WIVES WHO HAVE "MADE" THEIR HUSBANDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7293, 4 January 1902, Page 3

WIVES WHO HAVE "MADE" THEIR HUSBANDS.

(Pearson's Weekly.") An operative in a cotton, mill ia Manchester was earning barely enough to keep himself when he fell in love with, a young I woman who worked in the same mill. _ They got married, and kept oni working in the mill until they had saved .a litjtle moi^ey/. when the wife said to her husband — " Jack, as you are very fond oif dressing wounds and of advising your friends what to take when they are a bit out of sorts, I have been thinking that, instead of slaving away for 22s per week a!Q the days of your life, that you had better become a dodtor." The result of it was that Jack entered a university, and, while studying, his wife worked in the mill to earn money enough to keep them and, at the same time, contribute something towards paying his university fees. At her suggestion, Jack found evening employment, which made up the money necessary to cover all his expenses. To-day he is one of the leading surgeons in England, and but for his thoughtful, hard-w orking little wife !he would meet likely have remained a poorly-paid mill operative. Another instance is tbat of ■» man who was a caib-drivex in London. He had driven a cab for some years, and had no ambition to be anything else. He married a woman who kept a small stationery in the north of London. It was after a. good deal of persuasion that she succeeded in getting her husband jto give up cab-driving. She believed that she could make a~ success of him in thie> business she pressMed over ; so in due course, he was initiated into it, and after accomplishing the task of imparting to Shim, a fair knowledge of the /business, she went to one of the largest maattufacturing stationery firms in the City and induced! the principal partner to give her husband' a position as a traveller. This- position he Tseld for some years, and, with the money they had saved between them, they built a small I factory for mian«facturing stationery, and so successful was the business that a mu-ohi larger factory 'hod to be built, and to-day the mam who was a Londto cabby is, thanks to his wife, the managing director of one of the largest stationery firms in the [ Metropolis. A grocer's porter at Bristol met a young woman who was engaged in a drapery department in the same city. The struggle for existence, after marriage, was a hard one. The husband waa very poorly paid, and was frequently out of employment. The wife got her employer to lend her a. little money, and she opened a small drapery shop, getting the goods on credit from the firms who supplied her employer. She was a smart milliner, and soon worked up a profitable connection. She instructed her husband in the drapery part, of the business. The wife infused energy into him, and soon she saw that her efforts were not exerted in vain. He threw his heart and soul into the business, which is to-day an immense one, realising him an income of several thousand pounds annually. But what kind of a wife is it who makes i a husband? The question is easily answered. She possesses an influence and a knowledge which her husband recognises. She advises her husband in a calm and thoughtful manner. Her husband's interests are hers. To be helpful to her husband, she identifies herself, with his affairs ; the husband recognises h&r competence to advise, and knowing that she has his full confidence, the wife gradually leads hei husband into the position which she desires to see him filling). It is to wives of this character that the world owes much, and yet knows little or nothing about. But for them, the world would be without some of its most brilliant and illustrious men. Andrew Carnegie, the multi-millionaire, did not possess the desire to become a rich man until he married a lady who instilled it into him. The great fortune which he has amassed "might never have been amassed at all but for Mrs Carnegie, wfho has played a most important part in all her husband's business transactions. Another wife who has made her husband known and respected throughout the length and breadth of the United States is Mrs M'Kinley A the widow of the late

President of that country. Mrs M'Kmley was her husband's leader in nearly every work in which he engage-d. More than once t-he latu President had the courage and frankness to say in public : "I am what my wife lias made me."