The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1864-12-07
WAR.

as a nation for the last forty-fve months,
isscertainly one of the most horrible evils
with which We could be afflicted. But
civil war of q character, less dangerous
to life, but more dangerous to society,
has afflicted us, and we may say the world,
ever since Adam and Eve held their first
conversation. We refer to the belliger-
ant gossippers who infest almost every
community in christendom. It is a de-
plorable fact, that those who profess to
be the most sincere in their reverence for
religion and their love for their fellow
beings, are in many cases the chief des-
peradoes in this diabolical and unchris-
tian work. Every community has its
fostering excrescences in this shape, and
must continue to have them until a
change is wrought upon the minds of
some men and a great many women now
living. 1t is not our desire to heap upon
the shoulders of the fair sex more of the
responsibilities of a disorganized and dis
agreeable state of society than what we
can help; but when communities and
neighborhoods unite in framing IN in
dictment, the charges must be true and
have an existence. In other words if
the whole world agrees to, and believes a
certain proposition, it is accepted as being
as true as revelation. 1t is true o few
narrow-minded, thoughtless men engage
in this uu~principled work of stabbing
their neighbor behind his back; but we
must confess that the burden of the
charges of this Ubiquitous work origi-
mates in a circle which should have more
lofty ideas of their character and position
as ladies, than to allow themselves to.be
degraded by INDUCING in such disgrace
full and ill-bred undertakings. 1t is
shocking, indeed, to think that an indi-
vidual of, either sex can become so lost
to the object Of his or her destiny as to
engage in such a work of scandal and
wickednsss. "Old women's conversations
on the conduct of young men," as they
are called in male society, are too fire..
quent in every country town and neigh
borhood to be unnoticed by On observing
public. To the narrow-minded, silly and
ludicrous pests who compose such, We
would say beware of the awful indict-
ment against you, upon which you will
be finally arraigned before the dread tri-
bunal of the Court of heaven, from which
there is no appeal. As to gentlemen
there might be some palliation, owing to
difference in caste of character; but the
calling herself a lady, who will
stoop tolthe low, degrading point of street
broker in slanderous gossip and wicked,
slang, is fit, only, to be treat
ed as one undeserving of the same re-
spect of a fourth class character Of the
sex. An old ladies' convention, headed
or instigated by an old dotard of the
other sex who hardly knows that he has
an existence, in one half day, can, aud
does in many instances, breed trouble
that keeps society on a boisterous sea
when there is no call for it,-breeds tur-
moils and disasters in families that are
never healed; and destroys the confidence
the rising generation to such a degree
that the company and society of the
young are rendered irksome and disagree
able by the Investigation of what this
should have said and that one should
have said, when in fact, such reported
are the products of the fruitful
imagination of some ~antiquated granny
or some silly Jo4ngster whose y%erdancy,
illiteracy and bad breeding are the only
palliation for their conduct. To such as
engage in this work Of defaming the char
of those with whom they associate,
would say, beware, for you are on the
highway to eternal ruin. You are drag
cling yourself down below the level of a
lady or gentleman. You are rendering
yourselves obnoxious to those of your as
who admire the upright and high
You are not only rendering the
lives. of others miserable, but you are
and destroying yonr own happi-
ness, not only in this life, but through all
eternity. It is a mark of a small mind
in any one who engages in it, and is prac-
only among a class who are unable
to appreciate the object of their destiny
as immortal creatures. To such we would
say again, desist from your Ubiquitous
course and learn to be civilized and chris
while you can. Learn wisdom