The Forrest City times., 1905-07-14
TASTES AND INCOME
HARD TO MAKE NECESSITrN1
 CONFORM TO SALARY.
The Inexorable Must" Is Every where in These Days of Growing Expensiveness and Cannot
 Be Avoided.

and the means of tramp" Is gay. ing of our friend the Sanscrit pro lessor. Of course. he meant the tastes which only a millionaire could afford to gratify. for the making of most millionaires depends not little on the absence of tastes. This wide con tradiction which yawns between large desires and limited incomes counts for good deal of the interest of life and society and helps to keep the world going. says Ellen Olney Kirk in the Philadelphia Ledger Everybody orter have s50,000 and not cant more. said the Nantucket man If that were possible it would make dull world. but It is not possible. For divide the worlds wealth equally to- day and by tomorrow some be richer than others. Thoreau tf ,d to prove that a man of education and ideals could build his own homf raise his own beans and live on aimo noth- ing year. But he lived only him. self, without wife or child, aad hts pursuits were those of a rich man He liked books and leisure to read them: nature and ample time to study and observe it and friends to meet with and discuss the knotty problems then of fered to New England philosophers He could afford to be the most exelu- sive of men. His saying. "I would rather sit c-l pumpkin and have 1t all to myself than be crowded on silken cushion" contains the essence of the arstocratic idea
 recent writer In the Atlantic Monthly takes up the subject on it's more practical side, and from tie point of view that most college pro fessors are paid too little makes a careful survey of the necessary ex- penses of man with a wife and two children. obliged to live in a style that is sufficiently ereditable to the uni versity to which he is attached His summary of the needs of such fam fly is most comprehensive even taking into account possible operation for appendicitis tis it not time by the way, to begin to insure against ap- pendicitis?l Nothing Is left out. ant in the list of actual expenses noth.
 
 four keep one servant. and for the five there is grocery bill of s25 This. with $l5 for meat 8 for milk and SID for fruit, vegetables. butter and eggs. makes monthly total of S55 for the table. The item of s1s0 year for the dress of four persons is 5o4 moderate as to call for admiration l Still, counting everything insurance. charities, amusements. outings. the annual sum total reaches the amount of $3.150. while the average salary for professors is but s2000 The writer's conclusion is We and our wives face an impossible problem" the only solu- 1 tion being the possession of some pri- yate means
 'The must Is hard" says Goethe, Out only by the must can we test our l powers. To live by caprice requires no particular effort and accordingly the professors wife would. we trust. be able to reduce her husbands sched ule and bring it within the prescribed limit Indeed, the oldfashioned idea would have been to live on less than woo month and save the rest foT rainy day But the tastes of million aires are with Us. Every body has a piece of cut glass or blue china to live mp to Every brides paraphernalia is suitable for princess. and there is something tragic in falling below the scale which such elegancfes impose.
 Going without might seem the best remedy when one wishes to adjust ex- penses to means. but we are all so in terlinked with other people that our possible economy is the deprivation of those who depend on us Let LIS de eide to cut off the fruit supply. and the agony depicted in the face of the Italian who brings Us bananas and oranges eonyiets LIS of cruelty-almost meanness. Authors complain if peo pie do not buy their books: so do painters if the public does not buy their pictures. but all the time the an guish of soul of the fruit vender. whose fruit spells because no one will purchase, goes unspoken And think Of what an accumulation of bitterness there must be in the heart of the cab. drivers who tout" for a fare, Wita what scorn they must resent our igno- ble economy which deprlyes them of just that needed margin of income Such heartbreaks lie on the other side of silence.
 In spite of the growing expensive ness of everyday life, the inexorabie must is everywhere, and il may as well be remembered that 1t is frugality and not luxury which keeps the world wholesome; also that in the question of tastes versus means the people Of taste have endless cancellations and reyenges which make them eompara lively independent Of means.