Year: 1879

There is an old and mplimentary
saying about people who are continually
s'saving at the spigot and wasting at the
bung," and it is at this particular season of
the year being illustrated fguratively by
thousands upon thousands of beings who
are altogether too admirable and refined to
know anything about such rude appliances
as the spigots by which barrels empty
themselves, or the bungs, made for ingress.
yet through which in o given time twenty
times as much of the contents may escape as
could do through the spigot. About fifty
thousand ladies, perhaps twice as many, are
renovating their wardrobes preparatory to
the social duties and displays of winter,
and some of their efforts might be laugha-
bic If men could be brutes enough
to forget for aS moment that the econom-
ical creatures belong to q sex that
Was not made to be laughed at. A
dress worn few times last year is brought
out for inspection perhaps it is of rich
material, graceful shape and artistic orna-
mentation; but none OF these considerations
avail against the fact that it was worn last
season and would consequently be alto
gether antiquated and horrid this year. 1t
is not to be cast aside, however, for the
American woman, let captious husbands
say what they will, is thrifty creature,
like John Gilpin's wife, who,


Although on pleasure she was bent.


She had frugal mind.


So that dress is reconstructed according to
the tastes and principles which. at this date,
Fashion has attained in her strivngs toward
progress. The robe is ripped into its original
fragments; it is recut, sewn again, orna-
mented with the latest quite too lovely
things that are found at stores whore
trimmings are sold; it becomes the upper or
lower part of new dress, by the aid of ma
terial that would cost as much as a robe en-
tirely original. for the woman does not live
who would eke odt old material with any.
thing that is not the newest of the new and
the best thing of its kind that the dealers
can supply. But this spirited. admirable
striving after economy is not allowed to fail
by lack of skilled assistance; modistes are
consulted, seamstresses are procured, the
family sitting room is converted tempo
rarily into q workshop. Further, the abb
straction that comes Of whole earted effort
causes the children to receive inconsequent
replies to their inevitable questions, while
the lord OF the household discovers that he
must


Learn to suffer and to wait


while so important matter as economy en-
crosses the attention of the better half of
the family. Finally, the apotheosis OF
thrift comes to an end and the paying of the
bills has its beginning. Then, by one of
those exasperating falsifcations in which
figures frequently indulge according to
those most nearly responsible, in cases like
the supposititious one given above, it is gem
orally discovered that the attire which afYec-
tionate self-denying thrift has remodeled
to save the family purse has cost as m much--
perhaps twice or thrice as much--as an
entirely new garment would have done,
even werc family peace and conjugal unity
counted MS being of no pecuniary value. A
more popular method OF saving ut the
spigot and wasting at the bung is yet to be
devised. .