MRS. JINKS’ ECONOMY.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume 4, Issue 10, 3 August 1894, Page 3

MRS. JINKS’ ECONOMY.

IT PRODUCES SOME KEMARKABLI

RESULTS IN HER FLAT /xg\RS. JINKS is one of the brighter iSB J little women who ever said tliai cranberry sauce is “just lovely,” or chocolate cake “ beautiful.” Once in a while she uses the right word in the right place, and calls fried onions “perfectly del-l-l-lishus !” They are.

A bit of gossip about her has become current, or will become cunent soon after this issue is scattered to its weekly haunts throughout this broad land. The gossip concerns her first spasm of economy after marriage. She had tried to keep the matter out of the newspapers, and she has done very well considering that only five women, who lived in the tenement where she did at the time,knew of the spasm and its wonderul results.

For a long time previous to her marriage her father and mother had preached economy to her, and even her future husband ventured to give some ante-nuptial advice about saving money. It was his advice that she took, it seemed so wise to her. She knew it would please him to take his advice, and yet she was mistaken, badly mistaken. Mr. Jinks advice was this in short:

“Always buy a quantity of anything when y-a can —strive io do a wholesale business as much as possible with the world, for you cange* tilings much cheaper that way.” Mrs. Jinks had noticed that things which cost ten cents often sold at the rate of three for a quarter—not cigars, of couise, but hairpins, for instance, She thought of a greatmany things that had been offered her at a cheaper rate wholesale, and the light ot her affianced’s wisdom dawned upon her like the light of the sun on the earth in Jum-. She resolved to put that wisdom into u- . t once after marriage, and she did. Among her wedding presents was a new, crinkling one-hundred-dollar bill from her father and another from her mother. Sue was overjoyed, for the two bills were just what she needed to carry into effect her husband’s excellent ante-marriage advice. She placed the bills in her pocket-book one pleasant afternoon, and, together with what she had borrowed from her husband, they made a good round shopping sum. But did she spend the money for foolish things ? Not by any means. She spent u for the necessaries of life, and she spent it with her deeply-felt and dutiful ideas of economy. The first place she visited was the butcher’s. She knew she had only a cosy, five-room flat, and only two in her family, but she also knew that it was cheaper to buy in large quantities ; so when the butcher said that salt pork was a certain price a pound, Mrs. Jinks said, with contempt; “ How much a barrel V”

The butcher opened his eyes, looked mystified, and the pretty little woman in a dainty street costume snapped her black eves at him. He told her how much the pork was a barrel, and she said : “ Send up three barrels. Now how much is lard?”

“ Well, in small quan ” “ I don’t buy in small quantities. That’s a horrid, poor way. I economize by buying all my household goods”—(she had been keeping house two weeks)—“in large quantities. ” He gave her ton rates, and she ordered a small amount less than half a ton —about seventeen jars full. She ordered all the stuff bo delivered at once.

From the butcher’s she went to the grocer’:-, and surprised that, slim, steady, grey-haired man by asking him this : “ What is the very least, lowest, cheapest price of butter when you sell a hundred pounds at once?” The grocer gasped. He said he only had a few lirknis and crocks on hand, but if she desired the whole lot, he would close them out at wholesale rates. „ The sound of those two magic words, “ wholesale rates,” fell upon the little pink ears of M rs. Jinks with a magical effect. Her eyes fairly danced as she told the astonished grocer to figure the cost of all the jars and firkins of butter lie bad .on hand. She paid for the stuff and walked out of the store proudly, with a last word as follows:

1 Be sure and have it all at my flat to day. ”

Passing another butcher’s shop, she noticed some pretty smoked hams, with yellow or old gold Mother Hubbard wrappers rm, and near the bams hung some modest but good-looking dried beef. She went in, and paralyzed the proprietor nearly by buying all his hams and dried beef, paying cash for it, and ordering it all to be delivered at once.

Passing another grocery she noticed a barrel of pickles, and she had ordered and paid for three barrels when she made her exit from the store to pass on, all-conquer-ing, down the avenue. As she walked along a peculiarly heavenly look overcame her failface, and a strange glitter shone in her eye —that strange, beautiful glow of divine inspiration. How surpassingly wonderful is that mysterious look in a fair woman’s face! Gaily she stepped along till she reached that interesting portion of the city devoted to the business of the commission and produce merchants. She plunged in among the boxes and crates that filled the side-walks completely, except a small pathway. On she went till siie found what she wanted—some live poultry. And she wanted not only live poultry, but also five roosters. She bought all the roosters she could find 1 ) and oidered them to be delivered at once. She knew that she could keep live chickens without spoiling, and it was a notion of hers that lusty young roosters —she bought only a few of middle age, and no old ones—made better food than hens.

