The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-05-05
SAYS UNCLE CIV

There seems to be good deal OF
common horse sense in the complaint
of our old friend, Ed Howe. who says
| that while a widower is always ready
to admit that he wasn't good enough
for his departed wife, a widow always
manages to give the impression that
the passing away OF the other half OF
the partnership puts an end to her
martyrdom. Mr.. Howe doesn't believe
that this is as it should be, and for
once, at least, the sage Of Potato Hill
is right, 1t is hard enough to have
to live with some folks and provide
'em with life insurance money without
having em talk about you when you're
dead and gone.
Hear now the hor1ily of a mossback
on what ais the American woman.
claim no credit for it. It fell from the
lips of old Doc Houser and hath more
than a bit of his quaint philosophy in
it.
Said Doc, as he whitfield off a smoke
of dog leg, says he: 1.-THE trouble with
the average American woman is that
she is rotten spoiled from the day of
birth. In some countries girl babies
are considered a nuisance and are got
ten rid of as quick as possible by vio-
lence or marriage. In others, they are
merely as good as their brothers, but in
the average American family they are
made of some special kind of mud.
Most of 'em are also taught they are
too good to work or to do anything else
but grow up idle and marry captains
of finance. These end by clipping with
the village barber.
Tn this matter of marriage their
mothers tell the girls that they are do
ing a man an everlasting favor by
letting him spend his hard-earned dol
lars for frills, fancies, bonbons, buns
and hired girls; that welded life is
never anything but nartyrdom for
woman, and that it's a mans highest
privilege to pay alimony or life insur-
ance premiums.
IT know one town in this country
that has at least 500 widows of. great
wealth and less'n twenty widowers
with money worth talking about. The
late lamenteds wore themselves to a
FRAGILE piling up the money that their
wives were to spend and died before
their time. I'd like to see complete
statistics on this subject.
Listening to the average wife, you'd
think she was a cross between brok-
en-down money-making machine and a
lineal descendant of the peagreen drag
on that ST. George put out of business.
Every time I hear the average woman
talk about the family provider think
perhaps George was a little bit haSty
and also find that I've got sneak
ing sympathy with that dragon. Like
wise I reckon the fellow that remem-
bers the days when he told the missuS
that he wasn't good enough to eat the
dirt she walked on feels like going to
the barn and bitin' piece out o. the
grindstone.
THE times comm in this country
when the breadwinners are goin' to as
sert their rights to rest in their graves
peaceful without havin' to turn over
now an then because the widows
whose future they worried over are
givin' the neighbors the impression
that they tried to be brave and hide
their SORROWS during the lifetime of the
deceased They'll begin by putin tn
girls back to work in tn kitchen and
teachin' 'em somethin' about the no
bility of motherhood and the inadvis- |
ability of runnin' a chance of stayin'
single by perpetual knockin' on the |
male members of the family"
1t appears that old Doc is something |
of pessimist. Yet there is some truth |
in what he says and I can. just hear
Ed Howe say, amen. '-(Copyright, |
1913, by the Mcclure Newspaper Syn |
dicate1