Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1910-02-01
a WAY TO REDUCE 7HE All, s

Archbishop Ireland in an interview
the other day laid good part of the
blame for the increase in the grocery
and meat bill to the extravaganza OF
the housewives. Certain housewives,
said he, whose deposits in the saw
ings banks are of the lightest kind, if
indeed they have deposits at all, when
marketing. are ashamed to call for
meat that does not have high price"
The Chicago Inter-Ocean dissents
from this view. There are, of course,
it admits. extravagant housewives who
buy costly foods largely because they
are costly. But complete justice to the
sex demands the statement that the
husbands attitude on the subject of
foods is generally the determining
factor
Take breakfast, for instance Who
is it, the Inter Ocean asks, that wants
the large and juicy steak and often
makes sarcastic comments if the meat
happens to be less toothsome than
usual?
Who is it, it goes on, that demands
fresh eggs without the slightest refer
ence to their cost and is prepared to
push aside, with an indefinable ex-
preston, any eggs that have sug-
gestion of staleness about them?
1t certainly is not the housewife.
says the Inter Ocean. The chances
are that breakfast food, tea and toast
are all she wants for breakfast. If the
menu followed her preferences the
market bill would be comparatively
small and the charge of extravaganza
would be the last one anybody would
think of making
This being the case. the Chicago
paper declares that the important
question naturally is: How can the
husband be brought to cooperate with
the housewife in order that the high
cost of living may be reduced, the
market bills become lessons in care
full economy and the undeserved
stigma which now seems to rest on
the housewife may be removed?
It suggests this plan:
If the wife, who may be presumed
to be well Informed as to the details
of prices, will gently and continuously
call the husbands attention to the
cost of the various things he is so
carelessly consuming, say at the break
fast table he will soon be worked up
to the point of almost total loss of
appetite for these expensive things
For instance, when he bites into the
steak let the wife remark in a casual
way: MY dear, do you realize that
you are biting into $1.50?"
When he breaks a fresh egg with
his spoon she might add: Seven
cents apiece and getting higher, tool"
When he buffers his bread let her
observe: THAT single pat of butter
probably cost three cents And SO
on throughout the list
Who doubts that this procedure
would SO impress the husband that
| biting into a choice sirloin steak or
eating fresh egg or taking an extra
pat of butter would come to be almost
equivalent in his eyes to chewing up
q government bond or lighting cigar
cite with a dollar bill?
In the beginning the Inter-Ocean be-
lieyes there would probably be GER
tain GOODNESS at times on the part OF
the husband. Ee naturally wants to
preserve his present privilege of eat
ing expensive foods in peace and igno
rance of the cost and of making g
/ large, general and vigorous protest a.
the end of the month when the bill:
come III. But, it declares, feminine
persistence would win in the end ans
bring him around to a mood of swee
reasonableness and active co-opera
Ition.