The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-07
TRUSTING FRIENDS TOO FAR
Learned from experience Whe 'scapes the snare oncel Has a certain caution to beware.


 Whe 'scapes the snare oncel
 Has a certain caution to beware.
 Who has not felt the need at one time or another of friend, a good, loyal friend, into whose ear one could pour out all one's griefs and be. sure of sympathy, cheering words and heart interest?
 Confding natures cannot exist wlun- out it. They are weak vines stretch ing forth for some one to cling to- When the right choice of a friend is made the hsAat somehow is relieved or it's heavy burden, but there is. no sad ness more pitiful than to put trust in the wrong people.
 Women are more apt to make mis- take of this kind than men. No mat ter how close, comrades men may be, they know how to keep their own im- portant secrets. The woman in sor- row will rush to the arms of the near est woman friend. unbosom her woes to her, pleading for advice and con- fort. She does not stop to consider that the other woman is not vitally in terested in her troubles. The few plying words she gives in exchange for finding out her friends secrets cost her nothing, but in many cases she makes capital out of them.
 If the grieving woman's husband is unkind or if she learns he has fallen in love with another woman; that he is running behind in his business; if he has asked her to borrow money on their home, the last person to whom she should divulge these sacred home secrets in her woman friend.
 There are good tried and true wo- men friends in the world who would suffer being burned at the stake rhth- CT than betray such confidences, but such friends are few and far between. Most women cannot refrain from whis- pering what they have found out about the other man into their hus- bands ears. Of course, she tells her mother and her sisters, warning them they must never breathe word of it. They, in turn, divulge it to their clos est associates, and, like the endless chain, the troubles of the grieving wo- man have circled the town. Wives gossip about it over their tea. Men bring the matter up at business meet ings if they are concerned in transac- tions in which the worried woman's husband is interested financially. They do not dwell upon whether he is un- kind or not in his f1ome-that is no affair of theirs-but if he is in bus mess straits it behooves them, they agree, to be the first creditors to push him to the wall If they discuss his heart affai1, they also agree that a man who is loose in his morals is not a safe man to trust with their bus mess
 The result is! the husband of the woman who has looked to the wrong person for sympathy finds the backs of his supposed business Friends turned against him and ere he is scarcely aware how it happened he finds himself down and out.
 Gushing, impetuous wives should be carefully cautioned to choose their women friends with great care. Ac- quaintances they may reckon by the score, but friend should be chosen with the utmost care. No matter how close their intimacy may become, wives should hold their secrets too sa- credly to breathe them even to their relatives whom they have faith in to keep them. Unless you want your ideals of friendship cruelty shattered, do not trust your nearest and dearest friends too far.