But, as I shall soon shew, this custom,
though it has the advantage of safety, is not without disadvantages.
In the house of the Working Man or respectable Tradesman--where the
wife is allowed to turn her back upon her husband, while pursuing
her household avocations--there are at least intervals of quiet,
when the wife is neither seen nor heard, except for the humming sound
of the continuous Peace-cry; but in the homes of the upper classes
there is too often no peace. There the voluble mouth and bright
penetrating eye are ever directed toward the Master of the household;
and light itself is not more persistent than the stream of Feminine
discourse. The tact and skill which suffice to avert a Woman's sting
are unequal to the task of stopping a Woman's mouth; and as the wife
has absolutely nothing to say, and absolutely no constraint of wit,
sense, or conscience to prevent her from saying it, not a few cynics
have been found to aver that they prefer the danger of the death-dealing
but inaudible sting to the safe sonorousness of a Woman's other end.
To my readers in Spaceland the condition of our Women may seen
truly deplorable, and so indeed it is.
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