The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-15
USES OF THE HEADACHE.
An Ailment That the Modern Woman
 Would Find it Inconvenient to Have

Would Flnd It lnconNenlent to nave
 Abolished.
 At our symposium the other night, by the light of an unnecessary, and there fore highly enjoyable, wood fire, we be- gan to talk about the lesser evils of life which go so far toward rendering eXis- tence a trist and unpalatable affair. If headache could only be banished from the category" said pale lady, with an air of mauve-colored gentility as if in better days she had been of a type of refinement of a very deep violet hue, it would be more livable world"
 "Ah, yes, headache" we al echoed, with that look of personal and peculiar appropriation of the ill that women ar rogata to themselves in speaking of suffering they have shared with the greater part of their sex. But, then, my headaches" hastened the pale lady to explain, "are such serious matters. They begin at five o'clock in the morn- ing with that dull"-
 Here somebody upset chair, supper was announced, and the interesting rec ord of days misery was postponed; only postponed as a topic, however for after they had all gone Philistina, who is of morbid cast of mind, turned to your correspondent and said: Cars abel, suppose headaches were totally banished, what in the world would we do without them? You have to have some sort of social scapegoat, you know You cant always be out when the subscription agents come; you can't always he going to New York when there is fair at our church; you can't always say you didn't sleep last night when you are as dull as one of Mir. Hall Gaines novels. When the people we were intimate with last sum mer at the Springs call, you can't say you've got scarlet fever, for the health officer will demand an investigation, and nobody cares to own to tooth ache. Upon my word" continued Phi listina, to whom a threatened evil is al- 1 ways an accomplished evil, II don't know what I shall say or how I shall keep my friends or fulfill any of my so- cial obligations. If it hadn't been for my headaches I would have had to pay a dollar and thirty-Seven cents in fines because I didn't go to my club last win 1 ter. They saved my character with l tte Stllman girls whose dinner invita- | ton I've never acknowledged; they | have saved my conscience a hundred ! times Sunday mornings when I simply i had no hat to wear to church. And as 1 for you, Carisabel, what are you going | to do next time you want to go to your room at six o'clock in the evening with the last novel? What are you going to do when old R. comes to talk about the sonnets; when Cousin Jane invites you to eta when somebody asks you to an evening party, syllabub and sponge | cake and intellectual conversation? i What excuse are you going to give when you cry about nothing or get fu- rious with the sewing woman and don't t go to Friday night church? How are you going to persuade yourself that your new bonnet isn't too young for you and that you can still wear Nile green, if there is no such thing as a headache to account for not looking i twentyfive?' ?'
 With this parting dart Philstina folds up her embroidery and leaves the room There is no danger of the pass ing of the headache, but her lamenta- tions over the very threat of it's depar- | ture opened my eyes. What would we do without it, the palliation, the moral poultice to many a social wound Why, the election returns are easier to go back of than headache. It is not always a valid excuse with another woman, but the most suspicious of men looks interested and sympathetic when he is greeted with the intelligence that poor Miss -, whom he has come one hundred miles to see. 'is suffering with
 a headache" and begs to be excused
 All they know of the malady, pooi things is what they themselves have
 experienced, and they conclude that
 whoever is afflicted with it is in a pret-
 ty bad way.
 And if it were not for the individual character of our headaches, how would some of us earn our title to distinction
 The lady to whom I referred in the be
 ginning of this article is personifca-
 tton of headache. She is as singled out among other women for her peculiar
 form of the disease as was the saint
 who carried his head under his arm
 No figure of the many figures that
 crowd the canvas sacred to the memo
 ries of my childhood is so distinct as
 that of an ancient gentleWoman whose