The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-06-05
EVENING CHAT
By RUTH CAMERON.

Have you-"you'' this time means
particularly the housewives of the mid
die class-read Will Carleton's "One
Way Out?''
If you haven't you should at once
No, am not attempting to press
agent the book.
1 am merely Voicing a warm convic-
ton.
'One Way OUT is the story of man
who is typically of the modest salaried
middle class, with a standard of living
just above it's means.
AT the age of thirty-eight this man,
with very little laid by and wife and
boy of eleven dependent upon him, loses
his position. He has only a highly
specialized knowledge, almost useless
outside of the office where he has been
employed for many years, and when he
unanimously turned down by employ
ers, who all want younger men or men
with some more specific training.
After some horrible weeks of this hu-
initiating and hopeless hunting he hap
pens to find out by accident that Muir
ply, the man who empties his ashes,
is building houses and putting his sons
through college. He looks about him
and realizes that not only Murphy but
other immigrants are making good to
an astonishing degree and he suddenly
thinks he see "one way out'-that is,
" 0IulSTdl0 10 america ana start
where the immigrant does and take
what offers regardless of pride of class.
His wife approve. They sell their
furniture and with 800 clear start life
anew in one of Murphys tenements-
rent So a week.
The next day he secures work as a
laborer with a subway construction
gang at $3.50 day. He has emigrated
to America and they begin the new life
by looking about them to find what OPP
portunities and possibilities are open to
them.
How, with this new point of view, he
works back to prosperity again, how
his wife helps him, and how they save
on SO week where they hadn't been
able to on $50, is the rest of the tale.
1t is a thoroughly original, thought
provoking little story, but it is particu-
larly because of the part that Ruth, his
wife, takes, that l want you middle
class women to read it.
Her studies in economy-the economy
of thrifty buying, not merely of doing
without, ought to be suggestive to
every woman who is appalled, by the
high cost of living.
Here are one or two samples of this:
Now for breakfast we must have
oatmeal every morning And wen get
it in bulk I'VE priced it and it's only
little over three cents a pound at
some of the stores"
And the kind we've always had?"
About twelve when it's done up in
packages
They visited the wholesale meat shops
and familiarized themselves with the
possibilities there.
Every stall in the market had its
bargains of meat-wholesale bits unat-
tractive to the careless customer. We
bought here for so cents enough round
steak for several good meals of hash.
I'VE couldn't have bought it for less
than a dollar in the suburbs, and even
at that We wouldn't have known any
thing about it, for the store was too far
for Ruth to make a personal visit and
the butcher himself would never have
mentioned such an odd end to a mem
Der of our neighborhood."
These are one or two suggestions of
the way in which Ruth made it posi-
BILE to save on SO a week. I wish there
were room for more, but 1 hope I've
given enough to impel you to go to your
library for the book.
To the average housewife who gives
her orders to a boy at the door or over
the telephone, and who buys with no
idea at all of nutriment values, it seems
to me that Ruth's studies in true econ
omy can't fail to be a thought provok-
fr,-r