A Word to Women Part 7

It is undignified to owe money to any one, and more particularly to one's social inferiors, but this view of the subject is too seldom taken. Can any one dispute it, however? We badly want it to be made plain to the eyes of the whole community.

[Sidenote: Increased prices.]

One disagreeable result of the credit system is the raising of the market price of commodities in order to cover the losses resultant to the trader.

Not only do bad debts occur, which have to be written off the books, but being "out of one's money" for years means loss of interest. Those who pay ready money are sometimes, and should always be, allowed discount off all payments, but even when this is done it does not suffice to meet the claims of absolute justice in the matter, the scales of prices having been adjusted to cover losses owing to the credit system.

[Sidenote: The sufferers.]

Tradesmen have to charge high rates or they could not keep on their business, and the hard part of it is that the very persons who enable them to keep going by paying their accounts weekly are those who suffer most from the system, paying a fifth or so more than they need were all transactions "money down."

[Sidenote: The other side.]

And now for the other side of the question. It has often been said that tradesmen like customers to run long accounts. Let any one who believes this buy a few of the trade papers, and see what they have to say on the subject. Let them visit a few of the West End Court milliners and ask them what their opinion of the matter is. Let them interview the managers of large drapery houses. They will soon find that the tradesman has a distinct grievance in the credit system. Here is what one dressmaker says, and she is only one of a very numerous cla.s.s, every member of which is in exactly similar circ.u.mstances.

[Sidenote: A dressmaker's opinion.]

[Sidenote: A case in point.]

She is a clever and enterprising woman who had opened an establishment for the sale of all kinds of articles for ladies' wear, and complains bitterly that, though she is doing a good trade, all her money has become "buried in her books." She is making money with her extending business, "but," she says, "I really have less command of cash than at any time in my life. The fact is my savings are all lent to rich people." Asked for an example, she said: "The last bill I receipted this morning will do. Ten months ago a lady came into the shop, talked pleasantly on Church matters, in which I am interested, bought nearly 30 worth of goods, after very sharp bargaining, that reduced my profits to the narrowest margin, and went away. To have suggested payment during these ten months would have been regarded as an insult, and I should have lost her custom for ever. I have often been in need of the money. She is the wife of a very high ecclesiastical dignitary, is regarded as philanthropic, talks about self-help among women, and very likely visited my shop in that spirit; yet though she is undoubtedly rich she borrowed 30 of my capital for ten months without paying any interest."

[Sidenote: A second opinion.]

"If I could only get a little money in from my customers," said a hard-worked West End milliner to me one day during a very hot and exhausting May, "I could run off to the seaside or to Scotland for a week, and take my poor old mother, who needs a change even more than I do. But I can't get any of my ladies to pay." "Write and tell them how it is," I suggested. "Oh, no! That would never do," was the reply. "I should offend them terribly, and they would not only never come back themselves, but would pa.s.s the word round among their friends that I am given to dunning."

[Sidenote: One result of the system.]

One of these ladies owed her 800, and probably still owes some of it, though that was three or four seasons since; for her way of paying off is to order a thirty-guinea gown or two, and pay in 50 or 100 to her credit. The truth is that the system is chiefly responsible for the enormous cost of fas.h.i.+onable dress nowadays, since the only means the purveyors can adopt to secure themselves against loss is to charge exorbitant prices. When their customers practically borrow all their money of them, they are well justified in charging interest on it in some form or other. This naturally results in raising the market value of well-cut and skilfully-constructed dresses, &c., and bears very hardly on those who pay their way with ready-money.

[Sidenote: A "ready-money" a.s.sociation.]

Would it not be an excellent idea to form a society of women in aristocratic circles who would bind themselves to pay ready-money for all articles purchased? They could demand, and would certainly obtain, a substantial discount on all such payments, and with the thin edge of the wedge thus inserted the reform would soon be well on its way to permanent establishment.

_THE DOMESTIC GIRL._

[Sidenote: Not necessarily a dowdy.]

Do not for a moment imagine that the domestic girl cannot be smart. She can turn herself out as bewitchingly as anybody, and the same cleverness that goes into her delicious _entrees_, capital sauces, and truly lovely afternoon tea-cakes concerns itself with the ripples of her coiffure, the correct tilt of her hat, and the deft fall of her skirt. The domestic girl need be neither plain nor dowdy. Plenty of exercise and the feeling that she is of use in the world brighten her eyes, keep her complexion clear, and give her that air of lightheartedness that should, but does not always, characterise a girl. How middle-aged is the expression that some of them wear! Both boys and girls in their early twenties have occasionally this elderly look.

[Sidenote: Very much domesticated.]

Of course there is always the extreme domestic girl, who has not a soul above puddings, whose fingers show generally a trace of flour, and whose favourite light reading is recipes. She has been sketched for us pleasantly:--

"She isn't versed in Latin, she doesn't paint on satin, She doesn't understand the artful witchery of eyes; But, oh! sure, 'tis true and certain she is very pat and pert in Arranging the component parts of luscious pumpkin pies.

She cannot solve or twist 'em, viz., the planetary system; She cannot tell a Venus from a Saturn in the skies; But you ought to see her grapple with the fruit that's known as apple, And arrive at quick conclusions when she tackles toothsome pies.

She could not write a sonnet, and she couldn't trim a bonnet, She isn't very bookish in her letter of replies; But she's much at home--oh, very--when she takes the juicy berry And manipulates quite skilfully symposia in pies."

She is well appreciated at meal-times, that girl, but she is not the liveliest of companions. Like the German girl, who is trained to housewifery and little else from her earliest years, she has a dough-like heaviness about her when other topics are started. But why should she ever be domestic only?--and with all the world before her whence to choose delightsome studies and pursuits.

