Is there any limit to a female's aggravatin'? I wouldn't dane a reply. But I took up Ayer's Albernack with a stern cold linement, and went to readin' the advertisements, and of course she didn't see the danger ahead on her, of irritatin' too fur a strong nater. She kep' right on, "No doubt wimmen are sometimes extravagant, Josiah, no doubt they spend lots of money foolishly and worse than foolishly, but before we decide that it ort to deprive her of political rights, let us compare it with men's extravagance for a few minutes." I felt above replyin' to her, but kep' my eye on the bottle of medicine, and the woman raised from the tomb by a smell of the cork, and she went on: "Which party is it in a workman's home that usually wants to buy an automobile before the little home is paid for? Mebby in some rare cases the woman eggs the man on, but I believe that it is safe to say that in seven cases out of ten, it is not the housekeeper and house mother that is willin' to risk losin' the ruff that covers her baby's pretty head, and councils waitin' a while before takin' on the extravagance of the added expense. And which party is it, Josiah, that turns and twists every way to save money so her boy and girl can present a decent appearance before her mates? How many millions a year duz the horse races, yot races and polo games and other manly amusements amount to? How many billions a year duz the useless extravagance of tobacco cost? Of course you can substract sunthin' for some wimmen's foolish habit of cigarette smoking, but in the great total it would hardly count. And in how many poor homes duz a woman toil into the night hours to mend and make so that her family may look respectable, while her husband is spendin' his spare hours and spare change in the corner saloon?" Sez I, lookin' up from the Albernack with a scathin' irony that must have scathed her, whether she owned up to it or not, "I thought it wuz about time for you to drag in that saloon bizness." "Yes," sez she, "it is time. How many billion dollars a year is spent mostly by men, in the ruinous extravagance of strong drink, and how many billions more in payin' for the effects on't, loss of labor, jails, prisons, hospitals, police force, pauper burials, etc., etc., and I might string out them etc.'s, Josiah, clear from here to Grout Hozleton's and then not begin to git in the perfectly useless and ruinous extravagance of the liquor bizness. And I guess that take all the wimmen's extravagance, it will count up so small in comparison as to be lost sight on. And unlike the liquor bizness if a woman dresses extravagantly, which no doubt she often duz, the dressmakers and merchants and jewelers reaps a profit, if she gives extravagant fashionable parties, the grocer, the florist, the laboring class gits some benefit from it; it is not a danger to human life, like the heart breakin', soul destroyin' extravagance and danger to the hull community of the liquor traffic."