But it does require the knowledge necessary to keep the housekeeping books properly. A thorough acquaintance with the prices of articles, and the different quantities which a household should consume; and above all, to have what is commonly called ‘one’s wits about one.’
If every tradesman with whom you deal has a running account with you; if nothing in his book is paid for but what you have written down yourself; if your cook has orders to receive no meat without a check; has proper scales for weighing the joints as they come in, and makes a note of any deficiency (the checks being afterwards compared with the butcher’s book); it is impossible that the tradespeople can cheat you, and if your money is wasted, you must waste it yourself.
It is an old-fashioned plan to pay one’s bills at the end of each week; but it is a very good one. Little things which should be noticed may slip the memory at a longer period. Besides, it is a useful reminder; it shows how the money is going, and if the tradesmen find you are careful, it makes them so.
Following this plan, a quarter of an hour every morning sees the housekeeping affairs settled for the day, leaving the mistress at leisure to pursue her own avocations, and the cook to do her business in the kitchen. It is simply a glance at the larder, and then to write down all that will be required until that time on the morrow; the dinner and breakfast orders on a slate, and the other articles in the books appropriated to them. After a little while it will be found that the labour is purely mechanical; in a quiet family the consumption is so regular that the weekly bills will scarcely vary, and the mistress’s eye will detect the least increase, and find out for what it has been incurred.
At the close of each month the debit and credit accounts should be balanced, and then, if the allowance is at any time exceeded, it will generally be proved that it has gone on the superfluities before mentioned, and not on the actual expense of maintaining the household. When people talk of the difficulties of ‘living,’ the thoughts of their listeners invariably fly to the cost of bread and meat, and they unite in abusing the tradespeople, who send their children to fashionable schools on the profits which they extort from us. But there are various ways in which men and women can save, besides dispensing with unnecessary eatables.
What woman, for instance, in these days, buying a dress, does not pay twice as much for its being made and trimmed ready for her use as she did for the original material? And who that has feet and fingers, and a sewing-machine, could not sit down and make it in a few hours for herself?
But she will tell you, most likely, that she cannot cut out properly, that she has not the slightest taste for trimming, and that she was not brought up to dressmaking like a dressmaker. Ah, my dear sisters! are not these the days when we should all learn? Men may go through life with the knowledge but of one thing—for if they are acquainted with the duties of their profession, they succeed—but women need to know everything, from putting on a poultice to playing the piano; and from being able to hold a conversation with the Lord Chancellor, to clear-starching their husbands’ neckties.
I don’t say we must do it, but I maintain that we should know how.
Men are really needed but in one place, and that is, public life; but we are wanted everywhere. In public and in private, upstairs and downstairs, in the nursery and the drawing-room,—nothing can go on properly without us; and if it does, if our husbands and our servants and our children don’t need us, we cannot be doing our duty.