Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1909-02-26


Ing needs of a sadly neglected class and
to suggest to those women and girls who
go in for altruiStic effort. that social
service. like charity, should begin mt
home.-NOgue.
Apportioning the Income.
Il find that not even college women
have any idea, in the majority of cases,
what proportion of an income shot Id be
expended for the yaT!2us thing. [
spent ten years working out M per-
centages, partly from experience in my
own home. party from statistics col
lected by the government and various
organizations Eighty per cent. must
go for the physical life, 20 per cent. for
intellectual. Under intellectual l place
religion, education and investment. This
| is supposed to be for a family which
sends the children to the public schools
! The division of this one-ffth of the in
come among religion, education and in
vestment would differ according to the
| individual. AS Il matter of fact, the av-
erage expenditure of an American fam
! lily for religious purposes is only 4 or
. per cent of the income. By invest
| ment' l mean savings. They should not
! be less than ~ per cent. of the income.
l make no definite allowance for amuse-
ments. They would come under either
6uuCdtlOu OF personal expenses.
| Kent, in my classification, | place at
| II per cent. of the income That is an
! average for the whole country. In the
| city it has to be higher, and city prices
| fOI rent and fuel prevail to distance Of
| fifty miles from the large cities. Outside
! Of that radius prices drop suddenly. At
| Middletown, \. Y, which is sixty miles
from New York city, milk is 4 cents
! quart, and in such places you can get
| a big, comfortable house, with plenty of
ground, for 500 a year. The wages
of the servants are also three times
higher within the ffty-mile radius.
Heat should be per cent. of the
income, light ~. The more rent you
pay, generally speaking, the more your
heat and light will be. If you pay high
er rent for locality, instead of space, ex-
ira expense will come in clothing and
keeping up generally with your neigh
bors. The whole scale of life depends
more on rent than anything else The
expense for food | place at 2S per cent
of the income; this for a family of two
adults. and two children 1t requires
very cE)se management TO keep To that
| percentage with present prices of food.
\ few years ago it was considerably
easier. Personal expenses, covering
clothing and the services of DOCTORS law
yerS, dentists, and so on, | place at u
per cent Of the income. incidental eX-
ptilSEN at - per cent. operating On ItllSeS
the same. and wages at S12 per cent.
This item covers domestic service and
laundry bills.
If any one of these items is costing
Il family more than the percentage have
allowed for il the family will suffer at
some other point. They are spending
too much at one point and are getting
less than they ought to ut some other.
These percentages cannot be kept to in
any one month nut the years total
should be found to fall into these proper
tons. OF course, if no servant is kept
there is Il great saving, not only in
wages, but in breakage and waste. No
family should spend more than So per
cent. of it's income on service.
Il find that great numbers Of people
are living beyond their income. Women
come to me--sOmetimeS gray haired
women old enough to be my mother-and
ask to be told how TO live within their
incomes Sometimes they tell me that
they have never known what ii was not
to be pressed for money; that their whole
married lives had been spent under the
strain of knowing that they were ex-
ceeding their incomes all the time. There
is nothing for such people to do except
to adopt simpler scale Of living. Last
wear | questioned sixty-seyen grOcers and
butchers after Christmas as to the way in
which people paid their Thanksgiving
and Christmas bills. Without one eXcep-
ton they told me that it was very hard
for people to catch up; that often they
pad those extra bills in small amounts
monthly. and that sometimes the holiday
would almost come around again before
the holiday dinner of Il year ago was
Maid for Exchange.
$3.50
The Young Victoria.
The Century is publishing letters Of
Mrs. Sallfe Coles Stevenson, wife of the
American minister in London, 1864,
who took prominent part in the social
life of the most exclusive society and
saw often the young Queen Victoria.
Here is Mrs. Stevenson's description Of
the young Queen:
"Her voice is as sweet as a Virginia
nightingale's, and dwells upon the mem