St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-07-16
WOMEN ABROAD.
Sharp Criticisms of the Center
Sex by a journal of Modern
RahylOn

Snarp CriGlClSmS Oh the GenCler
Sex by a journal of Modern
Babylon.
Labouchere's London Truth thus saw
agely diSSectS the manners of women in
the modern European capitals:
The close observer of modern man.
ners and the stern censor of the deplor
able conduct of the average society
woman of to-day will be prepared by
this time to view her as the perpetratOr
of any extravaganza, the heroine of any
scandal, the pioneer of any social move
ment that is opposed to refinement, dis
tinguIshed from good breeding, and di-
Yorced from what was once known as
good tastes When women, once
chivalrously honored for their natural
tenderness and fine feeling, push and
scramble into the lowest police courts
or the most crowded halls of justice to
gaze on some notorious criminal, pre-
ferably of their own sex. when, with
out blush or tremOr, they raise their
opera glasses to glOat on the livid coun-
tenanceS of men and women trembling
at the moment of the sentence of death:
when women, young and old, appa-
rently innocent and ostentatiously de.
PRAYED, are familiar with the details of
every gross divorce scandal, and do not
hesitate to fiaunt themselves in their
fine feathers in prominent posi-
tions when counsel and judges
|, are. to their disgust, discussing
/ subjects and sitting details that make
decent men almost sick with shame:
When we hear young girls listening to
questionable anecdotes from depraved
men, and familiar with crime so revolt
ing and human frailties so appalling
that not twenty years ago they were
held to be unmentionable, even III the
society of the loOSeSt men; when we
hayein evidence the existence of abOm-
Unable book shops with back parlors,
where women of all ages assemble to
famifiarize themselves with the gross
est form of French literature, trans
lated and in the original, and to
cast tan admiring gaze ON sO-ealied
classical pictures; when the familiarities
practiced at middle-clasS dances now
adayS and in SO-called respectable so
ciety are said on trustworthy evidence
to be so shameless as to diSguStthe most
depraved men; when daughters discuss
their mothers frailty, and mothers
wink at their daughters RIGHTEOUSNESS,
the question naturally arises how far
the advance of high civilization, or
culture, or whatever may be called,
women Toasted on the revolving scenes
in the Roman arena, and when the soft
and careSSing success of representative
SenSuality received its crack of doom i'll
the destruction of POmpeii and Hercu-
laneum.
The modern treatment of woman by
man is sometimes wondered at. We are
told that the old days of courtesy and
chiyalry are dead. The dignity
of age, the beauty of matur
ity,, the innocence Of youth are alike
ignored: but it is sometimes forgotten
in the case of the modern woman how
age has been robbed Of its dignity, how
maturity causes Its beauty to be soiled
with powder and paint, and how youth
sneerS at innocence the very instant
it comes in contact with the
world of fashion. 1t is urged
that men are selfish and dissolute,
and that they care no more for
women's society: but mems censOrs for
get to state that woman, the good WO-
man, the pure woman. the noble woman
has ceased TO exercise her influence over
man, has abandoned her sway, has
ceased to rule and consented to be led;
has given up her dignified, queenly at
tribute and elected to be dragged after
the car of pleasure as a helOt or a slave.
LII Nlidt uOeS Uil0 WOlIidIl
the confidence, the respect or the regard
of her natural companion, man, when
she is seen by day or by night in public
places?
By day she is not ashamed to be seen
'spainted an inch thick" The old
women enameled and aping the antics
of youth; the mature women faxed up
to the utmost verge of meretriciouSneSS;
the girls powdered and well skilled in
the"wicked lightning of the eyes, that
formerly in the park used to be the
property of "AnonymaS," who in the
altered state of fashion might give their
innocent sisters many lesson of mod
esty and propriety. Thanks to reports
modern milliner, the dress, as it is seen
to-day in the park, whether on the
promenade or in the carriage, exhibits a
Yulgarity and flashiness, hunger for
notOriety and a fever for eccentricity
such as the park has seldom seen this
century-certainly not since the COM
mencement of the Victorian era.
BY might, in public places, at the
opera. at the theater, or at concerts,
women of all ages are not ashamed to
exhibit themselves at the sacrifice of all
Female modeSty. and with a wanton
effrbntery that makes most men shud-
dcIs 1HclC 10 any way dU-
ttaGtive to view for five acts of play
the diScolored back of matron, or
to de startled with the opulent shoulders
and advertised charms of woman in
herjprime, or to be treated night after
night to the ordinary spectacle at public
places of a scene that was once de-
Seribed by Alfred Austin in his 'Satire"
as one where the half-drunk lean over
the half-dreSSed." But what was writ
ten of casino in 1860 is true of places
of public entertainment in 1888.
What respect can men have for wom-
en- who proclaim their nakedneSS and
advertise their immodesty? How is
chivalry consonant with woman who
reserves nothing for the Imagination:
who holds back no gift for one more IA
vored than the rest: who fiaunts her
charms, such as they are, on the public
gaze: with the mothers who
make the stalls rendezvous
for their illicit love; with the
daughters who exchange hand squecz-
ings with their '.maSheS," as they Osten-
tatiously call them. in an atmosphere of
pearl powder, white rose and the SEN
suous scent of the tube rose or gardeDia