The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-09-30
EVENING CHAT
BY RUTH CAMERON.

want to take exception to a very
old proverb today-Half loaf is bet
ter than none.
In one application that is true. of
course, but in another sense I think
it is away off.
For although in getting, half a. loaf
is certainly better than none, in spend
ing l think it is more often worse than
none.
That is, if you are going into ven
ture of any sort, it doesn't pay to go in
in half-a-loaf style.
On paper on which 1 once worked
the management decided to feature a
certain big festival Feature let me
explain to the uninitiated, means
give lot of space to-
I'VE will send all our special writer's
and cartoonists to this affair." said the
editors, land have them write and
draw lot of stuff that will interest
and f1atter these people. Then we will
advertise on the grounds what splendid
and-Such Convention. and that will
make all those people buy our paper,
and we shall get our money back in
Advertising"
All of which would have been very
splendid if they had only done it in
whole-loaf style.
But they didn't Somewhere in the
process the management evidently lost
its courage about spending all that
money, and instead of advertising the
papers intention to devote so much
space to its reports of the convention
in a wholesale way that would have
brought results. the management stuck
UP a few posters so small and obscure
that no one who wasn't looking for
them could have found them and let
it go at that.
Result-Because they lost their
nerve and spent so little in their at
tempt to attract attention, they failed
utterly, and the money they did spend
accomplished absolutely nothing, and
was completely thrown away.
If they had spent three times as
much thew would Undoubtedly have
had a hundred tines the results.
Half-a-loaf-ism is the worst kind of
economy Isn't it better to spend more
than you really can afford and get it
back twce over in results, than to
spend half as much and then lose it
all?
Big money often gets big money.
Small money often gets lost.
The man who puts all he can afford,
and then some, into a venture, burns
his bridges behind him and therefore
goes ahead with a desperation and de-
termination that are almost sure to
He mustn't lose and therefore he
doesn't.
All of which, although have put it
in terms of money because that was
the easiest way to express it, is meant
to apply Just as much to the whole
hearted use of other things-time and
energy, and self. for instance.
If you are about to start any VEN
ture. whether it be getting up an en-
tertainment, winning mans love. or
going into business for yourself, re-
member that half loaf is better than
none applies to getting, not to spend
| ing and go about it in q wholeloafed
way, or not at all.
us it safe and proper for a young
girl to travel alone?" is a question
that is sometimes put to me. and
have always one answer for it.
1t depends upon the girl.
Some girls I'd back to travel around
the world alone absolutely unmolested,
and others I wouldn't be sure could
make a hundred mile journey without
being liable to insult and annoyance
or even worse.
In the first place it undoubtedly
makes q difference whether a girl is
striking looking or not.
Beauty is great blessing but also
a bane. If you work with a very
sharp tool you can accomplish more
than with the less keen instrument,
but you are also in more danger of
getting badly cut. Beauty is like an
Iexquistely keen tool.
But please don't think that I mean
a pretty girl should never travel alone.
Not by any means.
1 simply mean that other things be-
| ing equal a striking looking girl is
always less safe from undesirable at
tentions than her palmer sisters
| But there is one quality infinitely
more important than beauty or the
| lack of it for the girl who is obliged
| to travel unehaperoned
And that is common sense.
| Helen of Troy =
quite safe anywhere. Without it the
ugliest woman in the world might get
| into trouble.
| So if your girl has good common
sense. no matter how pretty she may
Abe. 1 don't believe you need have any