THE STORY-TELLER Idle Thoughts.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 61, 9 September 1905, Page 10

THE STORY-TELLER Idle Thoughts.

:* By Jerome -K. Jerome .{Author 6f "Three Men in a Boat," ' -"Paul KelveP," etc). lAII rights reserved. Copyright in the United States of America.) ", ' ~XL EMANCIPATED WOMAN. -" 'An Oriental' visitor was returning from dur shores to. his native land. "Well," -asked tho youthful diplomatist who had 'been told oft to-show him round,- as on ithe deck of the steamer they shook hands, ''what do you now think of England}*', . "Too much woman," answered the grave Oriental, and descended to his cabin. The young diplomatist returned to shore thoughtful, and later in the day a few tvt va v discussed the matter in a far-off "dimly-lighted corner of the club smokingrrooni. Has the pendulum swung too far the other way? Could therd be truth in our Oriental friend's terse commentary ? .The eternal feminine ! The Western world ■ s has been handed over to her?- The •stranger from Mars Or- Jupiter would de'ecribe us as a hive of women, .the soberclad male being retained apparently on condition of its doing all the hard work, and making itself generally useful. Formerly it was the man who wore the fine clothes, who went to the shows. To-day "it is the woiftah gorgeously clad for whom the shows are - organised. The man, dressed in a serviceable and- unostentatious, not to say depressing, suite of black, accompanies her for the purpose of carrying her cloak and calling her carriage. 'Among the working classes life, of necessity, remains primitive ; the law of the cave ia still, with slight modification, the law of the sluim But in upper and mid-dle-class circles the man us now •. the woman's servant;; - r • I remember being present while a mother of my acquaintance was instilling into the mind of her little son the advantages of being born a man. A little /giri Cousin Was about to spend a week with him. It wns impressed upon him that if she showed a liking for any of Ms toys, he ,was at . once „to give them Up to her. "But why, mamma?" he •demanded, evidently surprised. "Because, my daar, you are a little man." Should she break them he was not to smack her head, or kick her — as his instinct might prompt him to do. He was just to say, "Oh, it is of nov consequence at all," and to look as .if he meant a it. She was always to choose the game— to have the biggest apple. There was much more of a similar nature. It was all because he ■was a iittle^man, and, she a little woman. >- At the end he looked up, puzzled : ''But don't, she do anything, 'cos she's a little girl!" It was explained to him that she didn't. By right of being born a little girl she was exempt from all duty. Woman nowadays, is not taking any duty. She objects' to housekeeping ; she calls it domestic slavery, and feels she was intended for higher things. What higher things sheTdpes not condescend to explain. One or two wives of my acquaintance have persuaded their husbands that these • higher things -are all. important. The home has been " given, up. In company with other strivers after higher things, they live now in dismal barracks, differing but little from a glorified Bloomsbury lodging-house. But they call them mansions or courts, and seem proud of the address. They are not bothered with — with housekeeping. The idea, of the modern woman is that she is not to be bothered wifh "anything. I remember the words with which one of these ladies announced her departure from the bothering home: "Oh, well, I'm tired Of trouble," sho confided to another lady, " "eT» Ive made up Jn j mind not to have any more of it." Artemus Ward tells its of a man who had been in prison for twenty years. ''Suddenly a bright idea occurred to him; he opened the window and got put.'' Here nave we poor foolish mortals been imprisoned in this troublesome -world for Lord knows how many million of years. .We have got so used to •tftrable^we thought there was no help for itr We have told ourselves that "Man is 3>om fi> ifro"ubTe"aslthe,' > sparks' fly up.JjpjSis."., \ We imagined the' .only thing i.6 be done was to bear ifc philosophically. -WJiy< did- not this bright young creature 'come along' before — show us the way out? h|d to, do was to give Up tho jnome and" the bothering ser--and' go, into a" mansion or court. It'.seemX.tiat.Jr9U leave trouble outside — ,^Tciia|gij. of thchall-porter, one supposes. ifi«wtiet-iV up fofe you as theAConimissionwr£.o£the Army- and Navy Stores ties up "^Qfttjdog." If you want it again you ask jf<?r; it as you come out. Small wonder ithat the court and mansion are growing •iflHbopularity every* day. ■^^Ithey* have nqfhing to do now all day 'iBBg. th&e Boaf ing wives of whom lam speaking. They would scorn to sew on a fihjft^butf on even. "Are there not other wonJefi— of .Tan inferidf,. breed— specially fashioned by Providence for the doing of such' slavish tasks? They have n*> more bothers Of.* any kind. They are free to leidrthe^highei' life: What lam waitinr for "v -a glimpse of the higher life. One^of Ihem, it is true, hatf taken up the •»!olin. ,' Another of therrf-is devoting her emancipation to poker-work. A third jS'lesrning-skirt-dancing.T Are these the "higEer filings" for whicTLl. women are claM|ng freedom from all duty? And, if so, 'is- there not danger that ta6 closing of our J 'h6mes,^may lead to the crowding up of t^e '.world with too much of higher things? ' May there not, by- the time all the bothers hava been removed from woHien'g jjath, be fco6 many amateur violinists in thVworld, too many skirfc-dancers, too -niuGK'poker-work? 1 ' -If not, what are tliey, these "higher things," for which So miny women "are demanding twentyfottr hours a.dayJekureij want to know? - DiiUacLf of "my^qtiaiflte^ce is 1 ft Poor 'lia-w; Guardian, and secretary to a labour Durtau. But then she runs a house with • two servants, four children, and a husband, and appears to be so used to bothers- that she wou',d feel herself lost with©utthem. You can do this kind of work apparently even when you are bothered .with a home. It is the skirt-dancing and the,poker work that cannot brook rivalry. The modern woman has begun to find children a nuisance; they interfere with ler development. Tho mere man, who las written his poems, painted his pictures, composed his melodies, fashioned Tu's". philosophies in the midfet Of '.life's Jrwlbjes and bothers, grows nervous thinking what this new woman must be ■who*e mind is so tremendous that the whole world must be shut up, so to fepeak, sent to do ite.businesh out of her sight and hearing, lest her attention should be distracted. .'. A"n optimistic friend of mine tells me pofc to worry myself ; tells me that it is ;.going to come out all right in the end. Woman just now, he contends, is passing through her college period. The echool'Jife Of strict surveillance is for ever dono ,with. She is now the young Freshwoman. The bothering lessons are 6vei% the bothering schoolmasters she has said good-bye to. She has her latch-key, and in now "on her own." There are still some bothering rules about being in at twelve o'clock, and so many attendances each term at chapel. She ia indignant. Tins interferes with her idea that life is to be one long orgie of self-indulgence, of pleasure. The college period will pass — is p«sfijj?g, Womaq yjJl go put into the

