The leaven in a great city

by Lillian William Betts

The second generation of this type of thrifty families rarely carry the habits of thrift of their parents into their home-making. The new financial freedom is a novelty, and presents in itself enjoyment that the new home-makers use. Here and there is a recovery from the danger of extravagance by a young couple, but the recovery is rarely so complete as to repeat the restrictions that the thrift of the parents compelled in their homes. The new generation demand better clothes and better furniture. Food and rent are regulated to meet these demands.

One stands appalled sometimes at the degree of vitality, the hope and the cheerfulness that prevail in the homes protected only by the muscles of one man; what they can buy representing all that the home may have. There is no spirit of recklessness; there is no failure to comprehend the slight protection a husband and father can give, though he be skillful; but there is a sublime confidence in the future. Though familiar with suffering, if not personally, then sympathetically, with full knowledge of what sickness and death bring to other unprotected homes, such men and women, and there are thousands, live from youth to and through age cheerfully, happily, without any financial safeguard except against Potter's Field. This weekly insurance is kept up; the family live cheerfully, gayly, sometimes to the end.

A MEETING OF NEIGHBORS.

One result of doling out small sums to young wage-earners, whether thrift or necessity is responsible, is disastrous, especially disastrous for young girls. It has seemed to the writer that if mothers and fathers could be brought to a realizing sense of its dangers, they would endure hunger rather than have their daughters exposed to it. After all, it could be averted by making a division of the money spent for dress. Girls are often dressed out of all proportion to the sums they earn, if a fair division of their wages were made, if the dignity of the daughters was protected by any degree of independence financially. Of course this disproportionate use of money is due to false standards that will only be regulated when the people on salaries learn to universally live true to the law of proportion in their expenditures.

It seems to be a fixed idea that a girl is dependent on invitations from young men for her social pleasures. If she is not invited, it is not only her misfortune, but her fault; she should be more attractive. On the other hand, the young man is scarcely any better off than the young girl financially, yet he expects, and his world expects, that he shall bear, not only his own social expenses, but those of at least one girl. His impulse is to be chivalrous, for chivalry is not regulated by income nor deadened by pennilessness.

It is oppressive at times to see how the lack of money prevents the natural association of young men and women; how often the young men are forced to give up the society of girls for this reason. Girls often unconsciously force invitations. As one goes down the scale, the girls invite themselves, where the young men have to bear the expenses. So small a matter as carfare will make a girl thrust herself on a young man's care. The girl will not resent indifference, even discourtesy and neglect, if only her aim is accomplished. The young men suffer the reflex of this attitude of mind, and their estimate of women is regulated by these misconceptions, and even their manner as husbands is regulated by this conception of the relations of the sexes, and wife and daughters suffer in consequence.

The higher up one goes in the social scale, the less evident is this aggressiveness on the part of girls, and the more natural relation of man as the suitor is apparent. As girls are brought more familiarly under the guidance of women willing to discuss the financial relations that should be maintained between the unmarried of both sexes, the more careful girls become in permitting the expending of money by men for their social pleasures; especially so where the limitation of a man's resources is understood, or even suspected.

How to make mothers put their daughters in an independent position where their pleasures are concerned is a very important and at the same time a very difficult question. When it is a question, as it often is, of the very necessities of life for a family and the allowing of money for the pleasure of a fun-loving daughter, necessities bear down the scale, even of justice, and dignity ceases to have value. For it must be remembered that the girl's wages, used for her exclusively, would often allow the exercise of independence in her social affiliations. This it is that makes Settlements so important in our social life. Here boys and girls do meet on a platform of independence, chaperoned naturally by those who know intimately the home surroundings, the social standards, the limitations of life in the regions, and all that creates environment, that most positive factor in the making of character. The social attitude of the young people who grow up in affiliation with the Settlements is found to differ greatly from that of young people untrammeled by oversight or influence that develops dignity.