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Show 1 Dorothy Dix Talks j By DOROTHY DIX, the Worid's Highest Paid Woman Writer THE SPONGERS .V woman correspondent writes: j "I have a woman friend, who is a pretty and a charming woman, and ! of whom I am really very fond, but I who makes a free hotel OX my house. I am not lacking in a hospitabbt splr- it, but my husband is a p'Owr man. and we are struggling with might and main I to get a start in tho world, and I do j not teel that u is right to burden him . with the extra expense that company always entails How Is ono to rid one s I self of a friendly grafter?" Uord knows. 1 don't. I suppose thai thero Is no other pleco of Information Infor-mation for which a long-suffrrlng public so hungers and thirsts a.s foi S reliable recipe for detaching theso hn- man sponges from the easy marks on which they have fastened then, .elves. For few of us are so lucky as not to be forced into doing the sturdy oak j stunt to some parasitic clinging vine that has fastened Itself about us, and j that we kick the nervo to cut away. Wc all know what wo ought to do. We ought to slam our door in the faces 'f thoso who. visit us merely to gain tree board and lodging. Wo ought to , put a Valo lock on our Docketbooks, and refuse to hand out to the social panhandlers, but wo haven't the back-bonc back-bonc do it. We go along letting tho dead beats work us. and wo deservo I w h.u we get for being the poor ; weaklings that wo are. I The chief of these grafters the really lug sponge is the relative who ! believes that a blood tie is a financial bond and lhat because fov happen to j bo kin to her you are undei obligations obliga-tions to support her. Nine-tenths of I the families you know are the prey of I this sort of n hanger-on. A woman's husband dies, or her ; parents die, and her homo is broken I up. She forthwith goes and settles down upon her nearest kin, and If she is poor she expects them to support I her the balance of her days, no mutter mut-ter how straightened in circumstances , her victims are. nor how huskv and able-bodli 'i sh la M iny a boy is kept out of college, many a girl is deprived of the pretty clothes that would give her a chance to make good marriage because Aunt Fannie, or Cousin Sallie, is sponging on the family and BOafting j up all the mon"j' that might go for advantages for tho children. Y.-rv ..ften people are spiritual parasites para-sites as well as financial ones. The happiness of unnumbered families is shattered by tho presence in it of a mother-in-law who has come to live w ith her son or daughter because she was lonesome. She knows sho is a source of discord, and that sho is en-I en-I dangerlng the stability of the home it-1 it-1 self, but she stays on. Spongers have j no fine feelings that mako them sensitive sen-sitive to the good of others. Apparently, it never occurs to the parasitic woman that it is a disgraceful disgrace-ful thing for any woman who is not old, or sick, to expect anyone clso to support her. Nor does it occur to the parasitic mother that she is doing her children a deadly wrong when h takes her happiness at the expense of theirs. 1 know of nothing that would make more for the general well being; than rb'r us to have the courage to tell Aunt Fannie and Cousin Sallie to get out land get a Job, to roll up their Blecvcs and go to work, and be independent land self-respecting citizens, as Xhey 'cannot bo while they are dlsgnintlcd dependents, knowing they are unwant- , ed burdens. And, oh. how many tears, and heartaches, heart-aches, and divorces it would save if son and daughter could only say, "Dear mother, keep your own home. jSta' among your old friends. Take some boarders to give you an occupation, occupa-tion, or board yourself. Have your own life. Sfbu Will really be so much bettei off than you will be scrapping I with your son -in "law, or your daugh- i ter-ln-law." Next in tho pestilential brood of I spongers is the selflnVlted juest. Few i of us are afrlictc-d with pon paralysis. The telephone and the telegraph still j perform their appointed function, and It is reasonably sure that anyone who I Is pining tor a vlplt from us has am-I am-I plo opportunity of making his or her desire for our society known to us. We j may also Infer with absolute certainty i that if wo are not asked we arc not I wanted. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding, 'there aro hordes of people so lost to all sense of decency that they do not hes-! hes-! Itate to plump down on you, bag and j baggago, as a pleasant surprise, or to drop you alttlo note in which they tell how they pine to see you, and ask If It will be convenient for them to come by the next Wednesday's o'clock train. Everybody who lives In a big clty is the pre-ordained victim of these grafters, who thriftily save their hotel land restaurant bills by sticking up their friends and acquaintances. As for country places nobody but 'millionaires can afford them because of the self-invited guests who descend ' 'on the unfortunate owners of seaside ; cottage.?, and mountain camps, and eat i 'them out of house and homo, I Everybody knows these dead beats; for what they are. and why we have ; not tho nerve to tell them that wo are not talcing boarders, but that the ho- I 'tela and restaurants are still doing business at the old stand Heav en only I knows. But we don't. We stand for it j I like the poor simps we are. The woman who borrows small sums J of money and never pays them back; 1 who borrows your hat or your cloak and sends them back half ruined, the ' woman who never pays her own street car fare, or her share of the treats, is j la petty grafter whom we all despise, land whose depredations we should re-I' re-I' fusel to countenance any longer Don't be a sponge. It is the most ! contemptable object in all nature. Dorothy Dlx's articles ajpear in this newspaper every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. |