The Courier. (Genoa, Nev.) 1899-1904, 1902-02-21

q
Less.
Why should lovers defer their mar
riage day longer than the time when,
as far as we mortals can discern the
future, the prospect of a comfortable
home is reasonably assured? asks Cy-
rus c. Adams in Ainslee's. 1t is sense
less to wait for the coming of affluent
days. Their lives should be united,
and each in his way should help to
bring about the advent of easier times
If they are ever to come. 1t is as fool
ish to wait for larger income than is
really required as it is for parents to
slave and drudge that their children
may enjoy a degree of affiuence they
have never known This Is the rock
upon which the French nation has
people. 1t Is interesting to know that
many of the tasteful, artistic and cost
ly products of France are made almost
exclusively for the foreign trade. Two
ges, for example, comes to the United
States. A well-to-do Frenchwoman Is
likely to use preparation of rice flour
as a cosmetic, leaving the delicate per-
fumes and other toilet articles Of Paris
for her American and British sisters
who are willing to spend more money
for such things. But the rich father,
unfortunately, conceives it to be his
duty to leave his children richer than
himself; If, on the other hand, he be a
poor tiller of the soil, 1t Is disgraceful
not to educate his son to a trade or a
profession so that the family name
may have higher place in the social
scale. This deplorable ambition fixes
upon the family a burden almost too
great to be borne, and parents deliber-
ately restrict the number of their chill
dren. In large districts, particularly in
Northern France families of more
than two children are rare. Many of
the young people, seeing the hard lives
their parents lead, defer their own
marriages in order to better their for
tunes, till at last even the desire to
marry is extinguished. Parents and
children of all lands may well heed the
lesson in sociology that France is now
teaching.
Nearly all our self-made men, lead
ers in the professions and in business,
married young and on very moderate
incomes. Many assumed, without the
slightest trepidation, the responsibility
of supporting a wife on $1,000 a year
or less. These men usually have very
pronounced views on the inadequate
knowledge of the value of money and
how to take care of it possessed by the
majority of young men and women.
The views of these young persons as
to the amount of income upon which
they may prudently marry vary, of
course, according to the circumstances
in which they have lived. Many an
intelligent girl who works in New
York kitchens has no doubt whatever
that she and the steady, industrious
fellow she intends to marry will have
q comfortable home OH $12 to $14 a
week. A penniless German school
teacher who came to Philadelphia
when a young man and who in his old
age lives in New York on the rentals
Of apartment houses bought with $780,
600 he earned slowly in manufacturing
asserted the other day that 81 ZOO to
$1,500 a year in New York would give
to young married couples of refinement
a comfortable home, books, music and
amusements and everything they
might need for the rational enjoyment
of life This gentleman has the Ger
man ideas of thrift. There is scarcely
any doubt that any man and wife, gift
ed with an ability to disburse dollars
to the very best advantage, would be
able to realize his idea Of comfortable
married life on small income.