Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1888-01-19
FEMALE GUM-CHEWERS.
Bob Burdett's Eloquent Appeal to t5'
Men of America.


There is well-dressed, Intelligent
looking. rather pretty woman. She
got on the train away back at Louis
lana, Mo. That was nearly four hours
ago. She was chewing a lump of
''swce' gum when she got on the car.
She has been chewing ever since.
She is working away at it now. She
is no child; she is forty years. if she is
q day. But she wads and cru she's and
champs that gum like boy of ten.
She talks all the time. too. Once in
awhile she hypenates long word with
vigorous "chaw." She punctuates
her sentences with that gum. She
gives one-sided, italic 'chaw' for a
comma, square. flat-sided smack
with the roof of her mouth for semi
colon, and when she makes full stop
she deity losses the wad from one
cheek to the othor with her prehensile
tongue. That woman's jaws must be
made of steel. 1t is maddcning to see
them in the full play Of talk and
'chaw,' but there is a strange fasci-
nation about it. You can't
help watching her. although
you dread-or possibly pray-to
see the premonitory symptoms of lock-
jaw. But there is no danger. The
lock-Jaw has no show; it can't get a
chance for an opening. The woman
forces the fighting and her busy jaws
never rest for second. 1t is painful
to notice the desperate efforts of her
companion, Il poor, weak. frail man.
to get in u word once in awhile. He
isn't in it. at all. l don't know what
he wants to say. but Think he is trying
to give her his dying blessing. There.
he is stealthily putting something into
his mouth. / cln see that it is not
gum" think it is strychnine. Poor
nan. he will be happier in few hours
Either the strychnne will kill him or
that woman will talk herself to death.
Women who chew gum should be
compelled to ride in the smokiDg-car.
Tie habit may lack some of the disa-
grecable features of tobacco chewing,
but it is vastly more irritating. B.
cause the man who chews tobacco does
stop sometiraea His jaws ache and
grow tired. and he stops to rest.
And sometimes to breathe. And
to cat. And to drink. But
the woman who chcws gum
in public stops for none of these triiles.
She chews right along till her teeth
fall out, or by some terrific convulsion
of nature or act of Providence she
swallows the gum. Then she wrests
another wad from one of the children.
cracks on the steam until she has
caught up lost time. and goes ahead
the rest of the day on schedule time.
with no stops for coal or water. The
'.swec' gum habit is terrible bond
age. Its victim loses certain sense
of dclicacy She doesn't care how
wide she opens her mouth, how many
times q second, nor how many people
are looking at her in amazcment sor-
row and pity. Her little children cry
for swee' gum, but the heartleSs
mother, hardened by long indulgence
in the terrible habit, will not divide
her quid with her wailing babes If.
as it sometimes happens. after pro-
longed indulgcnce-that is. after
steady chew for say four OF five
months-exhausted nature gives way
and she is compelled to rest her
paralyzed jaws for five or six
minutes. she will not even give
her quid to one of The children to keep
it warm for her. She has \ secret
hiding place on the back of a chair OF
the head-board of the bed where she
pastes it. Sometimes. being thus sud-
denly deprived of the long accustomed
stimulant, she dies before she can find
it again and her friends discover. all
too late, the cause of her death. dried
up again st the wall in some dark Sc.
cret nook. hard as q pebble. Oh. men
of America! Men with human hearts!
Men with homes to defend and rent to
pay!. Brothers. sons, sOrrowing faith
ers and heart broken hus Islands, let us
hasten to the rescus of our sisters.
our daughters, our wives! Let us
wrest the women of this fair land
from the grasp of this destroyer. or
let us, rather. wrest the destroyer
from the woman. if we have to break
her Jaw in the attempt!-Burdet te. III
brooklyn Eagle
The eagle. the swan and the raven
may live one hundred wears. the
..u.,~ .orautv.f;va and tho vrron huS