Sage Advice to Wives.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 51, 24 May 1884, Page 5

Sage Advice to Wives.

Not long ago a little volume made its appear/nice which, under the title " Don't," pietonded to guide awkward youths through the intricacies of social life. Since then, says the " Tall Mall Gazette," several other eft'usions of a similar kind have continued the work ot education commenced by "I/on't." Some are dedicated to the world at large ; others apparently to roughs and urchins ; and the last, " What to Do," a worthy companion to some of its predecessors, is a\ ritten foi married women without either common or any other sense. But as theie is rarely any chaff without a stray corn of wheat, we oxtract some of these commandments from the American authority which first published them : Do remember that you are married to a man, and not to a god ; be prepared for imperfections. Do anticipate the discovery by your husband that you are " only a woman ;" if you wero not ho Avould not care about you. Do, once in away, let your hu«band have the last word ; it -v\ ill gratify him and be no particular loss to you. Do be reasonable ; it is a great deal to ask under some circumstances, but do try ; reasonable women are rare— be rare. Do remember that servants are made of the same material as you are ; a little coarser-grained, perhaps, but the same in essentials. Do try and forget yourself ; as for your husband forget that you married him and remember that he married you ; he will then probably do the reverse. Do let him read the newspaper at breakfast table ; it is unsociable, but then it's only a trifle after all, and he likes it. Do let him know more thaw you do once in a while ; it keeps up his self-respect, and you will be none the worse for admitting that you are not actually infallible. Do remember that the interest ©f life is not centred in your home circle ; do familiarise yourself in outside events. Do read something in the papers besides fashion notes and society columns ; have some knowledge of vhat is going on in foreign countries. Do be a companion to your husband if he is a Avise man ; and if he is not, try to make him become your companion ; raise his standard, do not let him lower yours. Do respect your husband's prejudices ; do respect his relations, especially his mother ; she is not the less his mother because she is your mother-in-laAv ; she loved him before you did.

Mr Gladstone somewhat astonished the House of Commons lately by informing it that a single tenement in Midlothian served to enfranchise no less than 4o fagot-voters. Since that, however, some even more surprising statistics have been published, which show that the Duke of Buccleuch and his agents have carried the art of manufacturing fagots to a pitch of perfection hitherto unattained. On the Duke's property in Dalkeith there are seventy-two "feu-duties," nineteen being in the names of persons deceased or unqualified, and fifty of the remaining voters are Tories two Liberals, and one neutral. The system of creating these fagots seems to be a3 follows : — The Duke buys up plots of building land, for which he pays feu -duties or ground-rents to his fagots who are thus qualified as what Mr Gladstone called " incorporeal hereditament voters." Again he lets the plots of land or houses erected upon them to other fagotvoters, and thus there is practically no limit to the number of voters who can be enfranchised by some sort of an interest in an acre of ground. Perhaps the most objectionable feature of the whole system is the fact that the Duke often pays more in ground rents to one set of fagots than he receives in rents from the othor. In High-street, Dalkoith, for instance, seven voters are qualified as tho Duke's superiors, and receive from him £105 in feu-duties, while this disinterested nobleman only gets £24 in rents from his tenants. And yet the law says this is not bribery.— "Truth." In an action at Thames, R. N. Smith v, C. J. Stone, for damage done to land by logs in a creek, the Court has awarded £22 and costs. At Reefton, election possibilities are being considered, and Messrs W. McLean and Richard Reeves are spoken of as candidates,