The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1874-03-05
COScERNrNe WOMEN

lt iB told OF that disgusting creatu re
called piOgenes, who worshiped dirt
and lived in a tub without ever using
water, that, passing once by a tree on
which a woman was hanging, he cried
out :" BY Jupiter would that all trees
bore such fruit 70
There is a tree still standing in the
Washington parade ground, in New
York, on which, not above a half a CEN
tury ago, such fruit might one day have
been seen hanging by the cynic had he
been living to soc it and it would be
curious to know whether the uneleaniY
old philosophers reelection was uneon.
ciously echoed in the secret soul OF
any Kuickerbocker who Witnessed that
lamentable sight. As the woman of
the Washington parade ground was
hanged for numbering her husband,
and as there must have been at least
two or three husbands then living in
New York who knew that they deserved
no better treatment at the hands of
their own wives, it is not impossible,
we fear, that this may have been the
case. For, after all, it is probable that
those men have the worst opinion of
women who are conscious that women
ought to have the worst Of them.
Such, at least, is the conclusion to
which we had been Brought by a lazy
summers meditatiOns over the sayings
of the ages concerning the female sex.
The subject is one of universal in
tercst, If there be any truth in the fa-
nous inscription on the base Of statue
of love:
aasQui que tn sois, voici ton maitre. -s
II Fest il le fut ou le doit etre ~ =
or in Ooleridge's peaceful development
~ 0TrTTs
"AH thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal fame,
All are but ministers OF Love,
And feed his sacred flame sF r.
SO let us call our readers of both
sexes into council, upon these judges
of womankind.
If we go back to the days of anti
duity. we shall find that the wise men
who Believed in locking their wives up.
and even in beating them whenever 1t
was safe and convenient, had a rather
low opinion of the sex. ga woman, p"
"a dNSolomou, I" is more bitter than
death" "Out of a thousand men, "
averred the same paragon of wisdom,
have found one who was good out
of all the women in the world, not
one.
"The sea, said the Greek Codrus,
has not so many fish, nor the sky so
many stars, as a woman has thoughts of
mischief.
Whether women be handsome or
not, !" observed Bon, reputed one of the
seven sages, "does not signify; If they
are ugly they turn ones stomach If
they are lovely they turn ones head. ="
''There are many ferocious beasts
born by land and by sea, moaned the
poet Menander, whom ST. Paul himself,
no great admirer of women, admired
sufficiently to quote him in his epistle
"but woman is of all beasts the most
ferOcious.
The Scientific Aristotle, with bis mania
for analogies, compared woman to til =
panther among beasts, to the partridge
among birds, and to the viper among
reptiles. The same polits philosopher
declared that "when nature missed
making q man, she put up with making
a woman. Over against which afro
cious sentiment the ladies may properly
set Burns gallant couplet:
a. Her prentice hand she tiled on man.
And then she made the lasses, oh -
They may have the satisfaction of re-
heoting too that Aristotle, though q
very great sage, and much courted by
princes, made a fool and hObby-horse
of himself for the sake of an extremely
plump but questionable little part
ridge !" while Burns, though O guageT
and given to strong drink, was good
husband and left loyal widow behind
him.
Prop rtius, who was a poet too, and
passed his life in making love and
verses, came to the conclusion that IL
was idle to Glove many women, since q
single one could inliiet Oh a man all the
sufferiugs Of which human nature is ca.
pable."
,Juvenal had too much sense to make
such universal and sweeping statements,
He confines himself TO the assertion
that both black swans and good women
may undoubtedly exist, but that the
latter are as rare as the former.
The fathers OF The christian church
Notwithstanding their great indebted
ness TO the piety of their female die
4 cipies, are scarcely less fayRge thai
their pagan predecessors.
's'I am deeply interested, said st
Augustine, "to know whether woiael
will rise at the last day as women; 70
it is to be feared in that onse that Che.
may continue 60 tempt us before tn,
throne of heaven itself.
st. Augustine had earned the right {,
speak FOR himself on this subject, Ger
taioiyi but he ought to have remem
bered his good mother Morueas whel
he was generalizing his proposition.
ST. Cyprisn, Notwithstanding hi
name was merciless to the daughter
of Nensas. It is the form of women,
he exclaims rather rabidiy. "whie
tempts us to sin it Is from the sut
stance of women that came the drea
necessity of death Far from as Al
be this pestilence, this oontagion, thi
secret rum