Year: 1875




The country emptics itself into town more
slowly than usual this September. The long
rains cheated so many people out OF their hol-
iday in August that they are tempted TO
linger for week or two on the beach or IN
the farmhouse to enjoy the stiffness and shine
of these early Fall days, and linger the more
readily as they know there Is but little DuSl-
ness to call them back to town; and country
boarding charges are lowered materially
with the close Of the regular season..
Hence the streets in town devoted TO
dwellings are generally as yet closed,
dreary blocks abandoned to silence and dust
except where the watchman or stray chamber
maid crecps up the area to gossip with the
policeman: the clerks at fashionable shops l0l
idly over the counters and waters at the
first-cass restaurants stare superclliOusly at
the chance customer forced back to town be-
fore "the world" sees fit to come. Retail
business of all kinds revivcs more slowly than
was hoped. But we are apt to forget the
slight causes which deprcss elevate this
business, which, like fine vast web OF
threads, binds the people Of great city
together Great failures or changes in the
currents of trade and their effects are per-
ceptible to the duest, but we overlook the
comparative trities, the change OF style III
dress, the whim of fashion which affects the
well being of large bodies of labOrers. Two
Winters ago fashionable modistes suddenly
laid ban on the popular color of sage green,
and brought in navy blue; III consequence,
certain mill-Owmers failed or ran on One-third
time, thousands of operatives lay idle all
Winter and large numbers of dry goods mcr-
chants found themselves shaken and forced to
dismiss half their clerks, who starved at home.
Somebody revves the trichinH fright, and your
pork butcher moves into smaller house and
turns off his hands, and the hands cannot
pay their weekly score to the grocer at the
corner, and before tho Winter is over some of
the butchers men are in the TOmbs for steal
ing, and the grocer, who was a weakly little
man, is in the almshouse, and the children of
both are set on their headlong course down
ward. The story reduplicates itself thousand
times. Nobody is to blame for this long sue
cession of disaster, but the disaster Is no less
real and heavy.


Very few men or women by any individual
action can affect the financial status OF the
country or make the times more or less hard.
But every man in business and every woman
who directs household, however small, ii
they consider this inextricabe end minute
ENHANCEMENT of affairs in all classes, can do
much toward making the coming Winter one
of far less hardship for themselves and others
than the last, even if there should not be any
perccptible tightening of the financial pres
sure. Immediately after the failure OF Jay
Cooke and the ensuing panic spasm
of economy, rs we may call it, passed over
the country 1t became the fashion to " con
tract on Murray Hill as in the Western vii
LACE. The results of that domestic economy
saved IN one year to the country, as was
estimated by authority. tri1e less than
3O,OOO,OOO. Whether the saving was wise
in every respect or beneficial to the laboring
classes is not the question now; we wish
simply to show the magnitude of the results
of tring individual actions One undoubted
benefit would have been gained by the nation
if the habit of economy had been thoroughly
learned, and the habit of show and sham
dropped. With the first tightening of the pres
sure however, men and women made haste
to indulge themselves for their brief fast-tO
treat their resolution, in fact. The way in
which this is usually done cOnfers no help on
any one but themselves. The quantity of i'm
ported fine goods and luxuries begins to in
crease again. The number of pleasure-seekers
in Europe this Spring was materially larger
than last year, but the strait economy In the
household continues undated. Now it is not
time in this month of September for any ex-
travagance; it will not be time this Fall or
Winter. In the present condition of at
fairs no man can know whether his in
come will continue the same in January as
now; while he does know that around him
are countless men and women struggling for
employment every one of whom, in falling,
helps to drag him down. Common sense shows
him the simpls method by which he may help
to ward oft disaster in this crisis: economy in
such expenditure as divcrts money and work
out OF the country, and judiciOus outlay where
it will serve to keep the wheels OF the great
machine in motion. Precisely an opposite
course was adopted last Winter. Men OF cap
ital retrenched by lessening their force of
operatives or reducing their salary, and before
Spring gave away double the amount saved
in aims women turned oil a servant or UNDER
paid the washerwoman and treated themselves
to a Worth dress or fortnight last month at
Newport or the Branch


We know eminent philanthrOpists who con-
troll charities which have a national reputa-
ton, who pay their statesmen and bookkeepers
starvation wages: "practicing economy" say
they, "to enable them to give to the Lord
If every business man OF hOusekeeper, willie
deciding this month On a system for the Win
ter, would resolve that all unnecessary outlay
should be made in the shape of fair wages for
good work, could look forward to the com
ing season with chccIfulness rather than dread.


-----------------


When critic undertakes to correct blunder he
elo ha nj M to la