Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-04-16
I House.
HOLD
lINTS

If Il is true, as economists assure US, that
We are the most wasteful people on the
face of the earth, 1t is time we turned over
a new leaf. How much of our needless ex-
penditure is due to idleness how much to
pride and how much to folly is a matter
for individual consideration. Ignorance
comes in. too, for share of the blame To
point my moral / have in mind couple
still under thirtyfive, well disposed and
fairly intelligent, yet always under the bar
rier of debt. They have five children, the
oldest not more than twelve. False pride
makes them want to live in an apartment
house in a fashionable quarter of the city,
where the rent is proportionately beyond
their means, and where they are crowded
into the smallest possible space, too con-
tracted to keep things sanitarily clean with
so many children. There is almost no place
outside for the necessary daily airing of
bedding and the drying of clothes The
woman, lamentably ignorant of the abso-
Lutte need of fresh air. hardly opens her win
dows for weeks at a time. with the conse-
Quence that the air inside is always foul
with noNious odors.
There is no place for the children to play
outside, save in the street; no chance inside
without complaints from the adjoining ten
ants, who rightfully feel aggrieved at the
bounding of balls against the ceiling the
s.,
the hammering on the steam pipes and the
nerve-wearing racket of penny whistles and
mouth organs
why don't you move into less expen-
sive neighborhood. where you can get a
whole house, even If very small and plain,
but with yard for the children to play
in?" asked a well wisher
oh" whned the mother. always defect
ed and kimona- jacketed, II wouldn't like to
live in cheap neighborhood, you know
Mr. Jones often says he would like to get a
little house In some of the suburban towns
but / tell him I'm afraid the society
wouldn't be good and don't like the coun-
try. This woman married very Young
has never learned to cook anything save
ham and bacon. Almost their entire living
for the family comes from the nefghboring
delicatessen store. the most extravagant
and unwholesome way of furnishing a table
that one can devise. The CONSEQUENCE Is
the entire family are pale, anaemic out OF
sorts, under the weather the most of the
time. Furnished with pennies galore to
invest in all the perishable trumpery that
fills the windows and showcases of the cor
ner motion store" the children have NOT
night dresses enough to go around. and the
older ones sleep in the same fiannels that
they wear in the daytime. Ii is such shift
lessness ignorance and vanity on the mart
of some women that goes far, in the homely
language of Poor Richard toward keeping
the husbands nose to the grindstone ali
his life. According to the head Of the
Chlcdso bureau or charities, bad cooking
and slovenly housekeeping were the direct
causes of 100 divorces In that city during
1902 the women themselves admitting that
they could neither cook nor keep house. .
further corroborating Samuel Smiles state
ment: Whom God has Joined in matri-
mony. ill-cooked joints and ill-boiled no.
tatoes have very often put asunder"
Many families who can i'll afford it. waste
or throw away from TO 80 per cent of
the food they buy.
A nf Gar ha
collector is not pleasing spectacle but il
affords food for reflection. Slices or even
whole loaves of dried bread. portions of
cooked vegetables cold meat-steak chops,
even roasts-thick potato and apple peel
ings, celery tops, hard boiled eggs, cooked