The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1882-08-22


that minor evils, and often as great or
gre alter curses than the one which the peo-
pie are endeayOriDg to strangle, are lost
sight OF, temporarily, at least.
The great question now before the peo-
pie is the proposed abolition of the liquor
traffic, and the best efforts of talented and
good and noble men and women are being
put forth to annihilate and Danish forever
from our land the
CURSE OF 1NTEMPERANCE.
When we look around us and see the
rapid and gigantic strides which this evil
has made and is making in our land, we
cannot wonder at the efforts being put
forth to crush it, and no rational man can
help but admit that intemperance is an
evil and curse, however widely he
may differ as to the best means to be en-
ployed to remove it. But while the
christian women of the land are going
forth as minis,ering angels to rescue from
the sloughs OF degradation, misery and in
temperance, their fallen brothers, what is
being done for
THE FALLEN WOMAN?
What word of entreaty, of encouragement,
to better life is given her by ner more
fortunate sisters? Women who will, for the
sake of the noble cause in which they are
engaged, overcome their naturally shrink
ing dispositions and their timidity, to
venture into veritable bells Of vice to
speak a word of exhOrtation and en-
couragement to the besotted drunkard,
gather up their skirts and pass by the poor
Magdalene as though she were tainted with
leprosy. And while pure women are GER
tainly not to be censured for this innate
feeling of repugnance and disgust at such
fragrant manifestation Of impurity and
vice in one of their own sex, vet if this re-
pugnance by a severe effort is subiugated
in one instance for the purpose of holding
out a helping, saving hand to the ship
wrecked brother, bufeted upon the stormy
sea OF intemperance, could not, should not,
that same hand be extended to her who
HAS NO EARTHLY FRIEND
and feels as ii even God has forgotten her?
There is no existence on earth
so degraded, so wretched, so utterly de-
void Of hope and so empty of all that
makes life worth having as that of the
harlot. Stunned utterly by the pure and
good OF her own sex, taken advantage of
by man Cor the qualification of the lowest,
basest, passions inherent in the human
race, pointed at with the finger of scorn
wherever she may 60, is it to be wondered
at that she finally becomes utterly desper-
ate and plunges into the very vortex of
ruin, defying the cruel and scOrnful world
to do its worst?
Is it any wonder that she becomes
stranger to every feeling of shame, and
that finally, rendered prematurely old by
the excuses In which she has striyen to
forget self,
THE WRECK OF RUINED LIFE
drifts on to the shores of time and goes
down amid the sullen roar of the break
ers, cursing God and man? What picture
to contemplate human life absolutely
given up to vice and crime. And in this
great age of reform and boosted civiliza-
ton and progress, how many efforts are
directed towards the reformation and the
amelioration of this miserable, degraded and
pitiable class of the human race? How
manv poor girls who have taken the first
false step receive any assistance in regain
ing footing among the respected
members Of her sex. On the contrary,
is it not more frequently the case that every
honest effort that she puts forth to
LEAD A BETTER LIFE
is received with suspicion and cruel criti-
cism? Are not the members of her own |
sex too often the first to cause their fallen |
sister to make still more rapid progress in |
her journey to ruin, to shame and q har-
lots grave, by their cruel taunts and
sneers?
Some years ago, when the famous social
evil law was in force in the city of st. |
Louis, the good christian ladies of that |
place were filled with righteous indigna-
zion that prostitution should be recognized !
and licensed by the civil authorities, and a |
movement was inaugurated by them which |
was vigorously pushed until the obnoxious |
law, which they claimed disgraced the fair
name of st. Louis. was repealed But |
what effort was made to redeem the hum
dreds of women who already were
BRANDED AS oUTCAsrs,
but whom the repeal of this law made not
only outcssts, but criminals to all intents |
and purposes, If they continued their lives
of shame without the sanction of the law ? |
Did the humane and christian ladies of |
st. Louis imagine that the end of
morality was subserved BY repeating the
social evil law? Had they any idea that
the enactment of rigorous laws Furnishing
these wretched women for pursuing the
only course which society left open to them
for obtaining livelihood, would reform
them or would put an end to prostitu-
ton in st. Louisf II is probable thatthey
did not stop to consider this phase of the
question. 1t is more probable that they
did not care, as long IS the purposes of
society were subserved by the imagined
removal of an unsightly blot from the
social escutchon. Alas that it should be |
so, but it is . lametable truth that this
so-CALLED SOCIETY Is RESPONSIBLE
for two-thirds Of the drunkenness, and vast
amount Of the prostitution that exists to-
day. 1t is rotten to the core, and deeds of