The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-04-01
(CopyriqJlted 1885

New York is More than Commonly
Pure.
copyrighted 1851
New YORK, March 81 The Rev DR.
Dix. whose recent severe structures on soci-
ETY. women have become famous is far from
being the only harsh critic of city women
and girls The New York woman is a ia
vorite topic with the newspaper correspon-
dent, who fills columns of out-of-town letters
with highly spiced accounts of coquettiShly
wicked drinking and smoking, powdering
and painting, extravaganza, disregard of
home ties, risque doings of many sorts, all
laid to the charge of city bellies. The women
of the city are pictured as dressing in mad
competition with one another or with an eve
TO aphysical appeal to men, hunting for
new sensations, finging money right and left
and often throwing discretion and modesty
to the winds
Are these animadversions warranted Are
city girls demoralzed by a too luxurious
civilization? / have asked the question Of
a number of representative women, and be-
low are Civ en- their replies
Mrs. Frank Leslie, when asked her opin-
ion of the standard of morality among city
women, SAID without hesitation:
ut is high, there is no question about it.
Social life in New York is exceptionally
pure. There is a certain amount of dist
patton in every large city which comes in
evitably to the surface. but the daughters,
wives, and the mothers are good and true.
j have been especially struck with the diff
ference between this country and England
in some social characteristics. American
girls are not totally dependent on matri
and haNvn toTyt inda
dence which wins them respect. In London
there are comparatively few avenues of self
support open to women, and there are not
nearly men enough to go aound. The
result is a scramble for husbands which is
unpleasant if not immoral. A man is pet
ted till he is spoiled Girls are flung at
his head till he is disguised. | have seen
Buffalo Bill at the house of the Duchess of
Ely, where some of the women showed their
shoulders at him in style unheard of here,
and | was proud of my countryn an for the
quiet gentlemanliness with which he took
it all.
New York is as far as possible from be-
ing licentious city. My work and my
charities take me out at all hours of the
day and night, and know from personal
experience thata Yoman may go anywhere
and at any time without insult or mOlesta-
ton. Indeed the city has grown so cosmo-
politan that cOmpanionable relations are
springing up between its men and women
which il would be hard to match elsewhere
Men have a kindly courtesy for women,
while at the same time they are growing
used to discussing buSine topics with
them; and from this combination of
old chivalry and new practically there
results good comradeship which in its
perfection is an ideal state of things be
tween tue sexes. City life is not unfavor-
sble to W men,
Mrs. Iill G Devereux Blake, who pub
lished a volume in reply to previous course
of Len,en lectures by DIR. Dix, was asked
her opinion of the modesty and breeding of
CITY girls.
mo one she said, lean go much among
city women without knowing that the
hearts under satin bodicas are as true as
those uuder cloth vests The amount Of
real charity ong fashionable women is
constant source of surprise; not money
giving only. but giving of time, of thought,
of pei sonal effort and personal sacrifice;
the dedication of the hands and their
brains TO help the DOOR There are many
more women in the city than the world
ever hears of who do their good i'll private
and who arc known To the newspaper repor-
ters only by their fine gowns. Our rich
women, as "a rule, are more than ordinarily
conscientious women, and the average
society woman-the moralists to the con
trarv ctwithstanding- good wife and
mother.
1.-The decollete dressing is really a matter
of health rather than morality. With
women it isl question of custom simply.
They are used to seeing the low-necked
gown. They are brought up under the
dressmaking tradition that full-dress re-
quires it. They have no thought of wrong
doing in their V points back and front 1t
is habit. In heated ball room the mod
estly low gown is extremely comfortable,
fhOluh DISTRESSING pnOnUh in a dram IA ty
opera house. There is call for hygenic
teaching to bring about discretion but not
for indiscriminate railing when no evil is
meant"
Mrs. j. c. Croly Jenny June) believed
that pure-minded women were in the over
whelming ma joritv IN every circle of society,
and that no one who knew women at their
best. IN their homes, could seriously think
otherwise
women" she said "are in transition
state, which is developing new and stronger
womanly virtues, but which has it own
temptations and dangers. The whole con-
di ion of things has altered for women with
in the past thirty years. The home secu-
sion and protection of women, which is still
chung to as the ideal, has become in point
of fact simple impOSsblility TO fully
third Of the feminine population in thiCky
settled centerS. A constantly increasing
proportion of women have no home except
sucn as tney MAKE IOr themselves, and men
who object 20 The sterner features of their
rough and ready struggle with the world
cannot judge them fairly until they see them
in the shelters they do contrive for them
selves and others, and witness with their
own eyes the softer feminine virtues still
intact, while the character has been rounded
out and gained a strength and dignity that
could have come to 1t through no easier ex-
perience.
That is the opportunity. The danger
dies in the increasing emulation of the single
woman's, the self-dependent woman's, sue
cess by the woman married or unmarried,
who has home duties. The self-sacrifce of
the daughter, the wife or the mother in the
highest plane of womanhood still But the
new possibilities of self-support are exhil-
aratGg TO the point of intoxication TO many
women. The wife whose husband grudges
money for home expenses is aglow with
determination to make it for herself
have seen cases where she left home and
children to earn her own bread aud butter
sooner than bear vito the occasional I'M
reasonabeness in money matters Of the
average young husband. Daughters are
impatient Of staying with the mother and
baby brothers and sisters. They must write
trey must go into business, they repudiate
actual home needs.
"a little time win help all Such
change in the position of women could not