world, take her place there, discover that bothers were not left behind in the old' schqolhouse, will learn that life has duties, responsibilities, will take up her burden side by side with man, will accomplish her destiny. Meanwhile, however, she is Jiaving a good time — some people think too good a time. She Wants the best of both. She demands the joys of independence together with freedom from all work — slavery she calls it. The servants are nob to be allowed to bother her, the children are not to be allowed to bother her, her husband is not to be allowed to bother her. She is to be free to lead the higher life, tyly dear lady, we all want to lead the higher life. 1 don't want to write these articles. I want somebody else to bother about my rates and taxes, my children's boots, whilst I sit in an easychair and dreani- about- the wonderful ' books I am going to write, if only a BtUpid public would let me. Tommy Smith of Brixton feels 'that he was intended for higher things. He does not want to be wasting his time in an oflico from nine to six adding up figures. His proper place in life i 3 that of Prime Minister or Field Marshnl ; he feels it. Do you think the man has no yearning for higher things? Do you think we like tho office, the shop, the factory? We ought to be writing poetry, painting pictures, the whole world admiring us. You seem to imagine your man goes off every morning to a sorb of City picnic, has eight hours' fun — which hs calls work — and then comes home to annoy you with chatter about dinner. It is the Old fable reversed; man Baid woman had nothing to do all day but enjoy herself. Making a potatd pie! What sort of work was,.that? Making a potato pie was a lark; anybody could mnke a potato pie. So the woman said, "Try it," and took the man's spade and^ went out into the field, and lefb him at home to make that pie. The man discovered that potato pies took a bib more making than he had reckoned — found that running the house and looking after the children was -not quitp the merry pastime he had argued. Man was a fool. Now it is the womnn who talks without thinking. How did she like hoeing the potato patch? Hard work, Was it not, my dear lady? Made your back ache. It came on to rain and you got wet. . ' I don't see that ib very much matters which of you hoes the potato-patch, which of you makes the potato pie. Maybe the hoeing of the patch demands more muscle — is more suited to the man, Maybe the rnnkina of the pie- may be more in your department. But, as I have said, I cannot see that this matter is of importance. The patch has to be hoed, the pie to be cooked ; the one cannot do them both. Settle it between you, and, having settled it, agree to do each your own work fres from this everlasting nagging. I know, personally, three -ladies who have exchanged the woman's work for the man's. One was deserted by her husband, and left with two young children. She hired a capable woman to look after the house, and joined a ladies' orchestra as pianist at .£2 a week. She how earns £4 a week, and works twelve hours a day. The husband of the second fell ill. She sat him to write letters and rurj errands, which was light work that he could do, and started a dressmaker's business. The third was left a widow without means. She sent her three children to a" boardingschool, and opened a tea-room. I don't know how they talked before, but I know that they do nob talk now as though earning the income was a 6ort of xound game. On the Continent, they have gone deliberntely to work, one would imagine, to reverse matteis. Abroad woman is always where man ought to be, and man where most ladies would prefer to meet with women. The ladies' garde-robe is superintended by a superannuated Fergeant of artillery. When I want to curl my moustache, say, I have to make application to 0^ superb golden-haired creature, who stands by and watches me with an interested smile. I would be much happier waited on by the uperannuated sergeant, and my wifd tells me she could very well spare him. But it is the law of the land. I remember, the first time I travelled with my deughter on the Continent, The, first inorning I was awakened by a piercing scream from her room. I struggled into my pyjanias, and rushed to her assistance,. . I could .not pee her. I could see nothing bub a mueculiif-looking.man in a blue blouse with a can of hot, water in one hand and a t pair of boots in the other. He appeared .to be- equally bewildered with mysslf yat the/ sight' of the empty bed: From ft clipboard,: in the corner came a wail of distress ! r ."oh,>do send that horrid man away. Wha>;s he doing 'in ifiy room?" I explained to her afterwards that the chambermaid abroad is always an active and willing young nlan. The foreign girl fills in her time bricklaying and groomihg down the horses. It is v. young and charming lady who serves you when you enter the tobaccon* ist's. She doesn't understand tobacco, is unsympathetic ; with Mr. F.rederio Harrison, regards smoking as a degrading and unclean habit ;" cannot see,", herself, any difference between shag and Mayblossom, seeing that they are both the same price ; thinks you fussy. The corset-shop is run by. a most presentable young man. in a Vandyke beurd. The wife runs' thfe restaurant ; the man does the cooking, and yet the woman has nob reached freedom 'from bother. It sounds brutal, but perhaps woman was not intended tjd live free from all bothers. Perhaps even the higher life — the ekirt-dancing and the poker-work— has its bothers, Perhaps Woman was intended to take her share of the world's woik— of the world's bothers.