The Boston Cooking-School Magazine (Vol. XV, No. 2, Aug.-Sept., 1910)Various
General
The Boston Cooking-School Magazine (Vol. XV, No. 2, Aug.-Sept., 1910)
Various
Cooking -- Periodicals; Home economics -- Periodicals
Old age becomes more of a problem when living in it than when viewed
afar off. It is a question of economics and ethics more than of
wrinkles. It is so easy not to mind it when well, rich and beloved; it
is so impossible not to object to it when sick, poor and unwelcome. It
creeps into almost every home and, though we try to alleviate it and
succeed to a certain extent, through affection, cookery and
cleanliness, the vast majority of the world does not know how to
manage to live on almost nothing, and yet it is upon those of small or
of no means that the support of old age presses most heavily. So love
only is left, and too often not even that.
Then one wonders if one ought to refuse marriage and devote one's self
to one's parents;--or, if married and children are many, and food and
lodgings scant, shall one also house one's aged parents? If the ethics
thereof are difficult to settle when money and space are available, it
is a hideous task for decision when both are lacking.
Nowhere does the attempted settlement to remove the stigma of
pauperism from the aged through legislation threaten to be more
puzzling than in England, where after January 1, 1911, a workhouse
inmate of above seventy years and "fairly respectable" is entitled to
leave the house and receive in lieu of its shelter five shillings a
week. Is acceptance of such pension outside of a workhouse more
honorable than being dependent on Government for support inside the
workhouse? That is the question the Old Age pensioners of England are
trying to solve. Who is going to house, feed and clothe them for five
shillings a week? What does that amount to, set against the care of an
infirm, old, undesired relative who is not wanted either for his keep
or his affection, and who will only grow older? Even as a boarder of
no kin whatever to his landlady, is he likely to be as comfortable as
in the workhouse? Startling have been some of the discoveries that
have followed upon this apparently beneficent legislation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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