To Avoid Domestics (Recipe from 1881)

To Avoid Domestics (Recipe from 1881) >>>

Colonist, Volume XXV, Issue 2998, 1 November 1881, Page 3

Domestic Danger Signals.
On the topic of managing things at home, I want to share a tip for avoiding family arguments, which I think is quite clever. An old man once shared it with me—he and his wife had practiced it for years in their own way.

“You see, sir,” he said, “we agreed between us that whenever I came home feeling a bit grumpy or in a bad mood, I would wear my hat on the back of my head and then she wouldn’t say a word. And if she was feeling cross and irritable, she would throw her shawl over her left shoulder, and then I wouldn’t say a word.”

“If people used similar signals more often,” he continued, “just think how many unnecessary arguments could be avoided, and how many bad consequences could be safely sidestepped until things had calmed down again.”

— Sussex Folk, in Leisure Hour.