_®S MS 
ik© J8kli®n 
Ick is a luxury, yet almost a necessity 
during the hot weather. The poor can¬ 
not spare from their scant funds, any¬ 
thing to spend for the ice. So the ice¬ 
man’s wagon is watched by some of the 
more industrious ones, often children, 
and all the pieces left on the pavement 
where the ice is cut, are gathered up and 
carried away to add a little comfort, 
perhaps, to some feverish sick baby. 
* 
The New York Hoard of Health has 
taken in hand the spitting on the floor nui¬ 
sance, and has posted notices on the cars 
forbidding it. A decrease in offenses is 
already apparent, and we may hope that, 
in time, the comfort of a clean mouth 
will be appreciated more than the indul¬ 
gence in tobacco, and that persons 
afflicted with disease, will have a care 
for those around them. The danger of 
spreading disease, particularly tuber¬ 
culosis, will be greatly diminished when 
cars can be kept free from this source of 
infection. 
* 
“ You press the button and we’ll do 
the rest,” was such an apt description 
of the perfect mechanism of a certain 
article, that its manufacturers found the 
phrase a useful advertising medium. It 
would seem to be the motto for elec¬ 
tricity, so wonderful and numerous are 
the appliances which man has created 
for this mighty power to animate. Only 
a touch, and it goes to work. A house 
fitted up with electrical furnishings in 
every department, would be like fairy 
land. The meals might be cooked with¬ 
out fire. No waiting for the fire to burn, 
or an oven to heat. No hot bed of coals 
needed when broiling is to be done. One 
electrical iron would do for a big iron¬ 
ing, keeping hot all the time. The 
sewing machine will run by pressing 
the treadle gently. The piano will 
play with no more exertion. One can 
easily believe that there may be a 
wonderful heaven somewhere, perhaps 
much nearer than we think, when we 
see such exhibitions of a power that has 
been among us all the time but untried. 
think it pays to bite off more’n you’re 
sure ye can chaw at onst, and I’ve often 
told Tom so ; but he’s a Perkins. It’s 
his own way above everythin’ else with 
him. He came mighty near not gettin’ 
it that day, though, for one of the horses 
on the mowin’ machine stumbled and 
threw the hired man off in front of the 
knife. He wan’t hurt bad, only one leg ; 
but the blood jest spurted out o’ that 
like a fountain. The men was all 
rattled—not one on ’em knew what to 
do ; but Jack Riggs, the chore boy, he 
jest whipped up to the house and told 
Marthy. She grabbed up some things, 
and in less time than it takes to tell it, 
was down in the lot tyin’ the poor feller 
up. No faintin’ fits at sight o’ blood for 
her ! She fixed him up so it didn’t bleed 
much, sent Jack after a gal that helps 
her sometimes, to get dinner ready for 
the men, and jumped on to one o’ them 
pesky bicycles, and spun off after the 
doctor. The gal come all right, she’d 
been there before, and knew where to 
take holt; but Marthy got back 
dinner was ready. The doctor came 
after her with his horse, but she beat 
him. He said the man must ha’ died 
before he could get there ef she hadn’t 
known what to do for him. As ’twas 
he’s gettin’ on finely.” 
“ ’Twas a fine thing to do,” I said, 
warmly ; “ but not all women have such 
chances to show what they are made of.” 
“ That’s true ; but not all of ’em have 
the grit Marthy’s got. I always said no 
decent woman wou'd ride one o’ them 
bicycles ; but I take it all back now, and 
ef I had a gal, I’d get one of them for 
her and make her larn to use it.” 
“ Wish I was your girl, Uncle Silas,” 
said May, impertinently. 
“ Ye come purty near it, honey,” he 
asserted, gazing at her fondly. “I hope 
ye’ll be jest another sech woman as 
Marthy. She’s got sense, good common 
sense, an’ plenty of it. Why, after they 
got thet hired man fixed up in bed, and 
own we have, the less charity do we 
seem to have for the faults of our neigh¬ 
bors. 
