The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-11-23
THE MAN WITHOUT FAULTS.
His Drawbacks as n Matrimonial
Partner.

Partner.
Every woman, says Carroll w.
Rankin in Golfers Weekly, loves the
anecdote about the serene old lady
who remarked quietly that she really
enjoyed the earthquake that destroyed
her home because it was the first
thing that had happened since her
wedding day that hadn't been her
fault. This joke. however, is distinctly
feminine in gender. When a man
hears it, he invariably declares that
he doesn't see the point. Still, there
are times when the telling of this lit
tie tale will work wonders in the way
of bringing captious husband to
terms. He may not see the point, but
he usually finds food for reflection.
OF course, there are husbands and
husbands. Fortunately, not all of
them are perfect; indeed, some few
of them are willing to admit that they
are responsible for at least half of the
things that go amiss in the matrimo-
NAL partnership, but there are other
infallible mortals who never make mis-
takes-neither do they make desirable
husbands.
AS a general rule, the fewer faults
man has the harder he is to live
with. This is the real secret of so
many otherwise incomprehensible
marriages. The discriminating girl
chooses the lesser of two evilsg She
marries a man to reform him, in pref
erence to the awful alternative of fall
ing into the hands OF an absolutely
perfect masculine human being. Wise
in her generation, she knows that,
having no faults of his own to eradi-
cate, he win have just so much more
time to devote to pointing out the fail
ings of his defective wife.
This variety of man never admits
losing an umbrella, yet his umbrellas
O are no less prone to sudden and mys-
terious disappearance than are those
of other persons. His patient wife
may swear that she has not been out
of the house in any sort of weather
since the umbrella was purchased, and
that she would rather go out in the
rain any day without an umbrella
than to run the risk of touching his,
but she might as well save her breath.
The man knows better. The umbrel-
la has vanished. and who but his care
less wife could have lost it? When
it turns up later, behind his office
door, he still considers it all his wife's
fault If she had not telephoned him
just as the storm cleared away-to
ask if he had remembered to mail
the letters she had slipped into his
pocket, he would never have forgotten
the umbrella.
Who but his meddlesome wife could
ever have broken the tip of his favo-
rite fishpole? She may protest that
she never went fishing in her life. nor
kI,r.&a o-.4s
lar pole, but that does not save her.
When the man remembers, a week or
two later, that the pole was broken
the season before by a
man to whom he himself had
rashly loaned it, he remembers also
that his wife introduced him to the
man who borrowed and broke it. His
wife, therefore, is responsible for the
damage to the pole.
If his razor be dull she has sharp
ened lead pencils with it--she who new
er succeeded in sharpening a lead pen
ell with anything. If he loses a sus-
pender button while running to catch
a train, it is all his wife's fault-she
should have discovered that all the
strain fell upon that one frail button,
and braced it accordingly. If there
are holes in his socks. it is his wife's
fault for having made him walk so
far with her to pay visit to her rela-
tives-she shouldn't have had relatives.
If it rains, that, too, is her fault-she
tempted Providence in the morning by
predicting pleasant weather.
This type of man holds his wife re-
sponsible not only for all the plumbers
of the cook and the tricks of the trades
people, but for all the unpleasant traits
of character that develop in the chill
dren. Their virtues, of course, are in
herited from him; but their faults, he
can plainly see, are directly traceable
to their reprehensible mother.
BY treating the matter philosophical
ly as did the delightful old lady of
the earthquake story, it is within the
bounds of possibility for a woman to
live happily with a man of this sort
without the assistance of a Don't
Worry club-or, indeed, of any other
kind of club, however. tempted she
may be. When, at the expiration of the
honeymoon, she discovers that she has
drawn in the matrimonial lottery an
absolutely perfect man, she must make
up her mind to make the best of it.
When it develops that he is, in addi-
ton, a natural born kicker, the only
thing she can do is to let him kick,
to his hearts content, for the first ten
years. There is no swift, certain cure,
but there is gradual one. Even kick
ing pals at last for want of opposi-
ton.
If the woman admits cheerfully, year
in and year out, that everything that
happens is her fault, and then lays
claim to being responsible for the high
price of beef and Panama hats, the
coal strike, and the volcanic disturb
ances in Martinique, the man will be-
gin to feel in time that she has in some
way usurped his province and that she
is by way of becoming of more impor-
lance in the worlds economy than he
is In order to assert the supremacy
of man, and to show his wife that he
isn't quite a nonenity, he begins to take
credit for even his misdoings, and his
clever wife at last has him just where
she wants him. 1t may tax her In
genuity to keep him there, but II she
has been bright enough to accomplish
so much. she may be safely trusted to
attend to the rest.
A CUP OF CHOCOLATE.
A cup of hot chocolate, as clear and