182 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



his judgment to tales of heart-rending woe. 

 The man finally selected, on account of 

 superior efficiency, professed to be in urgent 

 need of work. When, a little later, I was 

 preparing to leave the city, and offered for 

 sale a few pieces of furniture of a light order 

 bamboo and wicker chairs, etc. the 

 engineer came to view them. ' Oh no/ he 

 exclaimed, in a burst of fine scorn, ' these 

 things ain't near fine enough for my wife's 

 parlour. She wouldn't as much as look at 

 'em. We got to have somethin' in plush 

 somethin' rich.' 



It is occasionally asserted that the majority 

 of those who consider thrift or self-denial 

 beneath their notice are foreign born. This 

 may or may not be so ; I can only say that 

 my own personal experiences are directly 

 opposed to that view. The bugbear of the 

 foreign immigrant is, in any case, losing 

 much of its terrors for the home-grown 

 citizen. I am not alluding here to the lowest 

 of his kind, mostly to be found amongst the 

 Hungarians, Poles, Italians, Russian Jews, 

 etc., whose admission to this country calls for 

 the strictest of regulations, but to the great 



