The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-23

ten dollars. And these salaries, say! 1 the essayist, with just indignation, arc put forward by the treasury with the aVoWed object of attracting the eletC of that middle class which furnishes the bulk of bank and insurance clerks With the state doing it's utmost in this way to make married life impossible for the great mass of it servants, WhC need wonder, he asks, that there is a constant increase in the noble army Ot bachelors?
 The real secret of the slack time ir
 the marriage market, says a single man of mature years in Home Chat, is
 money, or, to be accurate, the lack of it.
 But in his own case there are evidently
 other reasons, for he goes on to observe
 that the great point in being single is,
 there is no one to say you nay or make
 scenes. If you want to be comfortable
 you can, and if you want to be an idi-
 ot you can; to which latter remark
 there has been a chorus of responses
 from feminine avaiables, all saying
 that the man who doesn't get married
 when he might is an idiot, whether he
 wants to be one or not.
 To this fascinating symposium on
 matrimony, it's disappointments and
 dangers, and the drawbacks to it, one
 who adopts the suggestive nom de
 plume of Tom Craven contributed se-
 were arraignment of the average mid
 dle class man." This individual, he
 says, returning from his days work
 either grunts or pecks at his Wife's
 brow as an apology for not giving her a real marital kiss, grumbles over his evening meal, groWls over his business worries, bullies the children, glares at the servant, picks q quarrel with his better half and with beWldering sense of inanity puts on a pipe and busters out of his jerry-huilt villa de- claring that "he's sick and tired of it all" After a scanty, lonely supper, the better half of this creature retires, says Tom Craven, to be awakened from a fitful sleep by the return of her hard worked husband, who has been assidu- ously improving his prospects by sit ting for some hours on stool in a sa- loon bar or spending on billiards the money he ought to devote to effecting q life policy calculated to benefit his wife
 
 and children.
 Why, he asks, does the average mid dle-class man marry the average mid lle-class woman? For one of three rea- sons. First, he fancies he's in love with her. whereas, in truth, he's despe- 'ately in love witt himself Second, her social position or tiny dowry may ad- vance his interests. Third his life as bachelor has so impaired his constltu ion that only the attention and self sacrifice of good woman can prop Jim up until he reaches dyspeptc, ill- old age. Properly, such q 'reature, if he be typical, must be yuarded against, and Tom Craven ounds the alarm. His advice is, let ,ur good, wholesome, invaluable Brit sh girls seek to know more of the in- Ter working of their finances lives. 1 They can preserve their modesty with ut remaining absolute simpletons. Let hem understand that no husband at all | s preferable to a depraved or alto | ether bad one, and above all let them | ontinue to strive during their spinster | lood to render themselves independent l f the sterner sex as the bread winners, | ecause all too oten they discover, when l that man is not the bread-win- | er, but the liquor winner
 Against the average man this ormed |
 pretty strong indictment, but there's | II old book which says every mans | ause is good till another cometh and | earcheth him, and by the reply he got l 9 these allegations Tom Craven must | ave been reminded of that saying. | his writer claimed himself to be ''an verage man." and it was by this title ! hat he signed his rattling retort. It's Il right, he says, to worship woman he is adorable often-but why combine worship with so much vitupe- ation of us men? The average man omes home, we are told, and, besides at his wife, ''glares at his arvant." Does he, indeed? If he did he'd give notice the next minute and lere'd be no end of job to find an- -her. The average man marries a oman because, forsooth, he is despe- ltely in love with himself. But if a lan's self-love is so excessive why does e take an income, which he might eep solely for himself, and, by getaing larried, divide it with another? Oh, ut he has so wrecked his constitution y the vices of his bachelorhood that 1ly the self sacrifice of a good woman m patch him up. There you are gain, says ''The Average Man aaise the woman and blackguard the en and you won't go far wrong. Yet le charge isn't true. The average man 1
 not physical and moral wreck and
 e average married woman is not sac feed, for statistics prove that mar ed women live longer than unmarried omen Thus valiantly and effectively came | rile average man" to the defence of | s maligned sex, and he closed with me observations on the decay of do- { esticity, Women, he said, are not so nd of domestic life as they used to me, Id for good reasons. There are q mill m more women than men in this is nd, and women naturally feel that ' ey ought to look out for themselves le continually increasing division of bor creates various kinds of employ ent suitable for women. By the bet r education they can obtain women e now fitted for almost any kind of , ,rk. Therefore more women than for !. erly remain unmarried, earning their n living; some, as they should, by )rk specially suited to women, others F
 dispacing men from employment. "a iS hot t1,hnp |