The Wife Who Built a Saloon to Save Her Marriage

It has been discovered that the reason why men, whether young or old, take to dissipation and drunkenness is the fact that home is not made attractive to them. Mr. Higginbottom, of West street, urged this in his own behalf. He admitted that he was inclined to drink more than was good for him, and that he frequently spent his evenings at low concert saloons, but he insisted that the fault was all his wife's. She did nothing to make home attractive. He could either put on his slippers and sit down before the grate fire to read, or he could talk with his wife, who was a bright, affectionate woman, but such occupations as these could not have any possible charm for a man of intellect and taste.

Not long ago, temperance workers called on his wife and begged her to make an effort to save her husband by making his home attractive. Mrs. Higginbottom consented. As a first step, she visited her husband's favorite concert saloon under the protection of a disguise and a detective officer. When she had learned what the attractions were, she proceeded to reproduce them in her own home. She had the parlor carpet taken up and the bare floor sprinkled with beer and stumps of cigars. She removed the pictures and hung in their place gaudy chromos representing impossible young women in undesirable costumes. Two dirty tables and a supply of wooden chairs from the kitchen completed the furniture.

Before the hour of her husband's return, she hired a man to play on an accordion and another to torture a violin, beside three professional drunkards of great indecency, and a notorious burglar, kindly furnished for the occasion by the police captain. She instructed two ugly girls in the art of serving beer and dressed them in vulgar costumes. When Mr. Higginbottom arrived, she escorted him to the parlor and led him to a seat at one of the dirty tables. The fiddler struck up; the drunkards began to swear and wrangle, and the burglar invited Mr. Higginbottom to take a drink. The two girls brought beer and spilled it on his table, calling him 'dear.'

Mr. Higginbottom was at first completely dazed, but in a few moments, he recovered his reason. He ordered the girls to the kitchen, pitched the drunkards out the front door, and ordered the musicians and the burglar to follow. He then informed his wife that he had been an idiot, and that if she would restore the parlor to its former condition, he would stay at home and make no further complaint of the want of attractiveness. Mr. Higginbottom has since ceased to spend his evenings away from home, and has informed his temperance friends that the real reason he frequented disreputable places was the fact that he was a 'lot and a scoundrel.'