The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1904-09-14
ABOUT ASKING PAPA.
Unpleasant Quarter Of an Hour.
Dorothy Dix in New Orleans Picayunc.

If the average man would tell the
truth he would confess that the most
unpleasant quarter of an hour that he
ever spent was that in which he faced
a cold and unromantic father and
asked him for his daughter hand
Of course, if there were extenuatiDg
circumstances in the way Of money or
position-if he could offer the girl au-
tomobics and cottage at Newport
the situation was robbed Of most Of
its terrors, and the parental blessing
a foregonc conclusion. If, however,
be was an impccunious youth, with
nothing to give his wife but the love
of his heart and the work of his
hands, he would sooner have faced a
Gatling gun than the old man stern
inquiry: ~ Dung man, can you sup
port my daughter in the style in which
she has been accustomed to liv""i
A father always thinks that it is hi
first duty to ask that monotonous pucs-
tion, and the majority Of them feel
that they should move heaven and
earth to keep their daughters from
marrying if the youEg man says "no.
It's reasonable, too, from their point
of view, and hard headed old bust
ness man isn't going to take any
young man to support, not if he
knows it. Moreover, he considers
that girl is simply throwing herself
away to marry fellow whose entire
salary wouldn't much more than pay
for her silk petticoats, and that he is
just as much bound to keep her from
doing it as he would be to prevent her
from committing suicide in any other
way. So he pooh. .poohs the very sug-
gestion 80 scornfully that the young
man, hurt and insulted at the intima
tion that he is fortune hunter, and
that he is asking too much of sacri-
fee Of tho woman he wants to marry,
has to be either exceptionally teua.
cious OF purpose, or excessively in
love, If he doesn't abandon his suit
right then and there. Many rich
old maid owes her lonely life and her
loss Of good husband to her father 8
determination that she should not
marry any man who wasn't standing
ready to offer her just as many frills
as she was used TO having
VI course, father is doing no more
than his duty and is strictly within
his rights when he tries to protect his
daughter from grinding poverty, but
when he goes further than that, and
objects to worthy man simply be-
cause he can't offer girl all the lux
uries that she has been accustomed to
the trips abroad, the summers at
the sea, the opera box and the house
on fashionable stree. he is going
too far. He is demanding that the
young man start where he is leaving
OFT. 1t has taken him many years of
hard work to be able to afford his
family the luxury in which they live
now. and it is absurd to expect any
young man to have achieved that much
SUCCESS. If Jack has bank account
to match Maud's fathers, he is bound
to have inherited it for himself. Sim
ply looking at the matter from bust
ness point Of view and with reference
60 Maud's bread and butter, it is
strange thing that it doesn't oftener
strike fathers that the young man who
has successfully held the same place
In the Office or store for four or Eve
years, and saved up q thousand or two
dollars while "olerking it," isn't o
thousand times better match for any
girl than the youth who never earned
dollar in his life, who neither knows
how to make money nor save it, and
whose one star performance and claim
to recognition consists in having been
born the son Of rich man.
It is one of the queerest things on
earth why 80 many American parents