The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-05
THE POPULARITY OF NAsTINEss.

there is no peace.
THE POPULARITY OF NASTINESS.
From the Harrisburg Topic.
The world is full of nastiness. We hear
and see it everywhere. Our newspapers are
full of it. Our families read it with avidity.
Our children soon learn to repeat it. And
all because we have got ahead of ourselves,
of nature, and of moral law in our enjoy
ments. The public taste has become vitiated
and depraved. Nothing is attractive nova
days unless it has taint of nastiness or in
decency about it. Our theatrical managers
only pander to the wishes of their patrons
when they degrade the drama with the bare
legs end nude forms of immodest women.
Nearly all of our old standard playhouses
are now thus dishonored, and will continue
to be until purer sentiment prevails. We
know it requires rare courage to meet this
question as it ought be met In doing
SO you run counter to the feeling
of levity and coarseness which is the charac-
teristic of the age. You are called severe or
prudish. Yet there must be an end to this
vitiation of the public morals, and somebody
must take the lead in opposition, and brave
the storm of epithets that will be used as
weapons on the other side. We would not
attack the theatre, but we would reform it.
We would have every woman on the stage
properly and decently dressed, so that she
might depend mainly upon her merits as a
histrionic artist, and not almost entirely, as
she now does, upon personal charms with
which the public has nothing to do. We
would suppress by enactment the Police
Gasettes and other vile publications whose
illustrations disgrace the nation and demoralize
the young mind. We would keep our daughters
from public and promiscuous balls, where they
meet blackguards and dance Ground dances"
with them by gaslight till dawn of morning.
We would discourage extravaganza of dress
in females, and their trolloping the streets to
the delight and prurient satisfaction of corner
loafers. Often our mothers and sisters are
to blame for much of the nastiness that pre-
walls, because they will not set firm face
against the manifest improprieties we have
cited We need better training in our home
circles, higher morality in the public press,
and an effort on the part of the clergy and
the religious community to make the stage
means of attractive instruction and historic
illustration. When we have all this, and we
despair of ever having it, our men and women
will be purer and the nation better.
ARE AMERICANS OUT OF THE PALE?
From the ST. Louis Democrat.
The despatch from Rome, received recently
if sustained by later advices, will mark q
new period in the history of Catholicism in
this country. All readers have observed that
the American members of the Gcumenical
Council protested against the doctrine of Pa
| pal infallibility, and other doctrines of the
| syllabus. Apart from the fact that such op-
position was to have been expected from men
of enlarged minds and liberal views, it is little
less than a necessity of their position to those
who represent the Catholic faith in this coun-
| try. Every institution and idea of this repub-
| lie is at war with certain teachings of the Pa
pal syllabus, and any attempt to square the
faith of members of that Church in America
to lhese teachings would only result in disad-
vantage to the Church. Yet this, it now ap-
pears, has been demanded by the Papal au-
thority. The Schema de Eide has been pro-
mulgated; the Holy See granted three days
| for the dissident Americans to submit to it's
authority and the despatch says, "that time
has now expired, and as the Americans show
no signs of yielding, maj or excommunica-
ton will be pronounced against them"
If this statement is correct, and if the
threatened accommodation actually occurs,
results are likely to follow far beyond the
range of human foresight. In any open
revolt against the authority of the Holy See,
prelates from this country would probably be
sustained by all American adherents of the
Catholic faith, so that there would result q
complete separation of Catholicism in this
country from the Church in Europe. Nor
would such schism be long in making its
appearance on the other side of the ocean.
But it is not worth while to speculate
upon the consequences of an event which
may not occur, and which, indeed,
seems quite improbable. European de-
spatches are only little less reliable than
advices from Cuba, and the despatch Of
Friday morning may be contradicted already
1t is hard to believe that the Pope and the
men who are his advisers-men to whom
great credit has hitherto been given fol
shrewdness-have decided upon a measure
which will force a separation of the Church in
this country, where, judging from the Jealous
efforts recently made, the Holy See has anti
cipated great increase in power and in the
number of adherents But the Gcumenica
Council itself has seemed to observers device
so ill timed, so foreign to the habitual policy
of the Church, that it is the less unreasonable
to consider the statements of the despatch
not wholly impossible.
THE RIFLE AGAINST THE BALLOT.
From the Charleston IS. C) Times.
The radical party are playing the same
game in all the Southern States. They ar
appealing to the military to aid and secur,
their succession to power at the fall elections
The last thing that they desire is a fair anC
full vote of the people. 1t is as against tn
people that they call for arms Thus Cover
nor Scott goes on a mission to Washington
, and demands the Winchester rifle" as neces
, cary for his ra alection He anOealS to thi