Husband Run If Wives Don't Cook

HUSBANDS RUN IF WIVES DON'T COOK

TEACH COOKING TO THE GIRLS AND STOP DESERTIONS 

So Says an Expert to the University Students in Discussing Work Among the Poor of Chicago

A new way of preventing divorces was expounded to university students last week by Mr. Bicknell, head of Chicago charity bureau. 

Teach the girls how to cook, said Mr. Bicknell. Four hundred Chicago husbands last year deserted their families, and left them to Mr. Bicknell's care. As one means of stopping these desertions among the poor, the philanthropist said that Chicago carities were running cooking schools. 

"Pauperism," said Mr. Bicknell, "is caused by too much charity." In making this statement he distinguished sharply between pauperism and poverty. Poverty was unavoidable. Charitable people themselves made paupers. Chicago is giving less money each year to her poor. To prove this statement Mr. Bicknell said:

"A rich Chicago business man last year brought into my office a couy of our itemized statement of how we spent the money donated to the poor. 

"I want,' he said, 'to call your attention to a typographical error in your report. Unless corrected it will do you great harm. Your item for salaries is larger than the money given away to the poor during the entire year. Of course this is an error, for only an idiot would admit that he kept most of the money intended for the poor.'

"I assured him," said Mr. Bicknell, "that it was not an error. We believed in spending more money for brains, for leaders who could show the poor how to help themselves, than on the poor themselves. When I finished  talking to him, he left my office without saying a word. Next morning he sent me by mail a check for $50. 

"Not 5 per cent of the applications for charity are fraudulent," was one of the charity worker's statements.