Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1898 — WOMEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WOMEN

WIFE'S DUTIES IN HOME-MAKING VIRTUES, like roses, have thorns that protrude and promote discomfort, piercing when and where you are unprepared. The virtue of home-making may be sadly marred in various ways, says the New York Ledger. Every woman knows in her inner consciousness to just what extent her home is a burden. If she carried it on her shoulders, as Atlas did the world, she Is then battling with one of the opposing forces which fate stations at every corner, ostensibly to thwart her designs. Home should be a haven of rest, a resort to which we may all repair to escape the conflict and strife of the outside world. It should be a place where everything is free and every one in it should be individualized, and the motto should be, “Unity In diversity.” The woman who works about in the peck measure of home all day, seeking only the diversion which one duty acting as a foil to another duty can furnish, is on the wrong track. She is growing a thorn on the roseate virtue of home devotion that will one day turn of Itself and prick her own fingers, and more than likely pierce her tender heart. She will feel a pang when her children tell her she is behind the times, for in the minds of the progressive young Iconoclasts of the family she has perhaps forgotten to graft the quality of unselfishness. It won’t do for the mother to be a monopolist in this matter of unselfishness. It is a demonstrable fact that the woman who is thoroughly absorlted in her home, living for a domestic system, chasing np specks of dust, plodding along like a plow horse in a groove, is not the woman who instills into her children the greatest love of home. Self-sacrifice as a maternal monopoly Is a very thrifty thorn on the virtue of home-making. The mental, moral, physical and financial slavery of mothers to children is another thorn. There Is a distinction to be made b?tween devotion and slavery. The mother, of all persons, has the least right to become self-centered. Concentration of thought and energy is to a certain degree necessary to the success of the home, but that the mind of the mother be in a receptive state to outer conditions and events is equally essential. The home must reach out and allow its sympathies to expand, for the world needs it. The circumscribed love which does not penetrate beyond the four walls of horn? is a negative force which militates against the scheme of home-making.—Boston Herald. T Woman Sculptor. Miss Theodora Cowan is the daughter of an old resident of Sydney, and the first woman sculptor that Australia has produced. Miss Cowan studied in Florence at the studio of the late Hiram Powers, whose statue of “The Greek Slave” is known throughout all lauds.

At a recent exhibition of Australian art at the Grafton Gallery. London. Miss Cowan exhibited two busts, one of her late father, the other, a speaking likeness, beautifully and sympathetically modeled, of the late Sir Henry Parkes, the premier of New South Wales. For Plain Women. A woman who probably speaks from experience gives this advice to her sisters who lack brilliance or beauty: “As the chief complaint of the plain woman is her lack of admirers, I suggest an unfailing remedy. Treat men with indifference—not the obnoxious kind which makes you appear disagreeable, but the.easy manner, which says very plainly that while you treat a man politely and entertainingly, you will treat his successor equally well. Not being used to such treatment, it piques him, and immediately he tries to interest you. And from that moment he Is lost if you are one of the clever women I meet every day.” <» . Our Friendships. “I see a woman has been saying that as she grows older she becomes more and more exclusively in the matter of her friends,” said the man. *T don’t know how it is with women, but I think it is always the case with men. When a man gets to be, say, 30, he looks at every man he meets with some suspicion, and he has to know him a long time and very well before he win call him a friend.” • The Girls Men Admire. They admire the girl who is her mother’s right hand in household matters, and who is not above taking am Interest in the most trivial matters in connection with house duties. They admire the girl who Is a bright, entertaining companion, and who has ever a kind word and pleasant smile for all with whom she comes in contact. They admire the girl who is always neatly gowned, no matter if in Inexpensive

materials, and who never dresses loudly or in questionable tasfe. They admire the girl who can adapt herself to any society, who never puts on affected airs, and who would scorn to do a mean action. They admire the girl who in an emergency can turn her hand to anything, from cooking the family dinner to retrimming an old hat They admire the girl who is unselfish enough to give up some pleasure of her own to benefit another, and does not consider herself aggrieved at having, to do so. They admire the girl who can talk of more important things than dress or the last new opera, and who can listen intelligently when deeper subjects are introduced. RiKhta of a Married Wtnaaa. A decision of the Supreme Court of Indiana in the case of William E. Heal against the Niagara Oil Company es- < tablishes the precedent that a married woman can lease her land for the purpose of prospecting for oil so as to give the lessee the exclusive right to drill wells for the purpose without her husband joining in the lease. The court says that a lease of this character, as far as it conveys such a right for a short time, grants only a temporary use of the land, but intimates that the oil company’s right to hold the land for the purpose of taking oil out of the wells it might drill would be doubtful.

MISS THEODORA COWAN.