The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-05-17
THE HOME AND ITS MISTRESS.

| THE HUNK AND It's MISTRESS.
Women are accused, with perhaps
grain of justice in the accusation, OF
having no calculative ability. They
are supposed to think money grows
on trees, so to speak, and to have no
idea of its value. Allowing speck
of truth in this view, we may retort
by asking, Whose fault is it? If a
girl has spending money given her
when she asks for it, more or less
grudgingly or freely, as the case may
be, how can she properly appreciate
or judge how hard it is to amass?
But this, the learning how to use
your income to the best advantage, is
to be one of your first and most press
ing duties, dear mistress, when you
begin your life's work-the making
of home for your family. And the
most amazing and dismaying expert
ence you will find to be the perfectly
obnoxious fashion dollars and dimes
have of taking wings unto themselves
and flying away, leaving no tangible
evidence with you of their possession.
The many useful and beautiful things
you had planned to buy with some of
those dollars and dimes you have not
bought ; neither have You the money !
Then it is you will find it very
great help to begin systematic course
of bookkeeping, after crude method,
possibly, which no expert can deci-
pher and to which you alone hold
the key. 1t is not an agreeable task,
but it is very helpful one to jot
down each item Of expenditure and to
go apart and silently mediate upon
the result in cold, unfeeling figures of
After awhile, if you are the sensi-
BILE, practical mistress, you will see
that that money" went in small, al
most too small to be counted, sums
for trihes, and that your only redemp-
ton from the habit of spending it
that way is to learn its actual value.
Not that believe in denying ones
self everything pretty and useless !;
life would be but dreary Sahara if
we had no belongings that could not
be strictly termed useful and we
are to be congratulated upon our self
denial when we refrain from invest
ing in some of the many, so many,
tempting articles displayed for our
undoing.
A dear little woman, one of those
fortunate ones born with the faculty
of saving better developed than the
ordinary, confessed to me that when
she went downtown" unless with
some specific and certain purchase to
make, she always left her purse at
home. II only take car fare and,
maybe, lunch change" said she,
'and have no accounts so I simply
can not buy anything, no matter how
tempted I am and, to be quite truth
full, l am always glad when / get
home that I did not" This I would
call friendly assistance to the divine
power in the way of not being led
into temptation, and commend it to
those who want to keep little money
in their purse.
But, indeed, the keeping strict ac-
count of expenditures is the greatest
safeguard against squandering, and a
wonderful help towards economy.
You can have the daintiest possible
book, with tiny gold or silver pencil
case, in which to enter each item or
you can buy for penny or two
enough paper in pad to last year,
on which your figures will tell the
truth just as plainly. And you might
as we'll practice economy in this, to
begin with. For, after all, to be
economical, if necessity calls for econ
omy, and those who do not need to
practice it are not likely to peruse
hints as to its adoption, means to be
independent. 1t means to buy where
your money purchases the most of the
best; it means to use every particle
of that you do buy, without waste /;
it means to have always a little to
help somebody worse off than your
self, and, above all, it means the
maintaining your own self-respect by
self-denial.- l.-Co1ysspondent.
OFF1cER-"Is your brother, who
was SO deaf, any better?"
Bridget-"Sure. He'll be all right
in the morning"
Oficer-"You don't say so."
Bridget-"Yes, he was arrested
yesterday, and he gets his hearin' in
the morning"
Gam I as dear to you now as was
before we married." ?" inquired the
soft young wife. 'I can't tell" un-
guardedly responded the young hus-
band. II didn't keep account of my
expenses then"
De TANQUE-'What do you think
of the trouble out in the Philippines
over the water cure?" O'Soaque-
81 don't know just what the water
cure is, but it must be awful"