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Volume xv i l nr m ber g. w NEW YORK.—"Weeping," says Dr. Sarah J. McNutt, tor twen ty years teacher and profes sor in two medical institutions and a woman who knows what her sisters are doing, "may al most be considered as in the past tense. 1 venture to say that where there used to be hundreds of women lying face down In the pillows blub bering and having terrible times over just nothing at all there are not ten now. Why, it used to be just as much a custom with some women to devote half an hour a day, usually In the afternoon, to half-forced crying as it was for them to get up in the morn ing. "With some there was what may be called a morbidly joyous search for that which would give them an occa sion for grabbing the handkerchief and entering upon r sobful session. With others they simply hurried other duties along so as to be sure that nothing would interfere with the d^ly cry. Still another sort of woman just trusted to luck that the day would not be made wholly unbearable by the absence of some trivial inci dent suggestive of woe. "Tears in those days were quite as contagious as the measles. The period of incubation was very brief. Neigh bors hung out clothes in the back yards and then leaning over the fence would recall some doleful incident of twenty years back, in which neither had any direct interest, and there upon the pickets they would mingle their tears; iQitll household duties called th^fl /way. Some Cause for Their Grief. "Now, it may be that there was some excuse in a small percentage of these cases, but only in a few. It should have been quite as easy for a woman to look at the world sensibly then as it is now. But they^didn’t seem to know how. Women used to keep more to themselves than they do now. They used to sit and think about themselves and magnify small things into large ones and try to carry all the world’s woe on their shoulders, and then, knowing full well that they were in for it, they would seek relief in the easy way. "When woman began to get a grasp of herself and to find that she was in the world to do something besides mope and moan and sob and sigh the situation began to change. The status of woman in the household had much to do with making her a weeper, just as her new status has made her the happy, smiling woman we see around us now. "Man used to be the unit in the household and the wife obviously be came the cipher. The unit would take his place at the head of the table and between mouthfuls deliver mon ologues on the state of the nation and society, to which the cipher would be a patient, although generally not an interested listener. Man the Supreme Monarch. “He expressed all the opinions for the domestic establishment, made its laws, interpreted them like a high court and administered them. Being the silent member the wife found no other way to relieve herself than to get away in some dark corner with a camphor bottle and boo-hoo until she had a pain in the stomach and her eyes frightfully red. Then she would '‘draw one final sigh, broken up into half a dozen sections, and hurry to the kitchen to resume her inter rupted duties. “She sniveled through the long win ters, sobbed when the birds were singing in the spring, wept from planting time until after harvest In the fall, and were it not for her gen erally good constitution she would have been under the weeping willows before she was thirty. “When woman of that period went out to do a little shopping it was cus tomary for the husband to go along and of course carry the wallet. She would timidly buy 16 cents’ worth of needles and thread, and he, with a flourish, would slowly unwind the strap from the pocketbook and count out the change, take the package and hand it to her, and she in turn would sigh her thanks for this evidence of generosity and love. "It is a true picture that I have un dertaken to draw —true every word of it. No wonder that women went around with granulated eyelids and fluttered a sigh with every tenth breath. Old Order of Things Changed. "Os course. It was inevitable that women would get away from this con dition of oftentimes self-imposed de pression. They just had to wake up. The old order of things had to pass. The great sisterhood of American women has stepped out of the shadows into the sunlight and it is getting something real and good out of life now. “It jwould be Inaccurate to say that women have given up crying alto- bulletin. gether, but they have progressed to a point where they no longer have nerves forever on edge and tears for ever on tap. "Now I will tell you how I think it came about. Mental stimulus has done it. Just so soon as a woman ceases to Imagine that she is the most utterly forlorn and unhappy person in the world she is bound to get a new angle on herself. Women today have minds for other things than themselves. They are not worrying over what they used to call their sad fate. They are thinking about others, about matters of some moment, about books and plays and gardens and happiness, and when they give to these things all the time they deserve there are no spare moments for lone ly moaning, accompanied by sniffs. Exit the Day of the Tear. “There are in round numbers 60,000 clubwomen in New York. Do you suppose any of them will spot a lace handkerchief with a tear today? Not one. How many of the bright-eyed young business women —stenograph- ers, typewriters, clerks,, office assist ants and all the others —do you im agine will go to business this morn ing wondering whether they will find time for a good cry during the day? Not one, unless she Is ill. How many of the shopgirls on the east side and in Brooklyn do you suppose will go sniffling to their work today? Not one. They are too busy.” Dr. McNutt took a number of books from the top of her desk and dropped one upon another with a slam. “There,” she said, “are seven anti dotes for tears. If you want others, there are