The result of this double way of look¬ 
ing at things is likely to be ludicrous, 
when it is not exasperating, to the ob¬ 
server. We hear the notoriously “slack” 
housekeeper criticise unfavorably the 
ways of those who are neat and orderly; 
we know how quick to resent the least 
infringement on his own rights, is the 
man whose cows and hens oftenest tres¬ 
pass on his neighbor’s land, who never 
returns the tools he is forever borrow¬ 
ing, or mends those he breaks ; we listen 
to the bitter tirade of the man who never 
pays his bills, against the person who is 
owing him a trifling sum ; we note the 
scorn of the idle man for laziness—in 
other people. And in these and similar 
cases, the censor assumes such an air of 
conscious rectitude, that we wonder and 
cannot cease wondering at the strange 
inconsistency of a person who can so un- 
blushingly condemn in another, the fault 
much abused and very virtuous, instead 
of being made to sit in a corner and 
meditate, for a season, on his own 
naughtiness, and the hitherto unknown 
fact that a stone, hitting a boy, is likely 
to hurt him, whoever he is, and no mat¬ 
ter who throws the stone, l. bobbins. 
WHY HOUSEWORK IS DISTASTEFUL 
A N able attempt to present the domes¬ 
tic servants’ case, is made in the 
American Journal of Sociology, by Miss 
Jane Addams, the well-known head of 
the Hull House of Chicago, that center 
of educational, phila nthropic and re¬ 
form activity. Miss Addams’s opinions 
have been gained from experiences in 
a woman’s labor bureau, and through 
conversations held with women return¬ 
ing from “situations” which they had 
voluntarily relinquished. She has ar¬ 
rived at very radical conclusions, which 
she states boldly and explicitly : 
“ The isolation of the household em- 
fore of which he himself furnishes so striking ployee is, perhaps, inevitable so long as 
an example. the employer holds her belated ethics ; 
In speculating on the probable cause but the situation is made even more 
UNCLE SILAS'S OPINION OF THE 
NEW WOMAN. 
(Concluded.) 
“ C' HE ain’t always a-scoldin’ about 
her rights and wrongs, but she 
jest driv quietly down to the town 
clerk’s office, and qualified to vote ; then 
when school meetin’ was called, she was 
there. Squire Brown’s run things to 
suit himself in that distric’ these five 
year back, and kep’ a niece o’ his in the 
teacher’s chair, though she wan’t no 
more fit for it than a pig. This year, 
he’s out and the new minister is com¬ 
mittee. They’re goin’ to have a Normal 
school graduate to teach there, too, and 
if the children don’t larnsuthin’, ’twon’t 
be because they don’t hev a chance. 
They do say Marthy made one o’ the 
finest speeches ever was about the duty 
we owe to our children, and the need of 
better edication and all that. She means 
to see that Nancy’s gal has a chance.” 
“ That’s right,” I said. “ You must 
be glad that Minnie has such a good step¬ 
mother.” 
“ Yes, I am. I will own I was afraid, 
at first; but Marthy’s jest as good to 
her as if she was her own, and Minnie 
about worships Marthy.” 
“ It is easy to see that she has won 
your heart, Uncle Silas,” May observed. 
“ Wal, I do sot store by Marthy, now !” 
he admitted. “ Ye know ’twas hayin’ 
time when I was there. They were 
rushin’ things in great shape one day. 
’Twas a good hay day, and Tom, he’d 
set his heart on mowin’ and gettin’ in 
all the big medder crop. Now, I don’t 
got dinner out o’ the way, she see Tom 
was like to get his hay wet, for a black 
shower was creepin’ up, an’ she slipped 
out to the barn, harnessed a horse to the 
rake, and went right to rakin’ jest as 
nateral and easy as ef it was part o’ her 
day’s work. I jest said I was s’prised. 
She answered that Tom helped her when 
she needed him, an’ she didn’t see why 
she shouldn’t help him, too, sometimes. 
She does help in everyway. Tom’s twice 
the man he used to be. She’s one o’ them 
Bible women, 1 her price is far above 
rubies,’ ” quoted Uncle Silas, reverently. 
“I’m gittin’ to be an old man, an’ I’ve 
seen a heap o’ changes in my lifetime. 
