The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-11-29
Written for the Sunday Crescent
soUTHEka W0MAN's APPEAL TO
SOUTHERN WOMEN.

In this matter, make my appeal to women ra-
Their than to men, because In their hands lies the
remedy for the evil deplore, as with them rests
in a great measure the onus Of counting scurrious
abuse and rdicule. 1t is, therefore, optional with
them to discourage or to encourage il, and can.
not believe that the women of the South when the
matter is laid before them to be viewed calmly.
will deliberately do the latter.
Enter ninety-ni houses in the hundred in the
South, where books and papers are purchased.
and what is the status OF the literature you will
meet Are they not Northern abolition trash,
Harper's Monthly. Weekly and Bazaar, Frank
Leslie's, New York Ledger, Godey's Monthly, and
different monthlies filled to repletion with abuse
and ridicule and falsehoods of the South, her
people and their institutional Like the country
man In the fable we warm the viper at our hearth
stone and then are astounded that II turns and
stiDgs-forgettng that II has but the viper nature
after all, and that We are more worthy of ridcule
than of sympathy from the lookers-on at our
folly, for expecting nature to work miracles In
our favor and plant honesty and truth In bosoms
born naturally devoid of it. ID. .rl..-.
Southern papers and magazines that are well 1T
ted for the family circle, and are imbued with our
native principles and ideas, languish and die for
want of the patronage that is given to the harpes
who prey upon US, and are ever seeking our To-
Jury, nay our destruction. And not alone in this
aspect is this subject to be viewed. Look at the
glaring inconsistency displayed by the "godly
NORTH the Puritanical hub Of the universe
that sets itself up as lawmaker for us, Judge of
our COuOuCls DtfnR the IOuuLdiu ucdu Oh OBSCENE,
vulgar, and immoral literature. Stop before any
of the cheap periodical depots and take glance
Of the papers hanging before the doors for sale,
and what do you see? Illustrations of murder
robbery violence, and crime in every shape and
forE are therein dIspla, ed. The minds of our
children early tainted by seeing. as familiar
thing, vice in all its features their hearts contsmi
mated by the loose morality aud doubtful honesty
depicted by the glowing pictures Of crimes that
they should not know existed.
OH southern mothers and matrons, look into
the pictorial papers, the dime novellettes, that
your little innocent children learning vice and
crime from, and see If you are not, either through
want of thought or indifference to your duty, de-
moralizng the hearts of your little ones?
l believe If we could trace the history of the
fallen, those who have gone down into the whirl-
pools of sin and crime, wa could trace much of
their guilt and folly back 10 the impressions made
by the reading of their youth, and find that virtue
and truth had been more: surely Slapped through
their reading than through any other influence
ever brought to bear upOl them. 1t is quite as
powerful to vitiate as evil company, if not more
so. -rII l..... la. .-..-.J
But II we are Southern for Heavens sake let
Us be Southern, and let Us support and aid our
Southern papers and magazines, IL we do that
they cen easily afford TO give us papers aud maya
zines that equal in attraction In illustrations
and interesting contents, and certainly superior
in point Of tone to the publicsuons Of the North
flooding the South now. II we do our duty
in this, no fear but 1t wilemeet an ample reward,
and trust my appeal viii meet with the response
that crave for it from my Southern sisters
- =. IIll r-aa rra.s 90 .Aaa CLAIRE.