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Otago Witness, Issue 1248, 30 October 1875, Page 19

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But it surely is not best as a general rule, that wives should be expected to earn money by any regular business, especially if they are mothers There m&y be circumstances of sickness or debt, or poverty, which make it seem necessary for a mother to do this, but the home care of her husband and children is business enough for the mother of two or more children, and if the actual labours of house-keeping are added to this homemaking busint-88, and if both are done well, there is certainly not strength to spare for ;ny other regular occupation. A man who wants to have a good-natured wife, ready every day to givd him that smiling welcome — which is the old recipe for keeping him from making a drunken brute of himself— had better see that bis wife hat some leisure and some rest. These remarks apply not only to the woman who leaves her children in the care of strangers, while she goes about the country delivering leer u re*, or rides by day or night to visit sick patients, but quite as much to the farmer's wife who has the care of a butter-making business imposed upon her by her husband, or who, sick or well, has to work with might and main through all the hottest season, to take care of the various kinds of fruit which her husband has planted, in the cool expectation that the womanfolks will do the main part of the fruitpioking and preserving, or marketing. If a wife has time and strength to devote to it, the butter making or fruit-drying business is a good one, but I wish the " conservative ' brethren to see that a wife and mother, who has to neglect her real home work, her loving oare and genial companionship as mother and wife, to help along in what he calls hU business, is just as much out of her proper sphere as the mother who teaches sohool or delivers lectures. He had better consider, too, how far this applies to the business of taking boarders. Why need we try to get rich? Why not begin to be rich instead ? Instead of bending soul and body to the task of getting a living, why not begin to live ?— for there is considerable difference between hying and getting a living. Dwellers in the country have no pressing need of costly paintings, if they make the most of their sunrise and sunset views, and there is a deal of the best of music to be had gratis. Let us rest from our digging and delving a little while every day and look about, vi hi fomithing fcamtifoj, and.

listen for something musical, and ere long we shall find it in our own children's bright and loving glances, and in their happy voices. Let us have something to read, and little family treats of one kind or another in the way of innocent diversion, whether any money goes into the bank or not. I see less reason, now-a-days, for us to worry about laying up money to send the children to' college, since the free schools of every grade are becoming more and more common, and since the best libraries are open to the public. The main point is to make comfortable homes for our little ones, until they are old enough to look out for themselves ; to keep as sweet and wholesome as we can the little corner where our work is set, and to do our daily tasks as faithfully and cheerfully as we are able, with faith in that Infinite Goodness which overrules all. — Faith Rochester, in the American Agriculturist.