Mrs. Jinks remained for a long time in the company of the jolly commission merchants, and bought quantities of several different kinds of cheese and a cartload of apples, beets, turnips, potatoes, ifcc., &e. On her way home she ordered a few barrels of oyster crackers, several boxes of lemons, and looked wistfully at a drayload of bananas that was passing along the street. They would not keep, she thought. She actually stopped a man who was selling brooms from a waggonload, and asked him what he would take for his whole load. She asked him for his lowest spot cash, wholesale rates, got them, and took the brooms. He turned his horse round, and in a moment of exultant pride she got abroad his waggon and rode triumphantly to her flat. When Mrs. Jinks arrived at Iter flat her eyes fell upon a scene that defies description. A score or more of cart# and delivery waggons were backed up to the sidewalk, ana from them a small army of men were conveying, before an x.ssenibled,awe-strickon multitude of neighbours of hers,butter,hams dozens of hams— dried beef, lard—much lard—barrel after barrel of pickles, crackers aud turnips, beets, cabbages, cheeses and loud cackling, affrighted roosters. She hastened to her door, and found that the janitor had opened it, for he could not allow the stuff to be deposited in the hallway. Mrs. Jinks thought the janitor had done right, and stood around smiling as be lookerl at her with great suspicion. Little by little busy hands and feet treading up and down the front and back stairs, conveyed the cart-loads into the prettilyfurnished five-room fiat, and after the work was all done she paid the janitor to go down to her husband’s office and ask him to come home at once for the purpose of helping her arrange some boxes and barrels. Before lie arrived she moved a few things herself, and succeeded in barring all the doors, so that he could not got in and she could not let him in. He climbed in through a window, and when he straightened himself up fit bis beautifully furnished flat, all he could' see was boxes, kegs, barrels, jars, and the like. He thought he heard his wife calling from somewhere, but the two dozen or more roosters crowded so vigorously that he could not tell where was. He jumped about and hopped over things till he found his pretty young wife jlat on the floor

in a coiner of the parlour with a bar cel c crackers tipped over on her poor little feel, j HY-re-r-ued her, and then heard how she had taken Ins advice to her heart and ccou-uniec-d ■ ith all the money and brains she had. FAMOUS DUEL. The proposal to amalgamate University College and King’s College in the new Gresham University recalls the incident which led to the celebrated due! between the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchelsea. The Duke had incurred great odium by the measure for Catholic Emancipation, which he bad formerly opposed. In the “ Memoir” of the Duke which appeared in the Times at his death, and was attributed to the pen of Lord Macaulay, the following account is given of the affair: The Duke had been selected as patron of the r- ; collegiate institution in the Strand, whir n, under the name of King’s College, was .-.estiued to combat the rival seminary in Gower-sbreet. On the disclosure of the Ministerial policy, Lord Winchelsea, writing to a gentleman connected with King’s College, spoke of the Duke and his patronship in these terms :