[Sidenote: The Blue Stocking.]

Then there is the girl at the other end of the scale. Here is her portrait:--

"She can talk on evolution; She can proffer a solution For each problem that besets the modern brain.

She can punish old Beethoven, Or she dallies with De Koven, Till the neighbours file pet.i.tions and complain.

She can paint a crimson cowboy, Or a purple madder ploughboy That you do not comprehend, but must admire.

And in exercise athletic It is really quite pathetic To behold the young men round her droop and tire.

She is up in mathematics, Engineering, hydrostatics, In debate with her for quarter you will beg.

She has every trait that's charming, With an intellect alarming; Yet she cannot, oh, she cannot, fry an egg!"

[Sidenote: Royal cooks and millinors.]

And let no maiden think that to be domestic is a _bourgeois_ characteristic. Far from it. It is the daughters of the moneyed _bourgeoisie_ who are the idlest and most empty-minded. They think it smart to be able to do nothing. How little they know about it! Were not our Queen's daughters taught to cook and sew, and make themselves useful?

Did not the Princesses of Wales learn scientific dress-cutting? And was not a Royal Princess, not very long ago, initiated into the mysteries of hair-dressing? There is no better judge of needlework in the kingdom than Princess Christian. Many of the designs used in the Royal School of Art Needlework are from the clever pencil of Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne. Princess Alice, mother of the present Empress of Russia, used to cut out her children's clothes and trim their hats in the far-back days when she was Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Hesse, and was surrounded by the little ones. Princess Henry of Battenberg is a skilful embroidress, besides being an artist and musician. Domesticity has not proved a bar to culture in the case of any of these highly-placed women. The Empress Frederick of Germany, our Princess Royal, is one of the most intellectual and cultivated women in the world, but she is also an adept in the domestic arts. She is a sculptress, and can cleverly wield the brush, as well as her sister, the Marchioness of Lorne. So here is a s.h.i.+ning example in high places.

[Sidenote: Homely n.o.blewomen.]

And if we take a step down to d.u.c.h.esses, Marchionesses, &c., we shall find that blue blood is usually a.s.sociated with a taste for true British domesticity. The d.u.c.h.ess of Abercorn can sew beautifully. The d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland can cook and make a gown. She often designs her own dresses.

The Marchioness of Londonderry, one of our most famous beauties, is a utilitarian of the first water. She is one of the first authorities on lace, is a philanthropist to her pretty finger-tips, and has often taught the wives of her husband's miners how to cook the family dinner, besides instructing them in the much neglected laws of hygiene. I might multiply examples, but these might surely suffice to show that domesticity is far from being _bourgeois_ and by no means incompatible with ineffable smartness.

[Sidenote: Sensible millionaires.]

The aristocracy of wealth imitates that of birth in such matters; but, in order to do so, it has to be at least a generation old in riches. The _nouveaux riches_ have quite other notions, and think it far beneath the dignity of their daughters to know anything about the domestic arts. But a well-known family of millionaires, which has enjoyed the companions.h.i.+p of our best society for fifty or sixty years, shares its idiosyncrasies on the subject of useful education for its girls. Every one of them has been brought up as if she were obliged to earn her own living. It is left to the purse-proud and the vulgar to bring up their daughters as "fine ladies." It is a grand mistake, in more ways than one, for idle people are never happy people.

[Sidenote: The ideal girl.]

The ideal girl is she who combines with high culture a love of the domestic and a desire to please. This last should not be so excessive as to degenerate into vanity and conceit, but should be sufficiently powerful to induce its possessor to dress attractively, keep her pretty hair at its glossiest, and be as smart and neat and up-to-date in all matters pertaining to the toilette as any of her less-useful sisters; besides cultivating those social graces that do so much to brighten life and sweeten it by making smooth the rough ways and rendering home intercourse as agreeable and pleasant as it should be. There are girls who keep all their prettinesses for the outside world, and are anything but attractive within the home. They are by no means the ideal girls.

_THE GIRL-BACHELOR._

[Sidenote: A clever nest builder.]

The girl-bachelor is often a comfortable creature. She can make a home out of the most unpromising materials. A dreary little flat, consisting of three tiny rooms, with hardly any chance of suns.h.i.+ne getting into any of them for more than three minutes in the afternoon, has been known to be metamorphosed into a most inviting little nest by the exercise of taste and skill, and at a minimum of cost. Two rooms on the second floor of a dull house in a bleak street have often been transformed, by the same means, into a cheery dwellingplace. Much merry contriving goes to this result and serves to make, like quotations and patchwork, "our poverty our pride," and, indeed, there is a keen pleasure in the cutting of our coat according to our cloth; in making ends meet with just a little pulling, and in devising ways and means of adjusting our expenditure to the very limited contents of our exchequer.

[Sidenote: "Sweet are the uses of adversity."]

What a mistake it is to fall into an abyss of discontent just because we are poor! Poverty may become the cause of a thousand unsuspected joys; as it certainly is an education in ever so many ways. Some of us would hardly know ourselves if we never had been poor. Did not poverty teach us to cook, to sew, to make our dresses, to trim our hats, to cover our chairs, to drape our windows, to use a dust-pan and brush and to find out at first hand the charms of active cleanliness, that may be evoked with the aid of a humble duster? And was it not poverty that taught us to appreciate the day of little things, to enjoy the scores of small pleasures that, like wild flowers, are too often pa.s.sed carelessly over? It has its hards.h.i.+ps, truly, and some of them are bitter enough, but many who now are rich enough look back to the days of "puirt.i.th cauld," and recognise how good it was and how much it brought out of undivined capacity; yes, and looking back, can remember the actual pleasures of poverty!