The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1878-07-09
A SERMON TO WOMEN.

AND PHILADEIPHrA--THE DOWNWARD
TENDENCY or SOCIAL LIFE--AMERICAN
MOTHERS RESPONSIBLE.
From the New York Tribune.l
One night not long ago, this Young oirl
in haunt of vice in Philadelphia, acct
dcntally, while at supper, put her foot on
| parlor match, which set fire to her cloth
ing. Another girl, who ran to her rescue,
shared her fate; their dresses were of thin
material and blazed over their headssAhilc
| they fled shrieking to the street, and There
burned slowly to death. The men, their
companions, 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 (onc graduate Of
Vassar college,; both had left homes of
| comfort and case, husbands and children,
voluntarily, 10 take up this mode of life,
| which in their case could boast of no at
tractivc gliding. The house in which they
met their terrible fate was one of the lowest
of its class the men whom they chose as
u
strel show--dcgraded, cowardly brutes who
stood off in safety watching them die. Only
two or three days ago the police records of
our own city told an even more pitiablc
tale. A father found his daughter in an
infamous place, and strove by legal means
to take her out. She defed him, the
courts sustained her, and she went out
gayly from the courtroom with her vile
companions, gigging at the discontinue of
the broken-hcarted father and brother, who
stood with heads bowed in shame as they
passed Ivy.
The most frightful fact in or our social
life faces us in the 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 thew
choose TO 30 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.callcd fashionable society rceks.
not only in this country but in 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 the work OF
lettering our social life, ought to ignore the
fact that certain portion Of American and
English society is rapidly becoming as
licentious as that of Paris.
Who is 10 blame for it, Not human M
trrc. Woman and man are born as pure as
they were generation ago, Not Christ's
religion. His hand is rs strong to save the
Magdaen in the streets Of New York as of
Jerusalem. 1t is the mothers who are to
blame. MothoYs 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 1t the cause or our financial downfall
but modcsty, honesty dccency ar sacrificed
TO it. Fashion now publishes even
the rules for First communion
ulcSNc0' anu stI' lortn the PIP
ngs and couture in which an innocent
girl may properly approach her God. There
~ nothing so holy that il is not made sub
seryicnt TO it, 1t is not the wealthy mother
alone who initiates her child's mind by this
worship of folly, but the mechanics wife,
the poor scanlstrcss whose aim is to 'push
her daughter on in society," to give her
stylish dresses instead of Il modest heart, a
clean mind and differing soul. The
moral training which such mothers neglect
IS supplied by hot-prcssed sensational i,vc-
nile literature and the reports of loul
scandals in the daily newspapers. Listen to
the precocious gossip Of the haunting over
dressed schoolgirls who parade the streets
on holiday and the tragedies in Phia-
dclphla and New York which WE have
mentioned will not seem strange sequel to
such training.
IL rs hut to certain portion Of our So
clety that these truths apply and that the
smallest. The great obscure mass Of Amer.
lean women are honorable, chastc and
modest. In the majority Of our homes there
are common sense and pie,y enough to give
tawdry display its proper place in life, and
10 curb anu direct the appettrs which God
has given to men and women. 1t rests
with mothers to make that majority larger
or smaller.