Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1916 — Housekeepers and Horses. [ARTICLE]

Housekeepers and Horses.

The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has sent out this notice: "To the Lady of the House: Please order all your supplies for the day in one order early in the morning. One daily trip to your door—should it not be enough? Two trips wear me out twice as fast. Telephoning in an extra order doubles the Svork for the sales clerk and bookkeeper as well as for the driver and horse. Thia adds to the cost of all you buy. "Hurry-up orders mean the whip for me. "Please think of those who serve you, both people and horses. Your obedient servant, “THE DELIVERY HORSE.” It is certainly a wise injunction for the Rensselaer housekeeper, especially the woman who substitutes the telephone for the market basket. There is something to be said not only about the toilsome delivery horse but, the clerks.

Of course, the storekeeper, in order to retain his customers, will eater to the housekeeper regardless of her thoughtlessness. He will send the poor delivery horse or boy around any time she orders anything from a box of matches to a long list of produce. It isn’t he who suffers as a consequence, but rather his employes. A young woman in a grocery store who answered the telephone and took orders actually became a human wreck as the result of the nerve-racking strain. This young woman once said: “It was not the work in the store that was so wearing, but the women over the telephone. They would order their groceries over the phone, and after the delivery had gone call up again about something that was forgotten.

“If the horse was not available and the delivery boy was busy there would possibly be two or three telephone calls about the forgotten article, with a whining as to why it had not arrived, and the pathetic part about it is that each woman seems to think that she is the only customer that is to be served. “It is the 1 rare woman who makes allowances or thinks about the clerks who are there for the sole purpose of pleasing her and the workers who are so often overburdened by her inconsiderateness. “If only each woman wotild give a little bit of thought to those who must work in order to fulfill her wants, thipgs would be so much more pleasant and certainly less sordid for all of us.’’ There is considerable wisdom in this. It is regrettable to say there are many housekeepers who go on the theory that because they pay for a thing every attention should be given them, regardless of how much inconvenience it causes others.

It just needs a little bit of the golden rule -to save considerable suffering in this case, as it does in all others—if each housewife would but stop and consider. For example, she could easily be certain by making a complete list of everything wanted before she telephones for her day’s order. It would take but a moment or two. Instead of this she goes to the phone and at random gives an order, since she reasons it is so easy to ring up the grocery man again if she has forgotten a thing. And many a time that thing she has forgotten .might have waited until the next day. She usually goes on the theory that the horse is juSt in front of the grocery store waiting for her summons—and the clerks, too. Why not let the milk of human kindness flow every day?