Show THE DECAY OF HOME LIFE Lippincott ls dont tell we me enat a noine which is given over to the servants halt half the time father mother children all go ing separate ways and always on the rush a house bouse with gas fires and unopened books a house in which there is no evening lamp no DO morning prayer no time for music for talk for all the oc occupations a and ad interests and pleasures that link each to each day by day year by year in natural piety f don dont donit it tell me that that la 13 a home I 1 am not sure that most of us want one we have survived home perhaps and prefer a thousand roosts boosts to one nest the decay of homelike hom elife in our cities at least is the most striking of all the changes that I 1 observe after a long absence from my own country we were once the most domestic dor of all tor tb nations drearily so foreigners said but that can no longer be made a ground of complaint I 1 am not complaining my own idea is to march with the times and look facts in the face I 1 am for making our houses as plain as possible containing only the ordinary conveniences provided at trifling cost let us furnish our streets and public places of every kind sumptuously I 1 isy say fifth avenue A venue or broadway en closed in glass from november to may adorned with bric a brac pictures easy chairs chair comfor comfortable sofas meals to be served a la carte from may to november awning awnings sices lees cane furniture palmleaf palm leaf fans in short abort modern comforts where we moderns most need them and that is ia emphatically abroad and not at home As an asylum for poor relations for the temporary screening of intending absconding bank cashiers for the insane cases of infectious disease and a few similar purposes a private house may still be a useful thing to have in the family but that is all let usim us im prove all our public places and conveyances have drawing room cars carn for instance with buffet attachment every seat a distinct easy chair a corot opposite instead of eppes cocoa grateful and comforting a library of select fiction cut flowers good stained glass no more straw draughts draugh tg banging doors squeezing and pushing and trampling discomfort in short I 1 am in them on an average two hours daily and I 1 will give the corot Corotto to the first on one set up on these lines he is my favorite artist and I 1 shall see a great deal more of him there than where he now hangs bangs in my cifes louis quinze boudoir so go that I 1 shall not be a bel selfish fish brute but ut a public benefactor our shops our restaurants tau rants our theatres theartres the atres our waiting rooms are all susceptible of vast improvement pro and the benevolent millionaire lio IlOn sire instead of building public libraries which are used by five hundred people in the course of the year fifty of them students the remainder idlers loungers and cranks can make five hundred th thousand mil millions I 1 ions in fact of his bis fellow citizens rise up and call him a good fellow and a sensible man by taking this bint 11 1 |