LIVE WIVES AND DEAD HUSBANDS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 473, 21 May 1890, Page 3

LIVE WIVES AND DEAD HUSBANDS.

By an Anti-tobacco Woman. -4ss HERE’S John, reading his newspapers. You might drive nails intohis temples i| s 5 and ho wouldn’t know it. Look at him ! Legs up. thrown back. The '/IkT inevitable and omniP resei) t pip° i° his mouth; *'* l ® ver y pi°t ure °f a '°- \v * sorbed enjoyment. Three papers he has thero. He will read every one, criss-cross, conerwiso, upside down, and inside out, till he has gleanod every particle of news. One good hour he has been at it. Now if I say to him, ‘ John, what is the nows this morning?’ that man will reply, ‘ Oh, none—-nothing in particular ; there they are ; take ’em if you would like.’

Now, nobody in his senses believes that John has been employed one good hour reading * nothing.’ He is just too lazy to tell what he has read ; that’s the amount of it. Now I had much rather read those papers than mend this coat of his. It is really too bad of John; he might havo given ino something to think about, while I was doing ib. An idea I Suppose I try this lazy system on him. Now if there’s anything men like, when their wives come home with a budget of news, it is to have them sib down and entertain them with it. Nob about troubles of servants and broken Crockery, of course; but spicy little bits of gossip ; about their friend Jones’ wife, and what tho witty Mrs said on such an occasion, and how tho pretty and saucy Miss said if she were Smith’s wite she would ib ! and don’t they like to question them as to how women think and feel on such and such subjects, which information they can only obtain by their wives turning Queen’s evidence ! Of course they do ; and when a bright little woman has chattered to them an hour or more, and told them more funny and amusing things than you can count, and they have laughed and enjoyed it, what return do they make ? Why they just stretch their length on the sofa and go to sleep. Now I tell you what: I for one have borne this state of things long enough 1 Ib is all owing to that vile lethargic tobacco. Before long we women will be expected to cut up their victuals and feed them ; they will be too lazy even to eat. Now I’ll tell what I mean to do. I am going to stop giving out, and cut off supplies, till I get something back. I’ll just try the monosyllabic system on John. He will say, tonight, ‘ Well, Marj% where have you been to-day, and what have you seen ?’ And I’ll just answer, bending over my work, * Ob, I went round a little, and I didn’t see anything in particular.’ Then John will, take a scrutinizing look at me, and ask if I have the headache ; and I shall answer sweetly, •No, dear.’ Then John will try again; ‘ Well, Mary, did you go shopping?’ ‘I? no—oh, no, dear, 1 didn’t go shopping today.’ Another look at me, and another period of reflection. ‘ Have you heard any bad news, Mary ?’ * No, John, I hope not.’ ‘Well—what tho mischief makes you so silent ? You generally have so much to tell me, and you sometimes get off a very bright thing, if you did but know ic. Something is the matter with you ; what is it?’and John will come round and peep into my face. *Oh I pshaw—l know; you are paying me off for not talking,’ he will say, half-vexed, half-repentant-. Then I shall get up on a chair, in the middle of the room, and hold forth. * Yes, John—that’s just it. You haven’t the ghost of an idea how horrid stupid you’ve grown. Don't I hate that lethargic tobacco ! We women are squirrel-like creatures, and can’t stand it. No wonder all these awful trials rill the papers. You needn’t laugh. I tell you ib takes two to make home bright. Don’t you suppose, you lazy thing, that a woman is as much perplexed and worried and sick of the practical, at tho end of the day, as a man can be? Do you suppose she always feels like giving out the last remnant of her vitality to amuse a statue ? I tell you she wants a response; and she would have it, too, if a man’s soul and body were not so tobacco-steeped that every sense and feeling is merged in the one drowsy desire to let the world arid everything in it, including its wives, go t.o the doge. And they are going, John! Now, lastly and finally, I tell you and ,aff; otbier: Johns who may, read this,; thatjfe.' the worst possible policy fin’vybujf’part, iris' 1 you’d see if you ever read t'He papers i; wrtb ‘ an eye to your own firesides, wljirili yoifi don’t. You can wonderhqw SnuthVAyife, or how Jonps’s wife, coqld ever hrivq dope' thus and eo ; but it never enters your slow hpads to ask if the homes of these wivc9 were silent apd qhqcrjess, arid if their husbands took all their attempts to enliven them as matters of course, and gave no echo back; and that being the case, whether the bright sunbeams outside might not glitter too temptingly for their weariness.’ And here 1 shall jump down from tho chair, and, looking at John, shall see—that he is fast asleep.