Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-02-20
GossIpPiNG.
Some of the Evils Which Result From a
Miserable Social Practice.

Miserable Social Practice.
There are social evils which appear
| to be impregnable to assaults of what.
ever kind, and gossiping is one of them.
One of the beauties of the isolation OF
the parent couple in Eden was that
there was no gossip between them.
Adam having no club o street corner
familiars and Eve not not belonging
to any sewing society and having
no callers, we may reasonably infer
there vas a period in the history of the
human family when there was no neigh
borhood gossiping. The period was
brief, however, until we find men and
women telling tales on each other, and
from that age down to the present we
may read homilies and hear denuncia-
tions of the reprehensible practice.
But gossiping has maintained life and
lustiness. 1t appears to have, like OBJ
stinacy, thrived under abuse. Ii the
evil is Eve suppressed it must be by
some other tactics than assault. 1t
might be successfully thanked if the hui
man family would leisurely contem-
plate the difference between the tattler
and the person whose tongue speaks no
i'll. There are some of the latter class
both women and men. There are
those who not only do not thus talk,
but who fain would not hear evilspokcn
of any, who will even seek to disdain
hurtful words. For one of these. who
can withhold admiration? What a
world of good is accomplished by these
in avoiding difficulties.
1t is easy for irreparable injustice to
be done a good character by idle talk,
even when such is not intended. Dame
Gossip is an arrant g%ad-about, carrying
a paint pot and brush by which a fresh
coating is out on any story with her
every repetition of it. From ''some-
thing black she has but a few calls to
make to produce ''three black crows"
But for the conservative, scandal-hating
element of society, the old dame would
have and keep the majority Of mankind
in perpetual turmoil. A petted, only
daughter Of a wealthy widow welded a
young lawyer, and the two settlcddown
to housekeeping where the BRIDES
mother resided. After two months of
welded life the young wife rushed in
agitation to her mothers house, one
day, to repeat a silly scandal upon her
husband which she had just received
from the lips of a servant. She had
only begun repeating the story when
the mother rose, standing, and pointing
to the door, said: "Leave my house,
and never put foot in it nor tell any one
you are my daughter again until you
have sufficient self-respect not to listen
to the gable of servants, and to never
utter a word of gossip to any one con-
corning your husband" Five years
later the wife told her husband, for the
first time, of the incident, and declared
that her uninterrupted happiness dur
ing those five years was largely due to
the rebuke receive from her mother.
The most detestable gossips are those
who go back and forth between per-
sons estranged, widening the breach
between them. The warmest Of friends
may by this process be turned into I'M
compromising enemies. He or she
who acts the role Of stirrer of strife
is nothing less than criminal. He or
she who acts the part of peace-maker
in such premises has the expressed APP
~~oval OF the Divine Master Himself,
he having said 'they shall be called
the children IF God"
AAotahls contamination of asuit be-