The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1876-02-17

just as completely extinct unless thew
Changed their ways. There was a hone
| however, that America, while rearing a na
ton that 81 ould blend the characteristics Of
many peoples, would more nearly attain
perfection than any other, but 1t was
very bigoted nation as vet. See what a
cry is raised because Victoria Woodruff
went before q dying world with the idea
that woman should own her own body.
Medical authorities said that not a sound
man, woman or child lived on the face of
the earth to-day, though the Bible said the
human body was the temple Of God. What
a temple was this, and why was its archi-
lecture so corrupted. The answer was
hard. We had in the land go, 900 prosti-
tutes, whose average life was only four
years. 1t was the fast young men, the dis
satisfied husbands, the senators, the repre-
sentatives and the church dignitaries that
supported these women. Every fifteen
years a million of virgin daughters were
sacrificed because their mothers dared not
teach them that the human body was the
temple OF God. There were l65, 900 insane
in the country, and not one State but that
might boast of the number of its idiots aud
criminals. There was hot one public insti
tuition in the world to teach u child the
sanctity of its own body. For two hun
dred years gentlemen, and even ladies, had
discussed the best methods of breeding
stock, but mothers could NOT consider how
to raise their own families. Prejudice had
been SO strong that this had been q
forbidden subject. Some progress was
making, however, AMI this WAS being
recognized as an important ques-
tion of the day. Nature was so true
to herself that she stamped every
man with her own image and n mother had
the power to stamp upon her unborn child
grand and noble aspirations or the reverse.
It was vital question and one TO be settled
by the intelligent mothers of the nation.
The first and only crime the Woodruff had
ever committed was To ask that the same
purity be demanded from men that they de-
manded from women, and that every man
who seduces one of woman's daughters be
equally ostracised with the girl he drags
down into shame. People We're shocked to
know that there were three thousand saloons
and two hundred houses of ill-fame in st.
Louis. Some of these houses were very ell
egant, but they were nothing compared
with the lecherous palaces at Washington.
London, Paris and all Christendom could
afford nothing to match the extravagant
gorgeousness of the brothels of the capital
where American Congressman met.
The lecturess insisted that she had been
reviled and unreasonahly misrepresented.
Said she, ''You had an idea that have
been preaching just such lives as you have
been living. That was too much, and you
couldn't stand it. But it isn't true" Ply
sicians said there was no hope for our young
men, because there were no mothers in the
land who had courage to teach their sons
the truths of nature. There was nothing
vulgar in nature, but American women had
a great deal of false modesty. In Paris la
dies and gentlemen could criticise statuary
that was true to nature-no fig leaves about
it-without embarrassment. But in Amer
ica-well, the speaker had seen mother
that couldn't take her naked boy-baby in
her lap without blushing. Toward the
close, Mrs. Woodruff gave vivid descrip-
ton of her suiferings and feelings while in
durance vile, and asked the people thst had
helped macadamize such pathway for her
self and sister to strew a few flowers in her
way now.