Evening star., 1899-07-29

under the delus:on hat they must have
change in summer command a compara-
lively small amount of moneT with Whicn
to compass this change They have TO pro-
vide for keeping their home. and there is
the abandoned husband who must live,
which costs something IN spite Of the Sis
tanning providence of beer ard free lunches.
Il costs mere to dress for going away than
it does to stay at home. al! of which oper
ates 10 make the amount available for sum
mcr quarters not a princely sum.
1t the seushGre or Mountain Hotel.
My own experience, covering a large
amount of territory and widely-varying
conditions is this sum obtains such beds
and such board hat the actual benefit OF
change comes about in Chastcned spirit
Il spirit of long suffering and Thanksgiving
with which one welcomes the change back
home. After two or three months off i'll
the summer, | return to Was hingtOn with
just Two clear ambitions in life-tO get some
sound sleep and something fit to cat. In
addition to the beds themselves and the
food alone, there are the baby across the
hail, me piano orchestra down stairs to
make a mock of sleep. and ambrosa and
nectar would give you indigestion eaten in
the enforced sOCia5iity of summer hotel
and boarding house associations. As to the
children. when | reflect in detail upon what
sea shore and mountains intiict upon their
innocent young stomachs, that they get
through it alive certainly does say a lot
for mountain air and sea breezes.
But change in the summer does not per
tain merely to the family health. There is
the family purse involved.
AinIexs Life at a SunIney Resort.
I vowed last summer that if just Prov
idenCe would mercifully permit me to
store my children to a right order of liv
ing | would never again endanger their
immortal souls with q protracted stay at a
| caD
thing more insid0usy degrading to char
acter than is the whole purpose of life at
summer resort. Absolutely idle in aim, a
lot of people get together by the sea or in
the mountains. Their first thought is to
be cool. Their next thought is to be full
some more especially of food others of
drink. For the rest, they snore, they
dress. they Undrcss they play. Even in
dUstry in the place is prostituted and de-
graded to serve no nohler end than sus
tanning human beings in pure animal con-
tent. If | wanted my sons to grow up in
the spirit of summer resort life I'd train
them to smoke opium. It's less expensive
than summer hotels. and people who
haven't much money always ought TO con-
slider expense. even in going to the bad
else they'll go to so much worse than they
expected.
/ don't know anything more opposed to
family's getting on in the world than this
habit of breaking up summers and part
going out of town. The increased cost of
clothing, the definite cost of travelling and
summer board, are a comparatively small
item of the whole cost consequent upon the
popular disruption of the household for two
or three months out of the year.
The Family as n Husiness Concern.
Though the fact is little recognized and
understood, every family is a business in
stitution, engaged in a responsible part of
the worlds production, and not only is the
latter great matter affected, but to the in
dlEiGn1l household the iyely
greater matter Of family fortune is abso-
lutely determined by the manner in which
the family business concern is man
aged. A man may work hard and earn
more or less money. but his getting ahead
depends entirely upon how his family af-
fairs are administered. This going away in
summer means that household business is
bound To run at a loss for two or three
which is equipped to provide for "a man. his
wife and children, Will be run for the
man alone, involving much waste, or this
domestic plant Will lie idle, while the hus-
| band boards around, another plan involv-
ing waste.
Still another pan. quite generally adopt
90 in Washington, results in the actual
destruction of the home, and reduces
mans family To a sort of push-cart busi-
ness of living That is, in consideration of
the stern necessity and great expense of
gong away summers. people rent q fur
nished house during nine or ten months of
the year, and give it up summers taking
another in the fall-a vagrant sort of home
/ life, as demoralizing to character as to
family finances. No one would question
that man would no more than firt with
failure who moved his shop twice every
year and organized his business with the
expectation of breaking up every summer
Precisely this absurdity from a business
point of view results in household affairs in
consequence of the notion that a woman
must leave her home and her husband and
go somewhere with the children. because
hot weather is at hand. The actual waste
this practice compels is imnleasurable. It
accrues not alone directly from waste in