The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-10-28
THE idle WOMAN'S TIME
COMPARISON OF FRENCH LADY OF
1850 AND AMERICAN OF 1903.
Tfmc.K Hing Of the Modern Woman
of the Class That Does Nothing
I'm Particular.

Geraldine Bonner. in San Francisco Ar
genet.
Some time since, in reading n book on
the women of the French salons, came on
a description from one Mile. Scudery s
novels OF the manner in which a society
lady of that epoch passed her days. 1t
struck me as particularly interesting, in
that it was so precisely similar to the way
in which a modern young lady Of the same
sort spends the twenty-four hours. Here it
is-might it not be description OF the day
of a rich American girl with fashionable
affiliations?
Sleeps twelve hours-three or four hours
to dress herself-two or three hours in con-
Stunning her divers repasts-and all the rest
of the time is spent in receiving people TO
whom she does not know what to say, or
in paying visits to people who do not know
what to say to her.
Doubtless the amiable Scudery was some
what sour when she wrote this. She was a
dark, spidery little spinster. with a reputa-
ton lin a day when such things were re-
garded as useless luxuries) and a won
drously fluent pen. She knew her world
well-no one better. And We may be sure
that such paragraph as the above was
not a spiteful female thrust at frivolous
beauty, but was an unbiased statement OF
an interesting social development.
Any one who has passed much time in
the realms where well-to-do, well-educated,
well-dressed women congregate. will sooner
or later be puzzled by the question as TO
how large quantity Of them spend their
time. Kill their time would be a better
phrase. When one talks of spending time
it suggests the doing out of precious
commodity to be used to the greatest pos
sible advantage. Killing time is the getting
rid of long, empty hours, which, instead OF
galloping. lag listlessly by.
The division of labor among women who
are well provided for, luxuriantly en-
vironed, and all that sort of thing. is one
of the most uneven distributions that exist.
Women with children-no matter how large
responsibility IL they are faithful to their
trust and honestly discharge their duty.
Women with children, where the means are
small, have q herculean labor, task TO
try the strongest Women with houses ia
keep-either large homes full OF servants
or small ones where there Is no servant at
all-have got fair amount OF honest toll
to get through every day. To run a house
well is no mean task, whether it be "A man.
sion or q five-room nat
Below these We come to the women who
have either no maternal or domestic. re-
sponsibilities, or, having the latter, shirk
them by refusing to maintain homes and
living in hotels. or by letting the servants
do the housekeeping. With these women
go the unmarried girls. as We politely
call them, of from twenty-eight up. who.
having remained spinsters, have neither
maternal cares nor domestic duties. ana.
being comfortably supported by father, a
brother or private income Of their own.
have no need to hustle" for their bread.
Skim off from these the women of energy
and initiative, who become engrossed in en-
Drf tn1 N
work, some branch of philanthropy or
study, and we have a residue whose days
are spent in the manner Mile. Scudery de-
ScribeS.
WHAT DO THEY DO?
IT has often been a cause of secret curl
osity to me how many people 1 knew or
knew of disposed of the fifteen waking
hours the day gives us. 1 knew that they
had no settled tasks, l knew that they
had neither houses to run, children to bring
up nor professions to follow. Yet they had
fifteen hours TO get through. Take from
these three for meals, and it leaves twelve,
unoccupied, long, portentous. How did
they pass those twelve? How did they kill
them? / thought vaguely Of reading. but
that could not be made TO I'LL more than
one or two Many of the women who were
the subject OF speculation read nothing but
the morning paper. Some looked through a
novel or two n week. others bought half a
dozen magazines once a month. But these
literary excursions do not occupy a large
part of the day.
! then asked a friend of mne-an in
teIIigent man-for his opinion. He was cyni-
cal and inclined TO scoff.
.'Why, dressing" he said: -four or five
hours a day can be easily spent on dress
ing"
i denied that. Two hours a day for the
toilet gas ample. and more than most
women-vain though they may be-spent
on it. Give three-quarters of an hour for
the morning toilet, the same time for that
before dinner and half an hour for change
of dress in the afternoon. The scoffer
laughed aloud at this.
.'Three-quarters of an hour. That's alb
surd. Why an hour can be easily put in
just finishing up-iast touches on the can
vas as IL were.
you could paint the canvas as elaborate
IN as Meisson.er in that time" i demurred
for, truthfully speaking. 1 have known few
women who took longer than an hour 70
dress.
well. then. there's shopping" continued
the cynic: "a whole afternoon can be profit
ably and pleasantly put in i'm shopping"
but YOU can't do that often. IL would
mean spending so much money. Even rich
women can't go on a shopping orgy every
::They don't buy anything. That's not
shopping Didn't you ever hear % the
woman who asked her husband for 50 cents