“ Late political events have convinced me that the whole transaction was intended as a blind to the Protestant and High Church party, that the noble duke, who had for sometime previous to that period depended upon breaking in upon the constitution of 1688, might the more effectually under the cloak of some outward show of zeal tor the l rot estant religion carry out his insidious designs for the infringement of our liberties am” "the htftoducbion of Popery into every depa fci'i. .t of the State.” ’ tiV.-e expressions, coming from such a •vi.-t .or, appeared to the duke to call for perr notice, and, after a vain essay of explanations, the Prime Minister of England, attended by Sir Henry Hat dinge, and the Earl of Winchelsea, attended by Lord Falmouth, met in Battersea Fields on March 21 1829, in full Session, to discharge loaded pistol.-: a; each other on a question conoernthe Protestant religion. The life of the g-’eat •. -vjiain, however, was not exposed to da.igm. Lord \Y iiichelsea, after receiving the 7 : ‘.-.e's shot, tired in the air, and then tendered the apology in default of which the or.conntcr had occurred. )) 0A ft DING EXTRA 0 UDIN AR Y. A Parisian miser had for many years lived in wretched-looking house, inhabited solely by himself and the rats, mice, blackbeetles, and spiders which made it their home. No one save the miser was ever seen to enter this mysterious dwelling. When the Ft uico-l’russian war broke out, however, arid misrule held high revel every whet e, it is natural to suppose that a place with so tempting a reputation would be the first to be invaded. Indeed, this was done by soldiers quartered in tlte neighbourhood, who are said to have discovered the miser dead irom sheer fright in one of the passages of the house. . Suspicion pointed to the probability of his having met with foul play. Search was, at all events, forthwith made for the old fellow’s hoard, when, to the astonishment of every one—as he was known not to have banked his money—nob a solitary sou was to be found anywhere. Even to the very cellars the place was empty, save for the truckle bedstead on which the old skinflint slept. It- was even without the commonest necessaries. One day, however, one of the soldiers, for some purpose, was hainmeoing a huge staple into one of the walls of the vaults, when, t« His surprise, a quantity of liquid spurted out upon hint, and startled him not a little. He was still more horrified, on emerging into light, to see its sanguinary line. Had a man then, not quite dead, though embedded behind those bricks, received his coup de grdee from the soldier’s hammer ? Suffice it to say that it turned out to bo nothing more nor less than a bricked-up wine cellar o' enormous extent. It was in r.his form that the miser had hoarded his .wealth, feeling, with much wisdom, that every year added enormously to its value ; though it was not long, as one can imagine, at such a crisis, before the line old fruity savings of a lifetime were scattered, and inebriated soldiers were drinking deep draughts of rosy wine to the memory of the miser. HOW TO BUILD A STEAM <CLINE. (By a Young Lady.) Thk following description of how to build a steam-engine, credited to a young lady, is going the rounds : —“ You pour a lot of sand into a box and throw a lot- of old stoves and things into a fire, and empty the molten streams into a hole into the sand, and the men all yell, and it’s awfully dirty and smoky. And then you pour it out and let it cool and pound it, and then you put it in a thing that- goes round and try to break it ; then you setew it to a thing that goes back and forth that you can ride on, and that scrapes it, and it squeaks ; then you put it in a thing that turns it round, and you take a chisel and cut it; then you put it in a thing that bores holes in it ; then you screw it together and paiiib it and put steam in it, and it goes awfully, and they take it up in the drafting-room and draw' a picture of it, and make one of wood just like it. Aud olt, I forgot—they have to make a boiler. One man gets inside and one gets outside, and they pound just terribly, and they tie it to the other thing—and, ch, you just ought to see it go !” “MY DIAMONDS AGAIN.” Princess Eugenie, the sister of Oscar 11. of Sweden, was a pious, self-sacrificing invalid. She spent her summers on the isle of Gothland, and saw that a poorhouse was much needed there. As the people were too poor to erect one, the princess quietly sold her diamonds, and gave the money to build a house of shelter for helpless old men and women. The next summer, when she visited the island, the poorhouse was ready for guests, and the people gave her an enthusiastic welcome. But one old man wept bitterly. On asking the cause of his grief, the princess was bold that he was a hardened sinner, who had learned in the house to turn to God. No one hud ever seen him weep until his tears flowed at the sight of the princess, whom he called “ the Saviour of his soul.”

“ In these tears I see my diamonds again,” said the princess, as sho took the old man’s hand.”

FUNNY SCENE IN A CHURCH

A curious affair occurred on one occasion at a small church in Wales. The parson had a tame goat, which followed him to the church and sat under the pulpit. One Sunday morning the animal was so struck with the nodding of a drowsy Cambrian who sat opposite him that, taking the frequent inclinations of his head as a challenge to combat, he made a butt at bis supposed antagonist, who,not perceiving from whence the blow proceeded, not unnaturally struck the person next him. The parson, who was also ajus'ice of the peace, would have committed the drowsy Cambrian when brought before him next day, especially as the latter had been convicted of reading and commenting on political matters ; but as it was proved by several witnesses that his goat was the first offender, be observed that if the people “ tespised tivine service, it would pe no wonder if peasts of the field was to rise upon all the Chakopins in the country.” Norah : “ Oi’m sorry to say, sor, thotMiss Giddy isn’t at home.” Mr. Colds (facetiously): “ YY'> < are you sorry, Norah ?” Norah : “ Because, sor, it’s on. biggest shtory Oi ever towld in me life.”

A dying Irishman was asked by his confessorif he was prepared to renounce the devil and all his works.

“ Oh, your honour,” said Pat, “don’t ask me that; I’m going into a strange country, and I don’t want to make myself «wemies