Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1880 — A Plain Duty of Women. [ARTICLE]

A Plain Duty of Women.

The episodes of misery, defalcation and death that have succeeded each other in ao rapid succession in various parts of the country almost uniformly confirm the observations often made in these columns relative to the current habits of costly living and the extensive embarrassment to which those habits have given birth. Ihe downfall of this or that unhappy person may be commonly imputed to speculation, or .misfortune in business, or to other' causes; bnt the-origin of the great bulk of these disasters, if carefully sought out ipid verlflted, "will be found, we believe, in attmvagant expenditure in every day life. The financial storm that during the last ten years has swept over the oountry has brought about thepe calamities, but in strictness it has not caused them. As with houses built on sand, the weakness already existed; and awaited bnt the strain of the tempest to become deplorably manifest. The custom, to pursue the metaphor, was to build as if no storm was ever to be expected. But the only safe custom is to build as if the ‘ storm were' imminent and ineviUible. Had our various social edifices been constructed on the solid rock of prudence and far-sighted accumulation the hurricane might nave burst as it would, and all would have been staunch and strong; or at least many a home would have stood fast and firm that has fallen in desolation and ruin. American women have a task set before them to which they should forthr with put an earnest and willing hand. It is to return so far as may be to the old and frugal ways, the forehanded and sagacious domestic management of their grandmothers. By example, no less than actual saving, they may by this means do a world of good. Let them show their husbands and fathers that they are determined to oppose wasteful and unseemly outlay as a matter of principle. The family may be able to “afford” such outlay to-day, but may not be able to afford it to-morrow. A useful lessou is to be had here from the King who insisted that his children should oe taught a trade, and this applies to girls as well as to boys. No one can positively tell what his future circumstances may be.- Some of the richest noblemen in England are also the poorest because of the constantly increased deinanu upon their resources. Poor Richard may not be the best fuide in the world in everything, but e is certainly a safe one in domestic economy. There is no earthly need for doing always what other people do, or thinking always what other people will say. Sterne, by way of laughing at conventions, made some of the chapters of “ Tristram Shandy ” consist of but three lines, and even has several chapters in succession that contain neither line nor word, but stars only as the shadows or substitutes of what might have beenIf American women will but dare in this special sense also to disregard conventions, to jnsist on becoming housewives of the good old stamp, of regulating their hbmes not of necessity as others do, but as their own sense of right and length of purse justify, with an eye to the future as well as the present, there will be fewer bleaches of trust or broken fortunes in the business world hereafter than in these ten sad years there have been, as well as a much sounder because much safer enenjovment of life among business men. — H.~ Y- Evening Post.