the newspapers. I’m a great believer in novels. I read a lot of them. They give me just the kind of mental thrill that is good for me. A good, clean story without a prob lem is a tonic. “If I could put a chauffeur novel in the hands of some of our women who still think there is something to weep over in everyday life I believe I could shut off the flow of pails of tears. All of our young women read nowadays. Take the girl just out of the office. She jumps into the novel yacht or the novel automobile or climbs onto the novel load of hay and away she goes. If she is in the novel yacht she goes dancing over the waves of the Sound and feels the cool spray in her face. When night comes the yacht puts in at Stamford or New Haven and she goes to sleep and Is lulled to pleasant dreams by the swish of the water. She slips on her gog gles and goes spinning over the road in the machine, her hair flying and sights changing all along the way. Reading That Has Helped. “One thing about stories is that you do not have to do any talking your self. Writers have away of making people say just the thing that the reader would like to say were she in the book. That helps a lot. It doesn’t tire one. Unconsciously the reader enters into the enjoyment of the spirit of wholesome adventure that runs through the pages and it seems to be real. Yoh see it helps a woman to get into a new atmosphere, and in that lies the secret of cheeriness. "The really busy woman has no time to snivel. She knows that it is time wasted. She knows that it means nothing in comfort and that it is bound to make her nervous and take the snap out of her eyes. “Yes, yes; crying is rapidly becom ing a lost art. The bottle of smelling salts still dangles at the end of the chatelaine chain, but its use is purely decorative. The sniff and sob are no longer modern.” “Women,” said Dr. Mary MacMil lan, “have become more philosophical IRWINTON, WILKINSON COUNTY, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1911. in recent years. They have found that tears are unproductive of substantial results and therefore not to be sum moned at frequent periods. A woman friend of mine had a daughter among the passengers on the Olympic when that vessel met with an accident on the other side. The girl very thought fully sent a cablegram to her mother telling of her saiety. It was received on this side with smiles instead of tears. "I imagine it would have been dif ferent a generation or two back. One might picture a mother then wring ing her hands and sobbing quite as if she had met with a great misfortune. Days of Mingled Tears. “It was customary, I have been told, for news of joyful character con cerning an incident of some serious ness to be received with great out pourings, which were not confined to the person most interested, but par ticipated in by others in the imme diate circle of relatives and friends. The person whose tears fell first would naturally send for the next nearest relative, who would hear the news and then mingle her tears with the other’s. Then others would come in and take out their handkerchiefs and form part of the circle. About dusk the manifestations of lachrymal disturbance would reach its height, for the shadow period Is supposed to be appropriate for it, after which it would subside and by and by there would be a general brightening up. I have heard it said that much satis faction was had on occasions of the sort, but we now know that it was a mistake. “There are legitimate occasions for tears without creating them, but there are few trials which may not be faced by women without tears. Women no longer live in an atmosphere of what may be called the woebegone. They do not look at life from the vale of tears viewpoint, and it is well that they do not. With smiles taking the place of tears there will be buoyancy instead of depression, cheeriness in stead of moroseness. Healthy, nor mal women ought not to weep and few of them do.” —New York World. Says Missionaries Lack Tact. Professor Frederick W. Williams of Yale, who is an expert on China, be lieves too many missionaries to the Chinese are tactless, according to the New York Sun. To their tactlessness he imputes the small number of Chi nese ’converts. Professor Williams, at a luncheon at Princeton said last month: “1 have known missionaries as Ig norant of tact as Jim Driscoll was ig norant of foot rules. “Jim Driscoll, a farm boy. got a job in a steel mill, and his boss gave him a foot rule one day, and said: “ ‘Measure me that plate out there in the yard.’ “Jim at the end of a half hour, returned and said: “ ‘The plate is the length of the rule and three fingers over, with this piece of cobblestone, and the stem of my pipe and my foot from here to here, bar the toecap.’ ” Sanitarium Fame. First Invalid —You must think you are somebody, judging from the way you talk. Second Ditto —1 want you to real ize, sir, that I’ve been fought over tn some of the best hospitals in the land. —Puck. Explained. Jack —Why did you give up your bachelor quarters? Tom— Because I’m goln,. to marry dollars. —Birming- ham News. HIE 810 STORE TREATS YOE RIGHT Bill Siggins Says: “The only thing I ever see any one get for nothin’ was a zero with the rim knocked off.” We want to commend Mr. Siggins’ saying as wise and true. In these days you see so much of the something for nothin’ that you don’t know where to land. Our idea has been, is, and always will be===a good, square deal to all. We only handle goods of known values; goods that their trade mark is “HALLMARK” of quality. We believe in the advertised lines===as we know a brand of merchan dise that has stood the test of the ad man’s work for years must be right. Each week we are going to tell you of one line well known that we sell, and we want you to watch for same. We want you to come to Milledge= J ville; come to the big store and let us show you. W. S. MYRICK & CO. Milledgeville’s Only Department Store 81.00 A YBAR.