The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1878-07-20
DA COSTA.

One night not long ago, this young girl in
a haunt of vice, in Philadelphia, accident
ally. while at supper, put her foot on par
lor match, which set fire to her clothing
Another girl, who ran to her rescue, shared
her fate; their dresses were of thin mater
ial and blazed over their heads while they
fled shreking to the street, and there burn
ed slowly to death. The men, their COM
panions, stood by and offered no help
The significant part of this horrible story
is that both women were young, attractive,
of good birth and social position, both
educated lone a graduate of Nassar Col
lege); both had left homes of comfort and
ease, husbands and children, voluntarily,
to take up this mode Of life, which in their
case could boast of no attractive gliding.
The house in which they met their terrible
fate was one of the lowest of its class; the
the men whom they chose as friends be-
longed to wretched negro minstrel show
degraded, cowardly brutes who stood off
in safety watching them die. Only two or
three days ago the police records of our
UWu City JOlu du GNcu pitidUC tdlC.
A father found his daughter in an infam-
Gus place, and strove by legal means to
take her out. She defied him, the courts
sustained her, and she went out gaily from
the court room with her vile companions,
siggling at the discontinue of the broken
hearted father and brother, who stood with
heads bowed in shame as they passed by.
The most frightful fact in our social life
faces us in these stories. 1t is that there
are women in this lowest deep who are not
driven there by want or cruelty, nor led
there by betrayed affection; women who
have been gently reared, educated, beloved,
whose natures are SO tainted that they
choose to 60 out, like the prodigal of old,
from the home God gave them to feed with
the swine. How many such are hidden in
these dens God only knows; how many re-
main in their original position, the records
of our divorce courts, the foul gossip with
which so-called fashionable society reeks,
not only in this country but England,
give US an appalling hint. 1t is useless to
ignore this fact. Neither the pulpit nor
the press, if it means to help at all in the
work of lettering our social life, ought to
ignore the fact that certain portion of
American and English society is rapidly
bee oming as licentious as that of Paris.
Who is to blame for it? Not human ma
ture. Women and men are born as pure
as they were generation ago. Not Christ's
religion. His hand is as strong to save the
Magdalen in the streets of New York as of
Jerusalem. 1t is the mothers who are to
blame. Mothers in fashionable society in
the Cities and in that society which feebly
apes the fashion in towns and villages and
farm places from Maine to Oregon, who
set before their daughters, from their birth,
dress and show and style as the sole gods
they are to follow. We venture to say that
"Style," that most vulgar of words and
things, has done as much to corrupt the
women of America as liquor has. Not
only was it the cause of our financial down.
fall, but modesty, honesty, decency are sac
rificed to it. Fashion now publishes even
the rules for &c first communion dresses"
and sets forth the pipings and couture in
which an innocent girl may properly APP
proach her God. There is nothing so holy
that it is not made subservient to it. 1t is
not the wealthy mother alone who vitiates
her child's mind by this worship of folly,
but the mechanics wife, the poor seam
stress whose aim is to "push her daughter
on in society,"" to give her stylish dresses
instead of modest heart, clean mind
and a God fearing soul. The moral train
ing which such mothers neglect is supplied
by hot-pressed Sensational juvenile litera-
ture, and the reports of foul scandals in
the daily newspapers. Listen to the pre-
cocious gossip of the Haunting overdressed
school girls who parade the streets on a
holiday and the tragedies in Philadelphia
and New York, which we have mentioned,
will not seem strange sequel to such train
ing.
1t is but to a certain portion of our
society that these truths apply, and that it
is the smallest. The great obscure mass of
American women are honorable, chaste and
modest. In the majority of our homes
there are common sense and piety enough
to give tawdry its proper place in life and
to curb and direct the appetites which God
has given to men and women. 1t rests
with mothers to make that majority larger
or smaller.
KEEP UP YOUR HEART--" Calamity
shows whether there is any manhood about
a man or not 1t is hard to brace I'D in