse-proud
nobility. Thcsmost of them are and
many Of them have as many wives as
Brigham Young ever did. But the
time is near at hand when woman will
&c cnfranchised in more ways than
one. The laws of marriage and di-
Torcc arc better in England now than
ours. They are governed by the
church-by the ecclesiastical courts.
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