THE WIFE'S ACCOUNTS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 775, 26 March 1910, Page 10

THE WIFE'S ACCOUNTS.

It is curious (says.a wise writer) that women. do not take advantage of that belief which appears to be inherent in the masculine breast —the belief that a woman who keeps her housekeeping accounts, every day is the model and pat. tern of. domesticity. It doesn't matter in the least whether she knows how to cook or ever takes a dustcloth in hen hand; tho minute the-men see her sit down at her desk with her little' book and her pencil they say: "What a good wife she:is—so prudent, so economical!" or, if she doesnjt happen to. be married, "What a' good wife she would make!" A careful study of fiction will reveal' the fact that when. a nialo novelist wants to paint a domestic woman he furnishes her partly with an f account book, a pencil and a basket' of keys, and lets, it g6 at that. ■ Esther Summerson, in "Bleak House," about whose domesticity overyone in the book is continually talking, - jingles her basket of keys clear up to "finis," and stays home from a drivo one day because it waa the hour when she balanced her housekeeping accounts; but we never hear of her baking a cake. As Dickens thought most men seem' to think.. Why, then, do women burn their faces'at cooking schools and wrestle.with servaut3, when just a littlo account book would gain for them tho desired reputation? It must be because most women find.account books more trying than cooks. There is one .thing about account books —you can't wait till the after next before" putting down your expenditures and keep them straight. And it is so convenient to wait till tho week after.