The Savannah morning news., 1904-07-17
WOMAN'S WORLD

, house has raked in two more victims.
of the demoralizing effect on any
Woman's character of having nothing to
do, and no responsibility, it is need
less to speak. This is what makes the
boarding habit for women every whit
as bad as the drink habit for men. II
is just utterly impossible for a crowd
of women to sit up together with no
other occupation than conversation
without becoming scandal mOngers,
and possessed of malice, envy, and all
uncharitableness. Dress and your
neighbOrs, your neighbors and dress,
these are the two topics that fill the
whole mental horizon of the boarding
house woman. She learns to judge
people by their clothes, to feel that
to be in the fashion is the chief aim
of existence. and even to value her
husband in accordance with the
amount of money he can afford to give
her for extravaganza.
Nor is this all. An idle woman's
heart is the devils workshop, and the
epitome of all that is disgusting is the
type of firt that is bred by the board
ing house. You may find her in every
one in the land-a poor. weak vain,
frivolous woman. who is so disloyal
to the bread she eats that she COM
plains to other men that the honest,
Woodworking man who is shaving to
support her, is not worthy of her, and
does not understand her. Such wOm-
an never notices her husband except
to vent some tart witicism on him at
the boarding house table. and as you
watch her oggling other men, and CO.
quoting with brainess little counter
jumpers, you are filled with pity as
well as aversion, for you know that
she would have made a decent, SEN
sible, respectable woman if she had
Nnrsf WF
of work to do.
Why do women board? Because
they are lazy. They are not willing to
roll up their sleeves, fguTatively
speaking, and do their part towards
making home as they expect their
husband to do his towards making
living. If they have any trouble with
servants the first thing they do is TO
store the household lares and penates
and fly to a boarding house. This is
not only cowardiy, but dishonest. Few
men marry for the privilege of continu-
ing to board. They expect their wives
to keep house and make a comfortable
home, and when a woman fails to do
this she has defaulted on her part of
the marriage contract. OF course, the
servant question Is given as an excuse
for this hegira of women away from
their own home and into boarding
houses and hotels, but this apology is
valid only in the case Of invalids. In
these days of modern conVeniences
there is no reason why any healthy
woman can't do her own house work
with such help as she can get and
when one refuses to do it, it is because
she prefers to sit up in a rocking chair
and talk scandal in a boarding house
to making her husband comfortable
and happy.
AS for raising children in a hotel or
boarding house it is a crime that ought
to be actionable by law, and women
must have neither heart nor conscience
who are willing to do such "A thing
The little waits of the streets, with
out home or uplifting home influences,
are not more unfortunate than are the
children of rich people who are reared
in hotel corridors. and the sacred mem
cries of whose early lives are riding
sitting around hotel Hobbies listening
to the smutty stories of sporty ladies
and gentlemen.
The most needed reform in this coun-
try is the return of families to indi-
vidual homes instead of herding to-
gether i'm hotels and boarding houses.
1t would do more for the abolition of
divorce, the suppression of immortality,
and the advancement of child culture
than anything else i'm the world, and it
is earnestly to be hoped that the hus-
bands of the country will form them
selves into a Home Keeping League for
the reformation of wives and the cure
of the boarding house habit.
Dorothy Dix.