SAY IT IN MONEY

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 16

SAY IT IN MONEY

WHAT IS^A WOMAN WORTH?

An American has been estimating the cash value of what a medical journal concisely terms a completely "assembled" woman; Based on the compensation given by sympathetic law courts for broken hearts, and lost noses, and so lorth, he calculated that an American 2oTi£, re?T eSented a ca Pitai value of ±-94,000. How vast and pleasant a sum, !? ..T,W,°, rt&- ! moralises John Citizen in the 'Pall Mall Cazette"), and if I, indeed, were but so valuable a lady in that cousin-land of ours across the seas gladly would I shed a leg or two, an arm, or eke a nose as age crept, on, so that I might live peaceably and in comfort, upon the, proceeds. What a triumph! What-a tribute to national progress it is when-you shall so speedily and accurately tot up the value of a human being: So much an eye, so much an arm, so much a heart (never mind if it is a bit battered, for the flat rate is, I think, a quarter of a million dollars), so much a strand of hair; add up the total, and there you are. That's how they <lo it in America—the Land of the Almighty Dollar. Somewhere' in some Federal Bureau (pronounced nasally as in the words pew-row) doubtless already you will find card indexes giving the exact,monetary value of every man. woman, Mand child in the United. States, neatly tabulated according to age, and quoted in marks and West African Maria Theresa thalers at the current rate of exchange. Yes, my dear sentimentalist, perhaps you are-right. I had no business to be cynical. After all, £94,000 is a trivial sum compared perchance with all the happiness and the light and life that a woman can radiate; £94,000 may be as a mere handful of pebbles, a basketful of waste-paper beside the goodness and "the" sunshine and the loving kindness that an old, plain woman, with rough hands and her grey hair screwed into a knob at the back of her head, can spread to a dozen other hearts. But— yes, I will say it—there are 6ome, too, that are not worth, and never will bo worth, £94 of 945, or even 94d. There are; but, thank heaven, there are not many of that sort. What people don't remember is that there is another currency in business besides white and red money and crinkly paper, another currency the outlay of which reaps a dividend incalculable—a currency which you can call good fellowship, or love, or what you will. Cash values —£ s. d. values, dollar values—are a poor thing, my masters. Do you recollect the price put upon Him thai was greatest ,pf till—3o pieces Pi'silver I