My mother was a smart woman in her 
day, but she couldn’t keep up her end 
with Marthy ef she was here to-day. All 
I’ve got to say, ef it’s edication that’ll 
make our gals sech women as Marthy 
is, why, give ’em all the edication there 
is. Ef they’ve got sense, it’ll do ’em 
good, an’ ef they hain’t—wal, an edicated 
fool is better’n a dumb, ignorant one, 
anyway. They call Marthy one o’ them 
‘ new wimin.’ Ef they’re all like her, 
the more we have of ’em, the better,” 
and he brought his stout walking stick 
down on the floor with a tremendous 
bang to emphasize his opinion. 
GILLETTE M. KIRKE. 
of this peculiar kind of farsightedness, 
it has seemed to me that it might be 
found in the bringing up of the person. 
The child was never taught that what was 
wrong for others, was just as wrong for 
him. Ought not parents to reason with 
their children on this important subject 
more than they do, and instill the habit 
of thoughtfulness for the rights and feel¬ 
ings of others ? 
Children, naturally, have an exagger¬ 
ated idea of their own importance, and 
too often they are confirmed in the 
opinion that they are little hubs of the 
universe, and little paragons of virtue, 
by unwise parents. Johnnie comes 
whimpering into the house with a bruise 
on his head, and says that Tommy has 
been throwing stones at him ; mamma 
pets Johnnie, and pities him, and says 
that Tommy is a bad, bad boy, and she 
hopes her darling little Johnnie will 
never do such naughty things, and he 
mustn’t play with Tommy any more. 
Perhaps, a little questioning would have 
disclosed the fact that darling little 
Johnnie had been the aggressor, and 
thrown the first stone at Tommy, who 
up to that moment had been conducting 
himself in an irreproachable manner. 
But mamma does not investigate, and 
Johnnie goes out into the yard to call 
Tommy names across the fence, feeling 
difficult by the character and capacity 
of the girls who enter this industry. In 
any great industrial change, the work¬ 
men who are permanently displaced are 
those who are too dull to seize upon 
changed conditions. The workmen who 
have knowledge and insight, and who 
are in touch with their time, quickly re¬ 
organize. There are many noble excep¬ 
tions, but it follows that, on the whole, 
the enterprising girls of the community 
go into factories, and the less enterpris¬ 
ing go into households. It is not a ques¬ 
tion of skill, of energy, of conscientious 
work, which will enable a girl to rise 
industrially while she is in the house¬ 
hold ; she is notin the rising movement. 
She is belated in a class composed of the 
unprogressive elements of the commun¬ 
ity, and which is recruited constantly 
from the victims of misfortune and 
incompetence, by girls who are learning 
the language, girls who are timid and 
slow, or girls who look at life solely 
from the savings-bank point of view. 
“It is well to remember that the 
household employees, for the better 
quarters of the city and suburbs, are 
largely drawn from the poorer quarters, 
which are nothing if not gregarious. 
The girl is born and reared in a tenement 
full of children. She goes to school with 
them, and there she learns to march, 
1896 Hartford Bicycles 
REDUCTION IN PRICE. 
Patterns Nos i and 2, 
Patterns Nos 3 and 4, 
Patterns Nos 5 and 6, 
from 
from 
from 
$80 
$60 
$50 
to 
to 
to 
$65 
$50 
$45 
I 
BENDING THE TWIG. 
SUPPOSE that we all have two stand¬ 
ards of right and wrong—one for 
ourselves, the other for the rest of 
humanity. In the case of kindly, loving 
natures, these two standards are nearly 
identical, and sometimes we meet with 
a rare and noble soul whose leniency is 
all for the faults of others, severe only 
towards its own. But the majority of 
us expect more of others than we do of 
ourselves, and the more faults of our 
This is the best value for the money offered in medium-grade machines. 
COLUMB IAS 
The Standard of the World — acknowledge no I 
competitors, and the price is fixed absolutely for f ^ ^ 
the season of 1896 at — —. - |— 
If you can’t buy a Columbia, then buy a Hartford. 
All Columbia and Hartford Bicycles are ready for immediate delivery. 
POPE MFC. CO., 
General Office and Factories, HARTFORD, CONN. 
Branch Stores and Agencies in almost every city and town. If Columbias are not 
properly represented in your vicinity, let us know. 
