The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-07-20
ideas for dMnmen.


A stern moralist who wished to re-
form the world once said in my hearing
that each generation had to be taught all
the virtues. as If no one before had ever
been taught to be good.
When / look at the condition of the
shoes of many otherwise well-dressed
women ! am tempted to believe that a
pamphlet on the use and abuse of leather
should be presented with every pair of
shoes sold. Even then it is a question
whether the matter would end.
Even women who are most fastidious
about the shoes of the men of their
family are most Indifferent about the
looks of their own-often never polishing
or cleaning them from weeks end to
weeks end Many a well-gowned woman
thus spoils the effect she intends to con-
vey.
Women of even moderate means should
always have at least one change of
shoes. Shoes last longer and keep their
shape and freshness better when not
constantly worn. A pair of boots kept
especially for rainy or damp weather
viii be found a wise investment. as no
fine or new shoes should be subjected to
the indignity of rubbers.
The rainy day boots should be heavy,
and should lace or button very trinity
about the ankle. If of stout material,
with cork soles. they will wear for years,
and rubbers may be dispensed with. ex-
cept in the very stormiest weather-thus
doing away with a great bugbear.
Very few of US can afford boot-trees,
such as our wealthy cousins affect, nor
should I care to fiji my shoes with oats
- l~o, = S-;-1 NTha
toes of every pair of shoes, however,
should be stuffed with cotton before they
are worn at all. Thus the ugly break
across the toe is avoided.
A cloth should be kept to wipe the dust
from shoes when they are taken off, and
If they are damp, vaseline, or the black
paste, which can be bought for five or ten
cents a box, should be rubbed on. 1t is
best not to use the liquid French dressings
which are smeared N with a sponge
which is suspended in the bottle. For
black calf shoes use the regular mems
r polish, taking care to buy a reliable
make. Regular sets of brushes, ETC., in
boxes, can be bought at any drygoods
shop from 80 cents up.
For russell calf and russet or black
patent leather nothing is as satisfactory
as m%eltonian cream. It is not five min
utes' work to rub it on, and rub it
bright. and 1t is clean and easy to handle.
There are a number of good dressings for
russell shoes. Once in a while a russell
shoe will need a bath. a sponge bath of
CASTLE soap and water.
This takes of the dirt and stains, and
the cream dressing should then be APP
piled to polish. All of this cleaning takes
less time to do than to describe. and the
results are gratifying.
-.
1t is still a far cry to the time when
any women is likely to be called on to
serve her country in a profitable office,
and in the meantime we can never be
sufficiently thankful that we still nave
amonst us the women who is a domes-
tic diplomat, and who smoothes for the
rest of US the rocky places of every
day life. She is the woman who does
not bruise herself by humping up
against a stone wall when there is an
easy way around. who recognizes the
futility of fighting against the newt
able and who does not needlessly cloud
the sunshine of today with the gloom
of yesterday. or darken 1t with the mel
ancholy forebodings of tomorrow.
Just how much comfort and peace we
owe to the min diplomat we hardly
recognize. She it is who steers the talk
away from conversational breakers
h knows when to see and hear, and
when to be as blind as a bat and as deaf
as an adder; she knows how to say the
gracious WORD IN season., and how to
even give a reproof in such a way as to
leave us not smarting with wounded
self-love, but feeling that faithful, in
deed, is the reproof of a friend.
Such a woman recognizes the value of
times and seasons. When her husband
come home worn and weary and fam
ished, she does not present the bill for
her new bonnet, or pour over him a del
uge of household woes. She knows that
a tired and hungry man is neither just
nor reasonable, and that he may say
things that no ~after-apoiogy or making
up can ever quite wipe out. The use of
q little timely tact and forbearance
would save many a heartburning.
Very much the same thing may be
said of the management of children.
There are few grown people who do not
recall, among the experiences of their
childhood. the bitter modification when
they were reproved before company, or
when attention was called to some de-
feet in the presence of strangers. How
much more potent the reproof, if the
mother had only waited and quietly and
in privacy explained why such and such
a thing was wrong.
So
A New York woman went down to visit
some relatives in the land where pro-
crastination takes the place of time-in
other words, in Old virginny. In the
course of the visit one of the relatives
fell i'll, and the preparation of some dain-
ties for the invalid gave the New Yorker
a chance to see something of the mys-
teries of a typical Virginia kitchen.
It was a unique experience. Not often
does her Imperial Majesty the old negro
nanny who presides over such places
permit an outsider, and particularly one
from the north, to so much as peep
into her sacred realm. 1t was a roomy,
rambling, untidy apartment, whose motto
might have been "A place for nothing
and nothing In its place"
Conspicuous in one corner of the dress
er stood a big black bottle. The presid- !
ing genius rocked away in her comfort |
able chair and eyed the interloper's every
move. what do you use for a potato |
masher, Aunty?, asked the latter pres
ently. de big black bottle, honey was
the answer. de big black bottle on de