The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1897-03-26
BILL ARP'S WEEKLY LETTER.
BEGINS THE REGULAR ROUTINE
OF SPRING LABOR.
SAGE'S COMPLAINTS UNHEEDED
His Wife Keeps Him on the Movc-Medi-
tatcs on Woman's Rights, Grip
and rheumatism.

like to work when l feel like it, but my
wife likes INC to work when she feels like II,
and so between the two l have to work
nearly all the time. Yesterday I was grunt-
ing around with rheumatism, but she took
notion that it was n good day to take tho
Yerandah trellis down and clean away all
the old dead vines, and thought it would
help mo to get warmed up by Gxercisc-and
1t did. She knows-she has heard me try
to play Off on grippe and rhcumatics before
you can't fool the woman you have been
living with for 49 years-so got the ladder
and climbed up to the top and cut away the
tangled web and trimmed the running rose
vines and the wistoria and Virginia crceper
and then tore away tho old canes and
cleaned up oil the trash and burned it. 1t
was big job, for the verandah IL 80 feet
long and had to move the old rickety lad
der dozen times-seyeral times got sorter
dizzy and liked to have fallen, but my folks
don't believe L am rs old as am, and they
never will believe 1t until break my arm or
my leg, or my neck. Then 1 reckon they
will be sorry. man never grows old to
his own family; no man is a hero to his own
servant. The servant knows him too well,
and just so my wife won't admit that am
too old to be useful, and she keeps mo trot-
ting around. She gives me precepts and
examples, for she is never idle-makes up
me PED, cleans up her room, puts out the
washing and distributes 1t when it comes
in, mends my clothes, darns my stockings,
sews on the missing buttons, hides
my best pants to keep me from work
Ing in them and scolds me ever and
anon about my carelessncss. Sho keeps
on making little garments for the grand
children and still finds time to boss me in
the Hover garden and go to the missionary
meeting, and writes letters to the boys. She
never reads until almost bed time, but next
morning can tell us all the news worth know
ing, and has her opinions about Cleveland
and Mckinley and Lyman Abbott and DR..
Broughton and female suffrage. / read to
her The recent vote in parliament about that
and asked her what she thought of it.
'Wcll, said she, Il don't caro- 10 vote of
course | don't. but if the female suffrage will
lessen female 'suflcragc, | hope it will pass.
IL makes my heart bleed to read about these
hcartlcsS men dccciving and hctraying fool
lsh young girls who trusted thcm- what a
ritiiul scene ii wlS-that ruined girl follow
ing that man and his bride into the parlor
ears in Atlanta, and in her presence up
brnldlnG him with his infamy. And just
look around all over this country at the
young married women who have been ahan-
dohcd hy their unprincipird husbands and
now have to work and toll and almost beg
for living for themselves and their little
ones. III jury of women could try these
dcc"ivcrS and th"S" fnithlCSS huShaaI,.; they
would be sent to the changnng. whrrH they
b"iohS. III young man cmbC2:..;S some
rich mans money and runs away, thr judge
ana the grand jury and tn" ncwsuarrrS
make an awful fuss ah,,u: il and send tnc-
grams all over the cou;t"y to catch him. but
il he ruins II woman and breaks her heart
and makes wreck Of her life it is hushcd
up ana nothing is done. | am not Il woman's
rights woman. She has rights enough. but
thrr" ought to be some way of avcnginy her
WRONGS
That is fact and my opinion is that her
wrongs never will bc avenged until shn is
not only empowered to vote, but also to hold
office in SchoOiroOuS and in the government
OF the towns and villages. The age of gal
lan,ry and chivairy towards woman has
passed. This H. the unfccling az. and
woman has to shift for herself. Thirty vrnrs
ago she worked at seventeen OCCUPATIONS
ana now ut l3O, and gets about half pric" for
her labor half the price that the men get
who 90 !: no better. | am ashamed of my
sex, and never buy n shirt for so cents but
what remember that poor woman made
t-madH 1t in some worked all day
and part of the night.
with fingers weary and worn
With cyclids heavy and red"
And yet these lords OF creation pretend
that IL woman IL 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
II she could. l know women who are Mt
work for less than II dollar u day and have
to support themselves and their little child
rem out of it, while their rich employers sit
high up in the churches and say amen and
amen to the preachers prayers. l know
women, good women, accomplished women
whom men have ruined by neglect or a5an-
donmcnt, and all they can do is suffer and
be silent. | know women whose unprinci-
pied husbands have been breaking their
marriage vows ever since they made them
and still they pass and repass in the COM
munity IA gentlemen. But this is the same
old story-who cares!
Now it is said that although the woman's