New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-04-06


every vice Of man-and conse-
ouentlv most of his expensive
luxurics. Booze gone, smokes gong
And after that? Well, almost anything
is. perhaps, conceivable. Never agar"
will virtuous writers have at tneir o''-
nosa1 material such as has IN the past
been available upon which to base Il
TRADE against the extravaganza ol '''e
mere male. All of which has peeh SET
down really to introduce clipping at
hand from an issue of The baltimore
Weekly Sum-" dated 1856. a contcm-
porary of the same era compliments Inc
Weekly Sun upon being "one OF the
hest papers published south OF Ma
son and Dixon's line and, comment
ine upon the observations about to be
quoted here, says that while it defends
the ladies against the accusation Of be-
inr more selfish and eXtravagant than
the men, it yet docs not deny that
manv women arc needlessly eXtrava-
can't" But it contends emphatically
that "fewer are SO than IS generally
supposed" and then proceeds in the fol
lowing strain, which, the contemporary
advises, Expresses precisely what we
have often thought on the same subject:
"Yet the fault is not all on one side. If
ladies love choice laces gentlemen like fine
cigars From the day aborer. who will
have his beer and tobacco, up to the rich
citizen, who drinks costly wines or drives
fast trotters. self qualification is the rule
with men rather than the exception. Many
husband who swears when he receives his
wife's bill for gloves spends twice as much
on oysters for himself Billiards, suppers
and sporting excursions consume their pro
portion, at least, of the family income. In
justice TO woman, too, it must be admitted.
that, while her prodgality arises from the
desire to look loveler which is but the in
stinct of her sex, to render herself more
pleasing 10 man, the extravaganza of man,
on the other hand, springs generally from
a selfish desire to crafty his appetite or
pander to morbid love of excitement. At
most, vanity is more pardonabc than gut-
tony or drunkenness. Women squander
HhOHey oH SHON, Hlell waste II on VINE or
horses. We rarely hear the stronger Sex
dcnouncing the weaker as spendthrlfts
without saying to ourselves, take first the
beam from thine own eye
"To what do these words tend? Not to
increase recriminations between man and
wife, but to foster mutual forbearance and
selfdenial. We wish to impress on our
readers that there is no station, however
exalted, no condition, however poor, in
which one sex does not often CRAFTY its
vanity or appetite at the expense of the
other. Sometimes it is the wife who is
selfish and spends more than her share;
but quite as often it is the husband. Gus
tom however, has warranted the latter in
complaining of extravaganza, while the
same custom has closed the mouth of the
former, till half the world thinks woman
has no cause to complain at all. We JUS
THY neither. We say both, as general
rule, squander too much But we main
tam that if husbands, instead of swearing
at their wives bills, would show the ex-
ample of economy by reducing their own
selfish expenses, the female Sex would not
be long in being shamed into retrenchment.
Inc last wees man sees arc his own"