The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-09-02
THRIFTY PARISIAN WIFE.
HOY SHE MANAGES HER HOUSE
 HOUD EXPENSES.

of the WOmen-simpIe Tricks of
 Cookery All French Women Know
 Paris, like London, has her foolish virgins and wives, who try to look as if their fathers had ten thousand a year when they just have ten hundred. But there are certainly fewer such in Paris than in London.
 If you go into the livieliest sets, where the ladies of a summers day are vaporous apparitions of lace and tulle, for which you suppose that heaven only knows how monsieur can pay the bill, you will find, writes a Paris correspondent of the London Telegraph, that they had these dreams of soft stuffs made up at home by a seamstress at tenpeuce, or one franc an hour, on a model bought from a big firrl-probably the only dress obtained from the firm this summer. The Paris costumier thriyes on foreign custom. Partisan ladies have one gown from him per season, and have the others copied from 1t at home. So much for the thriftless wives of Paris! For the others-that is, ninety-nine out of a hundred, the term thrifty wife" is pleonastic. Every wife is thrifty.
 Thriftlessness is highly improper like smoking cigarettes in a cafe, to give an example. It may be becoming in a man, when his wife is not looking, to throw the shillings, or better, the sixpences, about. But no French woman who respects herself will do 1t. She leaves that to the ladies who do not respect themselves. For that mat ter, the latter generally are thriftless only for the, gallery, because they must seem to sheer as filthy lucre. At home they are natural, indulge the inborn passion of thrift, and save up yesterday roast to make a hash for lunch to-day.
 A thriftless wifenin France would be looked upon as dangerously eccentric or probably mad. A wife is ''by de- finition thrifty in the Frenchman's view. The poorer the husband the thriftier the wife. No people spend more money than some ,Parisians, but even they do not spent 1t wildly. The smartest woman in Parisian society has her dresses carefully mended, when necessary by a maid, and laughs at actresses who refuse to wear a dress twice. In the bourgeoisie thriftness and propriety are the cardinal virtues
 In. the professional classes life is a perpetual succession of miracles ir making sixpence go as far as a shilling The ouvriers, on their part, and their wives, succeed by economical and sensi. ble management in living about twice as well as English Workmen and work women, who often, as all in ranks oi unskilled labor, draw about a third more wages. ......,.>
 It would, at the same time be tht greatest mistake for the thrfftIess wife to set down the thrifty French woman as trump and dowdy hausfau with her mind in her pots and pans. On thu contrary, it is a rule suffering not e single exception that the French woman's first care in life is her owr appearance. Every one in the coun
 try recognizes that, and acknowledge. it to be right and proper, monsieur frs of all. Dinner comes next-but it doel come next. The French woman's in
 genuity is therefore concentrated ol I these two ends of existence-to lool
 well and to eat well. The rest vii talk l care of itself.
 Needless to say, the preliminary steI of securing the pursestrings has beer
 taken, as a matter of course, weel
 after marriage. Not one Frenchmal
 out of one million resist. Among tn, wealthy, monsieur has his allowance Among the fairly well off, he keep
 back cash for his three evenings weel
 at the cafe, for the restaurant dime
 and theater outing once or twice \ week. and for his tailor. Among tn
 working classes, he endeavors, not al
 ways successfully, to withhold fiv
 francs on Saturday evenings.
 But in all classes, without exception he hand the bulk of the househoIt | money over to the "missus" or t
 Madame la Marquise. He would no
 dream of attempting toa do otherwise
 nor would a single French woman
 stand his attempting it for one hour
 For that matter, she generally has
 bit of her own,@ be she ouvriere O
 Faubourg St Germain great lady. It f
 an absolute fact that the finances O
 France are in the hands of the womel of France. s.-f ~..
 1 They are worthy of the trust. The,
 devote their acute brains, unimagina tive, if you will, but possessing shoe l genius for the practical life, to the end
 of existence already spoken of, The,
 will spend hours of time and incalulabl l energy and intelligence on looking well 1 Nor Is it merely looking well, but bein, ireally well dressed. A French woman will rather stay in bed than go ou with an undarned hole In a garment
 however impossible it may be for tn
 outer world ever to see. the blemish. It would be there and she must feel, as we'll as seem perfectly dressed If the great lady goes over all he ! toiette minutely, the little bourgeois
 who has to manage with husband an two children on e200 a year does jus the same, and the; Parfsian workwomal
 as she. The merest and it is her prid
 that were she ever to be run over, 0 which there are always many chance
 in the streets of Paris, and taken to
 hospital to have a broken leg set no
 an undarned hole would be found il petticoat or stocking.
 l Holes having been alarmed, the sprin dress freshened up into a summer on