July, 1912 
week has more self-respect than a woman who is privileged 
to run a bill of a hundred or more a week. Right there is 
the first mark of benefit. 
Pampered women are not prepared to help when re- 
verses come, however much they wish to do so. They have 
become intemperate in their desires, in their dress, just as 
much as man ever became intemperate in drink. This 
“vice of intemperance” strikes every family sooner or later, 
and generally in proportion to one’s income it goes beyond 
a rightful limit. Then, for lack of knowledge, the woman 
is considered unbusinesslike, and so she is. How could she 
be otherwise? Having no idea of the value of money 
women are really wasteful, and all for lack of training 
and for which they are blamed. 
I believe that every woman, whatever her station in life, 
should have a fixed sum weekly or monthly, in just propor- 
tion to her husband’s income, the expenses of housekeeping 
and her clothing. Having agreed upon the amount she 
should have absolute control of it, to learn from the wise 
or unwise expenditures how to get the most for her money. 
You will find most men reasonable, and if you approach 
them judiciously they will see the wisdom of a separate al- 
lowance. There are so many excellent arguments in favor 
of an allowance. ‘The sense of being a partner in the firm 
is one, the independence acquired is another, the develop- 
ment of responsibility, the real value of commodities, all 
these are worth the training to be found in handling an 
allowance. 
How much does a woman know of the increase in expendi- 
tures certain articles hold which are out of season, if, yield- 
ing to the tempting appearance she simply orders and her 
husband pays the bill? How is she to know whether she 
is exceeding the just proportion of money from the whole 
income which should be used for the table, if she is never 
put to it to judge and discriminate? In fact, how can she 
learn what it is to be extravagant, and what it is to be 
frugal, if she never handles the money belonging to the 
running of the house ? 
She should neither be blamed nor criticized for being 
unbusinesslike. Just give her an allowance to be rigidly 
adhered to, and after a few months she will have learned 
some things she had never dreamed of. She will learn 
proportions, if, after buying without counting cost, luxu- 
ries out of season, for the first two weeks, she finds that 
she must live on hash and turnips the last two weeks, or 
else go in debt. 
She will learn the value of apportionment and she will 
find that such knowledge will give her power over her ex- 
penditures. One man has put it: “Considering the home as 
a business venture, what system has been devised in the 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
263 
conduct of this wholly one-sided venture? What is the 
apportionment for food, for clothing, for pleasure, for 
rent, for those fixed charges which every housekeeper must 
meet?” This is the business end of it—after having secured 
the coveted allowance. 
There is a real excitement, a great pleasure in outwitting 
your butcher and your grocer; by living just as well as ever, 
setting on the table food just as nourishing as before, while 
saving from one third to one half on former expenses. 
And this is sure to be the result on the allowance system, 
if the woman is at all smart. I presuppose her to be smart 
or she would drift along the old way. 
A woman with an allowance knows just where she stands. 
If she wants a fifty-dollar gown ever so much, and there 
is only twenty dollars of the clothing apportionment left, 
she will quietly wait until she has the money in hand. Under 
the credit system she had no way of knowing that she 
should not buy the coveted gown, and then she was called 
extravagant. 
The little leaks which exist in almost every household and 
which work so much damage, will certainly be brought to 
light under the allowance system. Expenditures curtailed 
without diminishing the household comfort ever so little be- 
come a most interesting study. No housekeeper, looking back 
over her itemized expenditures for a month back, will fail 
to discover here and there a purchase that has proved 
itself to be not worth while. 
But above all, there is so much pleasure in being inde- 
pendent of bills. To be able to trade where one chooses 
is a comfort. I have found better service in the stores 
under cash service, for I was quite likely to go elsewhere 
if not treated to the best there was to be had. ‘There is a 
kind of slavery in the credit system. ‘Take it all in all, 
there is every advantage to both man and wife, when the 
wife has a just portion allowed her to carry on the home 
business. 
einen ED iain aia EOS 
THE AMERICAN PAGEANT 
(Continued from page 241) 
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were ransacked and verily the result was a remarkable col- 
lection. Even the British and Continental soldiers’ uni- 
forms were not lacking. Puritan costumes, gowns of Col- 
onial dames, tilting hoops and modern dress were all re- 
quired and it was well New England thrift had preserved 
these things, for the correct making of such costumes for 
several hundred people would have been an almost impos- 
sible feat, certainly for so small and out-of-the-way place as 
Thetford, whose cluster of villages hoarded so many relics. 
A dainty way of serving mushrooms 
Peas served in scooped out rolls 
