The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-11-15
EVENING CHAT
BY RUTH CAMERON.

A complaint was registered with me
today to which I'm more than glad to
give all the publicity I can.
1t is against that class of people who
through sheer carelessness, rather than
lack of money, let their bills lie three
or four months before attending to
them
This true story accompanies the COM
plant:
'I know a music teacher who has the
support of family consisting of an
invalid sister and two little children.
The first of every month she makes out
/ her bills and sends them to the parents
of her pupils. The understanding when
she took the pupils was that she should
/ do this-she did not add that she hop
ed the bills would be paid promptly for
she knew they We're all fully aware
that she was the only bread winner for
the family.
IF one happened to let the bill run
a month or two she could get along all
right, for she earns enough for a com
Portable living, but when-aS is fire.
quently the case-not just one, but all
forget or neglect to pay for several
weeks or even a month, it places her
in very trying position. Just this
present month on the tenth of the
month not one cent on one bill had
been paid, and had it not been that
she had credit at the grocery, the fam
lily would have actually suffered. But
even though it did not come to actual
suffering every housekeeper knows the
discomfort of not having a little ready
money on hand. There is the washer
woman to pay; the crock of butter
comes in from the country, the farmer
comes with vegetables, but she can only
send to the grocery instead of buying
at a saving as she ought to, and could
if people would only pay her the money
she has worked SO hard to earn.
"And the l ost trying part of it all
is that they might pay promptly if they
only would. The payments come in
checks, with hardly an exception, and
often after such a message as viii
you please send me another bill? I
think the maid must have burned your
other. l left it on the mantel, but it
my mind until today and now it is
nowhere to be found Time is money
to this little woman and it takes hours.
of it TO make out bills"
What one of us couldn't tell of some
case more or less like this one?
Myself, 1 am thinking of dress
maker, who has her invalid husband
. and two children to support. She was
employed in large dressmaking es-
/ Enlistment and did such beautiful work
that customers of the establishment
persuaded her that she should set up
for herself. She Sorely needed TIE
money and after much elaboration took
( this step. At first l heard she was do
/ ing splendidly. Later l was much pain
! ed to hear that she had been obliged to
go back to her former position at "a
/ reduced salary. Inquiry revealed the
/ fact that she had failed through no
! lack of ability on her part, but simply
/ because her customers-most of them
/ rich women-were SO tardy about pay
| ing their bills that with her limited
/ capital she couldn't keep the business
| on a paying basis.
! A good part of the dressmakers' pro
fit, you know, comes from buying her
customers trimmings, etc, at whole
sale prices. and she cannot do that IN
less she is able to settle her store bills
promptly.
Everyone ought, of course, to be able
pay all his bills at the end of the month.
But even the people who can't do that,
can at least so select the bills they will
pay promptly that those who are forced
to wait for their money will be people
with capital, and not people who would
suffer as this woman, and a million 9TH
ers like her do.
And as for the people who have plen-
ty of money to pay their bills and only
delay because they let it Slip or
| didn't think I have always had
an idea that He'll was paved with
didn't thinks" quite as much as with
I good intentions.