Year: 1879

The following, taken from an article in
the New York Times, shows up a humer-
Gus class of persons in language that will
commend the endorsement Of many who
have had experience in aiding the families
OF shiftless and undeserving men:


1t is shown almost daily by unimpeached
and unimpeachable testimony, that hus-
bands and farmers assuming to be reputa-
Bile, and frequently held to be so until de.
tected as base counterfeits, have for wears
done nothing toward the subsistence of
wife and children. In many cases, they
have not even looked after themselves
but have meanly eaten the bread-and vet
it did not choke them-earned by the wo-
man they have solemnly promised to love,
honor, and protect.


The popular opinion that woman is
dependent creature that she cannot make
her own way in the world that she needs
to be guarded, hedged round, cared for by
noble man, is pitiably controverted on
every side in each city, town, and village
of the country. 1t would be supremely
mortifying to all of us if we should know
how large a proportion of women furnish
food, shelter. and clothing for their hus-
bands and the offspring these have begot-
ten. The actual figures, could they be
gathered, would put all manhood to shame,
and expose widespread error. 1t has
always been the boast of the Anglo-Saxon,
particularly of the Anglo-American race,
that its men are manly; that they respect
and revere their women; that they stand
between them and the battle of life; that
they will not let their women drudge and
toll as so many foreigners do when they
have the health and strength to save them.
And the great mass make good their boast
it is so much and so uniformly the Saxon
habit that they who shirk the obligation
may well be regarded as of alien blood, as
they unquestionably are of alien spirit.
Still, it must be conceded that the excep-
tions are humiiatingly many; that there
are men and Americans really, and men
and Americans nominally, and that the
two are irreconcilibly different. .iQ


The first duty of any and every man,
whatever his breed or creed, whether cir-
lized or uncivilized, to provide for her he
pretends to love, and for those who are or
should be the product of his love, is igno-
miniously neglected, though seldom open-
ly disregarded, over all the land. Divorce
suits unvel but portion of them. There
are fathers innumerable who support their
daughters children because their husbands
make no effort to do so ; we are absolute
ly lost to shame have fallen in this re-
spect below the lowest brutes. There are
brothers without end that feel called upon
| to maintain their sisters, or brothers. fami-
lies because unnatural husbands and un-
natural fathers are too law, too
unprincipled, too contemplate, to take
care of their own. There are honorable
conscientious men who have refrained
from marriage and from having children
because they have never seen their way
clear to their proper rearing, and yet are
expected to, and do, give up their hard
earned substance to sisters and brothers,
and the progeny of these that have elected
to marry and reproduce their kind in the
face of prudence, justice. and the common
good. The sacrifices which many that in
no sense appertain to them for unwisely
welded kindred, unworthy from reckless
ness and indisposition to be advised of
such sacrifice or of the generous devotion
shown, are more pathetic and magnani-
nous than most of us could be led to be-
lieve without detailed facts and the un-
roofing of countless homes.


What meanness. what injustice, is per-
petually practiced in the name of wife and
children. Men fawn and beg and lie and
| swindle and seek to excuse deceit and dis





are really degrading themselves for purely
selfish ends Hundreds of undeserving
husbands and fathers say that they cannot
do what they would for their own Can
not is an unmanly phrase, and therefore
befitting them. Few of them fairly try.
They dawdle and whine, and appeal to
kind hearts, and get what they should be
ashamed to mention. II would not do it
but for my wife and children" He who
is ever ready to say so is mendicant in
spirit. cur in conduct. Wife and chill
dren should be noble stimulants to exer-
ton and enterprise, not acquittal for alb
iectness and self debasement. A man who
cannot, or will not, provide for his wife
and children has no right to have them.
Before he takes or begets them he should
understand his powers. Even wife and
children may exhaust his claim to indul-
| gence. F.s4ut