"Mr. _Beecher_ says children should have candy;" and, what is more, he thinks they should be _bought_ to be good by it! Oh, fie!
Well, now, I reply: Mr. Beecher is a _man_. If his grandchild has the stomach-ache, it is the _women_ of the family who will soothe it, and bear its cries and its wakeful nights. If the little teeth prematurely decay and ache, it is _the women_ who will accompany it to the dentist's for the heart-rending wrench of cold iron. Mr. Beecher, in short, decided this candy question from a _man's_ standpoint. He took the popular side of the question with the children, who will always shout hosanna to him for the same. But, my dear sir, the mothers who, going home after shopping through Broadway, stop each day for the poisonous parcel of sweets for Johnny and Susy, need restraint, not encouragement, from you. They "can't imagine what ails Susy or Johnny, to be so fretful" after eating it. Of course they never for a moment suppose it to be candy. Didn't _they_ eat candy? And are they buried yet? _I_ ask another question: What is the state of their teeth and digestion to-day? What their powers of endurance as mothers? What, in short, do they annually contribute to enable the fat family doctor to ride in his carriage and live in Fifth Avenue? _That's_ what _I_ want to know.
O Mr. Beecher! well as I like you, I don't know what to say to you; and what makes the case more aggravating, I know I shall keep on liking you, whatever you say. That's the worst of it, and you know it. And I am going to send this right off to the _Ledger_ office without a second reading, lest I should qualify it, or trim it up, or make it more respectful because you are "a minister."
No, sir; I won't do it; I'll take example by a rampant female at a public meeting the other night, who was scolding her husband for not getting her a better seat. The distressed man laid his hand on her arm, saying, "Hush! here's Fanny Fern; she will hear you." With distended nostrils, that admirable woman replied, "I don't care for six hundred Fanny Ferns!"
My dear sir, your hand is too well accustomed to drawing a moral, for me to presume to do it for you in this case! Adieu.
I have heard the objection made, by women, to female clerks in stores, that they are less civil and attentive to their own sex than are male clerks. I can only answer for myself, that I have never found any reason to complain of them in this regard. In fact, I often wonder at their patience and civility under very trying circumstances. I suppose gallantry supplies the place of patience in male clerks. With so many fresh, pretty, dimpled young faces to look at, a young man need not be so very churlish, though he be not christened Job.