The Town's Bachelor Problem
An editorial tongue-lashing for four local men who chose independent living over marriage.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
We do not wish to be understood as approving the scheme when we announce the fact that four of our otherwise estimable young men have set up a bachelor's hall in town. We have always expected better things of these boys, and we gave them credit for more sand than that. Just because they 'got left' a few times is no excuse for giving up in despair. We believe that they can yet be saved. If the girls will go and pull down that little shack of theirs and leave them with no place to lay their weary heads, they may yet come to their senses and take unto themselves a wife apiece, and thus live like white folks should.
“We have always expected better things of these boys, and we gave them credit for more sand than that.”
This reflects the heavy societal pressure on young men in the 1890s to conform to domestic, family-oriented ideals, framing independent life as a failure of character.
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