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CHAT.
It is indeed a sorrowful thing that “Old Woman”
tells us about the ill treatment of some men to
their wives. Do you know I believe it is in many
instances the fault of the wives. They begin in a
wrong way. They do not win the respect of their
husbands. They make the early months of marriage
a continual gush of honey with a dash of the gall of
petty childish tiffs and quarrels made up by kisses.
Too much familiarity of this kind lessens the re
spect, which (if a woman only knew it) stands her
in better stead in after life than all the senti
ment she can develop in a man.
A woman who looks at life wisely will always
keep a little barrier of reserve between her and
the man she marries. She will keep her personal
modesty intact and allow no coarseness in her
self, nor encourage any in him. No wife should
listen with enjoyment to coarse gossip told her by
her husband. If a woman, beginning when she is a
bride, would preserve the feminine modesty and fra
grant delicacy which her husband found so win
ning in her when she was a girl, he would never
abuse her —unless he was a real brute —and no
woman should live with a brute —if not for her
own sake, then for the sake of the children she has
or may have. No one regards marriage more
sacredly than I do, or more sincerely deplores the
necessity of separation that sometimes occur. But
separation from a sot —or a tyrant —is better than
to drag out an existence of misery and entail upon
children a wretched environment and the curse
of inheriting bad blood. The proportion of idiots
and invalids born in this state is positively alarm
ing, and physiologists assure us that ill-mated par
ents and those enslaved by drink or by drugs is
the primal cause of feeble minded cranky and dis
eased children.
Let our young people be trained by their par
ents to look upon marriage more reasonably —to
count the cost before wedding, as they would do,
before taking every other step of far less import
ance than marriage. Let them be sure that they
can respect the men they marry and can exact re
spect from them, instead of plunging blindly into
matrimony, carried away by emotion, w r hich is
usually short-lived. I would far rather pin my
faith to a well-considered marriage, founded on re
spect and tender friendship than on one where the
bond was sentiment and passion, dignified by the
name of love.
I am sure you will enjoy Leonora Randall's stories
of Niagara, and the wonderful feats she describes;
also that most extraordinary incident, never oc
curring before or since, when the bed of the mighty
torrent and the bare rocks of the precipice were
all that there was of Niagara—a sight to be seen
for one day only.
And so Elam is located. He is under the care of
Dr. Nat, one of the most skillful and progressive
of doctors, as well as a man of infinite humor and
imagination. It seems that the good doctor en
countered him on his way back to see Annice, and
by gentle persuasion and perhaps a little wise
hypnotism induced him to take treatment instead
of a wife. Dr. Nat, however, is wise enough to
know that the best cure for the malady caused
by rejected love is the “expulsive power of a new
affection,” and he will encourage the modern Coelebs
in search of a wife to get well and set out on a
new matrimonial quest.
Meantime, Annice, fancy free, dwells in her old
ancestral manor by the winding Tennessee, her
household menage moving with restored smoothness,
since her cook has returned and her chickens have
come home!
The whole-hearted letter of Dr. Bott’s is particu
larly appreciated by the Household. What he pro
poses that the old Sunny South clan should do for
the Golden Age Household is splendid, and what
he pledges himself to do is most generous. Couldn’t
he be induced to withdraw that amended condition,
in favor of, say .Julia Coman Tait, her own lovely
and gifted self, who would make an ideal House
hold head? I want every one of the members to
take a livelier interest in the department. It is now
being put on a more systematic basis, and the letters
will receive prompt attention. Everyone has a lit
tle time in which to tell some pleasant or useful
experience, or to give and ask for friendly sym
pathy.
Mattie Howard, who is the busiest of women, finds
THE HOUSEHOLD
A Department of 'Expression Tor Those Who Teel and Think,!
The Golden Age for May 7, 1908.
opportunity to entertain and inform her friends at
a distance by her always interesting letters and
sketches, which she says furnish her literary train
ing as well. She economizes time by system, tak
ing advantage of all the little halves and quarters
of hours during the day by a good use of them,
thus obeying the Savior’s injunction to gather up
the fragments.
Some of our friends have had their contributions
unintentionally left over, among those being Arthur
Goodenough and Ben Ivy, who will find entrance
next week.
With ®ur Correspondents
SOME FORGOTTEN STORIES ABOUT NIAGARA.
It was our last afternoon at Niagara. We were
making a farewell visit to the great falls. Our
party, consisting of May, the “gude mon,” and my
self, had been joined by a trio of young people—
acquaintances of ours from Mississippi—Max, a
young college student on his vacation, his sister,
Nell, a chatterbox of fifteen, and a younger brother,
Donald, called “Don.”
We chose the Canadian side, as the point for our
final view, since from this side the breadth of falling
water is best seen.
Following the walk down near the boat’s landing,
we stood and gazed in silent admiration at the
great white sheet of the cataract, the veil-like middle
fall, the crystal, emerald-tinged Horse Shoe, the
green, mist-wreathed island above it and the boiling
vortex below.
Two elderly gentlemen approached and stopped
near us. They were protesting against the despoiling
of the falls for commercial purposes. One, who
spoke with the sharp accent of a New Englander,
told of his strenuous efforts to preserve the falls;
the other man, who had a kindly, intellectual face,
rejoined: “Yes, it is a shame on the government
and the people that this grandest spectacle of nature
should be desecrated through the greed of gain.”
I lost the response to this thought. Chatterbox
exclaimed, “Oh, let’s go to see the spouting fountain
at Leaping Water, where Mrs. Sigourney sat when
she wrote her poem about Niagara!”
“Where did Table Rock hang?’ asked the lad, her
brother.
