The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1878-03-01
HAVE A CARE.

as IL Is all over the civilized world by
despairing walls of betrayed woman
hood, is rarely spoken of, except by
those whose potent dictum alone makes
it possible, and then in sneering words.
Progress in this makes the slowest and
most painful marches; her feet are sorely
bruised at every step by the sharp points
which insolent prudery, under the guise
and name Of purity, interposes in her
path, and it is only those women whom
heaven-born charity has highly favored
who dare to take an erring sister by the
hand and encourage her to return to
ways Of virtue, face her hard lot, and
live down the blighting effects Of her
unguarded lapse from purity.
We were recently in a neighborhood
where the elopement Of a man Of fifty,
husband and father, with a young
girl caused scandal which gossip FED
with eager, unsparing hand. AS is usual
in such cases, the girl came in for more
than her rightful share of the blame for
the reprehensible transaction. Indeed,
to hear the popular verdict among the
women reminded US OF the assertion
made several years ago when a great
scandal was tainting the social atmOs-
phere of the entire nation with its fetid
breath, that Plymouth Church, or the
women members thereof, believed Mr..
Beecher innocent and Mrs. TiltOn guilty.
We were finally constrained to ask Of
an aged woman who was unsparing in
her condemnation Of the girls conduct,
"Whether she ran OFF with him, he
with her, or whether they did not de-
part together, thus making common
cause against morality"
The dame was silent for a moment,
and then replied, with some asperity,
"Well, the woman is always the most
to blame"
We glanced at her q moment. a
kindly-visaged woman, her gray hair
and motherly aspect belieing the unjust
and unchristian expression which would
have sounded harshly, even if from the
lips Of her son, a fiippant seapegraee, to
whom his mothers statements gave
carte blanche to follow his own unbri-
died passions because he was of the su-
periOr sex. Two older sons had deserted
their wives without cause, save that
each had found a young girl, ignorant
and penniless, whom he had induced to
hearken to his unholy promises, and
this mother Of men condemned the be.
trayed in unsparing terms, while she
urged every excuse for the betrayer
Rapidly these things passed before
our mind, and then with what defer.
enee her gray hairs could inspire, W,
asked:
"Was this girl under obligations a.
sacred as marriage VOWS aud paternity
voluntarily assumed could make?"
mo, she was never married"
(which, then, committed the create
wrong, the man who was bound b,
every tie held sacred in law, in gospel
and by humanity to wife and children
or the woman who owed no voluntary
allegiance to any one?"
"Well," she replied, slowly, prejudic
at war with the womanly instincts that
warped and dwarfed as they were afte
all, found narrow abiding-place in he
soul, "of course it is no worse really TO
a woman to do wrong than for a man
but it looks worse"
''That is because OF your peculiar way
of looking at il, we answered. "Wronl
is wrong, whether committed by 4
woman, or by man, or by both con,
/ jointly. The one most blamable is tho
one who, first silencing his own con.
science, plies the other with entreaties
or beguiles her with false promises, ol
insinuates himself into her affections
until she, too, at first more weak then
wicked, is lost to virtue"
81 suppose that's true" she answered
the light of justice glimmering dimly
through her three score years. But
and she hesitated as if fearful Of giving
offense-"it isn't safe for women to tall
that way before men,"
We could not repress a smile. Her,
was this woman who had mounted hel
three score and had reached the seventh
round in the additional ten; her beauty
departed, her life behind her, still reck
ing what "men would say" and striving
to silence justice that she might cate
to their prejudices. We ceased in tha
moment to wonder why thoughtles
young women, whose happiness is NOR,
or less dependent upon what "mer
think Of them," should consider it in
cumbent upon them to make a great show
Of virtue by bitterly denouneing faller
sister.
'Not safe to talk that way befor,
men," Sisters, is it not most unsafe {,
talk the other way ? Does not this habi
Of throwing all the blame of a mutua
sin upon woman cause libertinism t'
assume bolder aud more aggressive
front? Let US be careful how We shield
the seducer from the opprobrium thai
should attach to wrong, lest in so doing
we conuive at the fall Of some mothers
I Iauphfer G