Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1875 — A Woman’s Mistake. [ARTICLE]

A Woman’s Mistake.

A local correspondent of the Boston Transcript writes in this strain: I happen to know a woman now more than sixty years old, who was taken from an honorable business avocation, in which she had been eminently successful, to become a wife. Like many others of her sex, she was mistaken in her husband, not that he had what are called vices, for of these he had none. He neither drank, gambled nor frequented clubs, nor had he any immoral proclivities. But he did not belieye that a wife should know anything of her husband’s business affairs, which idea also comprehended that he did not believe she could understand them! The truth was that he did not know’ his wife. It happened, how’ever, that he went to her whenever his affairs became desperately straitened, and, by means of her severe economy,-pften managed to extricate himself. Once when he had foolishly exhausted his income in building additions to old houses, or in expensive repairs for exacting tenants, for which his bills came in fast, she patiently showed him how to change investments, proposing to take stores in lieu of absorbing houses—a Successful change. She give up valuable servants, and executed an amount of w’ork with her needle which seemed almost incredible, besides drilling in raw people at low’ wage’s to take partially the place of those she felt obliged to relinquish. She instituted a kind of political economy, than which nothing could be more admirable and praiseworthy. And yet, with all this she never gained her husband’s regard or confidence. He w ould come to her to get him out of his “ tight places,” as he called them, but when he had got out and was doing apparently well again he ceased to consult her, never telling her how far his income ought to go, nor whether he had anything left after paying general expenses. He chose to relinquish business after some years—an ill-judged step under the circumstances. He had some capital, how’ever, and his wife ventured to suggest certain purchases of real estate, but he disregarded her advice. She mentioned to him four different chances for investment, all of which have since doubled or trebled in other hands, but he would not listen to her. Much against her wishes he purchased an old-fashioned house for his family to live in, and spent more on its repairs than a new one would have cost. He sold it subsequently at a price that would scarcely meet the original outlay. He agreed to sell valuable pieces of property w'hile she was positively refusing to sign her name to the transfer, and was afterward compelled to give her signature on being told that “ the property was his, not hers, and he would do what he pleased with his own.” Still her work went on—mending, patching, going to market for frugality, keeping her house clean and neat, ana her children clothed with her own handiwork. Certain property was under mortgage; she hoped to save somethin? to pay this, and never took sugar in her tea, hoping to make even that an item in her rigorous economy. But,

though his wife's influence was of so little consideration, he gave his confidence to an intriguing man of no honor and little credit, who had become known to him through some former business connections. This man beguiled him; made him assume the very investments against which the w’ife had remonstrated; borrowed money from him which he never intended to repay, almost entangling this weakminded husband in a network of bankruptcy. So years went on, the poor wife expecting sanguinely that the time would arrive when she would be living upon an assured income and see the reward of her hard and unremitting labor in an"easy old age. Alas! such was his promise and such her hope. Bui hope is delusive. He had broken his promise and had deceived her in all his transactions; his whole .income was pledged to pay notes on bogus stock and other fancy investments against which she had before strenuously protested, and would still have warned him had he confided to her what he was about. It was found by careful calculation that if he had placed $70,000, which he had received by inheritance, into such estates as she proposed he would have been worth in less than sLx years more than double the amount of the legitimate investment. Nearly thirty years had this careful woman been a wife, assisting judiciously in the education of her children, studying character and the vast internal growth of our city—capable of being the adviser of her husband in all things pertaining to domestic and financial economy. “What am I,” she said to me one day, in the agony of her heart. “ I am only a ‘ hewer of wood and a drawer of water’ in my husband’s house; when I wanted to be his true and faithful partner, lightening his cares and aiding him by advice and counsel.” This man cherished the idea that no woman had a right to know her husband’s affairs. This is what many a man has said; but when the downfall comes the poor woman has to submit to it, and to bring all her waning energy, even in old age, to bear, and, if possible, to improve the bad result.