“I think it was midway between the top
and the bottom of the cliff, just across there,” re
plied May, pointing with her sun-shade to a point
near Horse Shoe Falls.
“Doesn’t the falling water look like solid white
marble?” asked Don. “But May, you are not looking
at the water. What is it that interests you so on
the ground?”
“I am looking at the quantities of dead fish lying
among the rocks at our feet. I wonder if they came
the pi ecipice?”
Glancing up I noticed the old gentlepian looking
intently at us. “Yes,” he said, “they came over the
precipice; the fall killed them. You are from the
South. I recognize the soft, Southern accent. I, too,
am a Southerner, a Georgian, though I was sent to
England to attend college just before the Civil War.
I came back to stay in 1870, and have lived here
ever since, practicing law, though often visiting the
South. My first sight of Niagara was when I was
quite a lad. Tn March 29, 1848, I came here with my
father on our way to visit relatives in Canada. We
came by to see the falls, and behold, there were no
‘falls.’ The cliff of tne white avalanche was there,
but it was a huge, bare precipice of rock. I saw ve
hicles pass from America to Canada right across
the bed of the torrent. People were exploring up the
river bed for a considerable distance. From the re
cesses of the rocks fish and turtle were gathered in
quantities. You look incredulous, but I assure you
what I am telling you is a fact.”
But where was the water of the cataract? What
hindered the torrent from rushing down its bed?”
were some of the questions that were poured upon
him, while some of our party looked significantly at
each other, as if they suspected tne pleasant, intelli
gent-looking old gentleman was unsound in his mind.
Ho saw the look and proceeded to explain. “The
strange phenomenon,” he said, “was caused by the
jam of the ice coming from Lake Erie. r ine great
mass had been blown by a driving wind up to the
neck of the lake, thus choking the outlet of the
river. But before the dawn of another day the jam
had been broken, the mighty torrent came thunder
ing down along its bed and flung itself over the jag
ged precipice. Its roar has never since been
hushed.”
“What else did you observe at that visit which lat
ter-day people have never seen?” asked May.
“Well, there was then a stone tower, forty-five
feet high and twelve feet square at the base, stand
ing there on Turtle Rock. It was a favorite view
point with the numerous bridal parties that came
here, and was sometimes called Bridal Tower (tour),
as Turtle Rock was called Turtle Dove.”
“ins view from it could not have been as fine as
that from the present steel tower,” said May. “You
know this tower is three hundred feet high, and
from the top a bird’s-eye view can be had of the
whole valley of the river, from Lake Erie to Lake
Ontario.”
“Did you see any of the rope-walkers when thev
crossed over the chasm?” asked Nell.
“Yes, I saw them at several different times. In
1858, I saw Blondin, who was first to cross on a rope.
The rope was 1,200 feet long, stretched from cliff to
cliff. He performed many gigantic feats. He sat
down, rolled over and over, and afterward let down
a cord to the little steamboat, Maid-of-the-Mist, drew
up a bottle and took a drink. In 1860 he crossed
again, and this time he carried a man on his back.
During the same year, in August, he crossed on a
rope, bound hand and foot. Then he carried a stove
to the middle of the chasm, made a fire, cooked
an egg omelet and lowered it by a long cord to the
captain of the little Maid-of-the-Mist. The follow
ing September he crossed with his feet in bushel
baskotf. Later, Shelteuria crossed on stilts, and
Robinson made a daring dash through the whirlpool
and rapids, coming out alive to the amazement of the
crowd.”
The day previous we had heard Mrs. Taylor tell
about her miraculous descent of the cataract fastened
up in a barrel; now we asked our new acquaintance
if any other person had ever ventured over the falls
in this fashion.
“None,” he answered, “save those told of in the
traditions of the Indians. From these traditions we
learn that every year the fairest daughter of the
tribe was chosen as a sacrifice to appease Niagara’s
angry god. The girl was bound in a bark canoe,
and set adrift in the rapids to plunge over Horse Shoe
Falls. At last, the choice fell on the lovely and fa
vorite daughter of the chief of the tribe. When she
was set adrift, her father followed her in a canoe,
despite the cries and entreaties of his people. Father
and daughter went over the cataract together, and
his tragic sacrifice of himself put an end to the hor
rible custom.” LEONORA RANDALL.
Grand Cane, La.
*
THE SORROWFUL TRUTH.
Dear Happy Wife: There is nothing the mat
ter with the “Old Woman.” She is not cynical, nor
is she a disappointed old maid. But she has lived
in this world a good long time, and while she has
known many happy wives like yourself, she has
seen others, more than a few, who were tyran
nized over by Tom-cat husbands. Yes, dear, it is
true. Some of these poor women, bruised and
beaten, have come to me for sympathy. I have dress
ed their wounds with tears in my eyes, and in my
hot indignation against their cruel masters I have
said just what I would do under the circumstances,
and the poor things would reply, “No, no; I can’t
leave him. I love him in spite of his treatment to
me. Please do not tell any one about the way
he does. I just had to unburden my heart to
some one; it felt like it would break.”
And they went back with a dog-like devotion that
I can not understand. I never even told my hus
band of their wrongs. It mortified me to think one
of my sister women could have so little spirit, and
I did not wish others to know it.
Now, friends, do not imagine that these husbands
were of the low, ignorant class. They were noth
ing of the kind. Some of them were well educated
men, socially prominent. A few weeks ago the
marshall of a nearby little city was arrested for
beating his wife. I am glad to say he lost his
position.
Our Northern brothers harp upon the moral
progress that has been made by the negro, but it
is true, so far as my observation goes, that there
is not one negro husband in a hundred that does
