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Show Howe About: Silerius' Third Wife Minding Your Business American Waste . Bell Syndlcate.-WNU Service. By ED HOWE SO FAR as my reading goes no one has ever more candidly, intelligently intelligent-ly or fairly discussed the relations of married couples than Silerius, who lived near the time of the most lamous outrage on women recorded in history: that suffered by Sabine women who were carried off by invading soldiers. Some authorities claim Silerius himself him-self was a general in the conquering army concerned, and that a screaming . Sabine woman was delivered at his tent as his part of the loot. As near as can be learned from the vague history of that time this woman, wom-an, so violently courted, became the third wife of Silerius; and although carried from her own country to a strange one by a conqueror, with no other preliminary than being suddenly seized by rough invaders, she was so capable in looking after her own interests in-terests that her abductor later married her; indeed; she became prominent and respected in the inhospitable cits in which her husband lived. In his memoirs Silerius gives the impression im-pression that his third wife pleased him more than any of the others, to two of whom he was married with elaborate ceremonies, and after very sentimental courtship. In. writing of his experiences with women, Silerius tells in a rather amusing way of the gentle and cunning arts his third wife exercised in bending him to her will, and I get the impression that she loved him more sincerely than any of the wives he acquired in a more conventional conven-tional way. What part of your attention do you give to your own business? Say you are merchant, lawyer, doctor, mechanic, mechan-ic, farmer. What per cent of your enthusiasm en-thusiasm goes to your business, and what per cent to politics, vacations, clubs, automobiling, radio, moving pictures, pic-tures, welfare work, social affairs? Many a good business has been wrecked by its head man neglecting it for other things. It Is charged that, one of the most notable of American commercial enterprises is on the rocks becau.To its head, in receipt of an enormous enor-mous salary, neglected it for outside activities. The same principle ap- plies to those occupying fifteen, twenty or forty-dollar-a-week jobs. Very few Americans mind their own business. A doctor connected with the government govern-ment says that 71 per cent of the hospital hos-pital cases now being cared for by the government were not cases that in any way could be traced to the great war; that the Veterans' Disability act was the greatest steal ever put over on the American people. Here is another startling illustration illustra-tion of the waste and dishonesty in American public affairs; in this case, in relieving twenty-nine men honestly entitled to relief, the politicians, relieved re-lieved seventy-one not entitled to it. The figures hold in everything else In American public affairs. I have no doubt that for every twenty-nine dollars dol-lars the government necessarily spends in its operation seventy-one dollars are wantonly and villainously wasted. The only way for the government to properly balance the budget is to cut off 71 per cent of taxes already levied, and wasted, iustead of adding new burdens. I do not know just when, but some of these days I intend to confess I am as tired of my writing as others are, and no longer hold on to the coat tails of the drunken world In attempts to better it. And in my final notice I think I shall pay the people who have dismissed me a good many compliments. Millions Mil-lions of them are admirable. My final message to them will be: "Keep the few good things you have accomplished, accom-plished, and try to accomplish a few more. All the comforts and pleasures we have came as a result of men succeeding suc-ceeding In doing a little better." When I know what women expect of men, I am willing to grant it. Just how much attention from men do women decide is proper? I have been In doubt at times. . . . There is In my town a woman who is very strict ; she promptly resents the slightest familiarity fa-miliarity from men, and frequently talks indignantly of their boldness. One day I learned, from the private talk of the women, that a friend of mine had squeezed her hand, and that she was very mad about it. Later, when I was in her company, the name of the bold wretch came up, and I felt that she would vigorously denounce him. She didn't know I had heard of the affront offered her, but I was certain cer-tain she "would express a very unfavorable unfa-vorable opinion, knowing she was very strict. . . . And this was what she said: "He Is the most entertaining man I ever met in my life." I have long wondered that the doctrine doc-trine called Communism has persisted through so many centuries, although every reasonably intelligent man acknowledges ac-knowledges It Is foolish and Impractical. Imprac-tical. I think the explanation is we are all natural Communists. Children impose on parents, and everybody else, until broken of it. Some children impose im-pose on parents until fourteen, eighteen eight-een or twenty-one-two-three-four years old; some continue to believe In Communism long after they have families of their own, and trouble with 'he poUre. |