Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-06-02

society that apologies for the gross, toler-
ates the lasciyious and pays court to the
licentious, must reap harvests of humilia-
ton and degradation.
1t would have been deemed inconceiy-
able by the people of twenty-five years ago
that pictorial art would be tolerated by the
society of to-day as an open and unrebuked
means of corrupting youth, as it is now
employed by vendors of goods, and sought
after by youth to an extent the general
public may not realize. A few spasmodic
protests have been made here and there,
and some legislation attempted to stay the
evil, but no such general and en-
phatic demand of suppression as indicates
general sensitiyeness upon the subject. 1t
is, therefore, justifable to conclude that
the moral sense of society is dulled, at
least as regards these agencies of corrup-
ton. That societies for the suppression of
vice should be deemed necessary is in
in itself an evidence in support of the
the charge that by the drama, pictorial
art, gross literature, licentious press
! publications and other agencies the in
coming generation is liable to have the
bloom of sensitiveness and innocence re-
placed b. the bronze of insensibility that
is the precursor of degeneracy.
Public journals feed taste for what is vul-
gar. coarse and low with copious supplies of
stuff adapted to that unwholesome appetite"
This is the briefest of DIR. Dix's charges
If applied to the entire press it is unjust
if to large portion of it, it is little exag-
gerated. The excuse that the people de-
mand this pabulum and that the newspa-
per is the days history of the world was
| responded to effectively by Mr.. Savage in
| the North american Reciep when he denied
that the press is a days history, else "it
must record such minute and secret details
OF life as would disgust everybody" 1t is,
he added, question as to precisely where
the line is to be drawn.
And say draw it within such limits as will
make 1t healthy for family reading. Since such
details are not necessary to the statement of the
| fact OF the crime, since they are no aid to the
police and are not in the interest of public
morality, it follows that only one motive can
| lead to 1.-THE desire to make money by any
means that the public taste will endure"
DR.. Dix further makes charge that
has drawn much fire, that there is
indecency in apparel which operates to
the debasement of morals-to quote an
other essayist-that puts the parlor and
drawing-room into rivalry with the stage.
He insists that young girls-we assume
that his reference is to the immediate field
of his observations, the nations metrop-
oils" are trained in softness and luxury
with the one idea of making figure in
society and brilliant marriage, of making
the most of their physical advantages and
alluring the other sex by the acts best
adapted to that purpose He bids us
listen to the low gossip among these young
women, their broad speeches and coarse
stories; to note these women married but
still eager for admiration, their daily con-
feSsion Of the irksomeness of the bond.
the divorce and the resort to the methods
by which we practically Justify "adulter-
Gus marriage" Since his expression, be-
cause of the shamelessness of the evil, the
legal fraternity has called convention, to
meet in a few weeks, to consider means by
which such uniformity of laws of the
States can be secured as viii tend to
check the tendency to degrade the institu-
ton of marriage.
ltrequires too extended consideration to
follow the distinguished preacher in his
arraignment of conditions that foster and
tastes that do not protest against other in
fuences, equally as vicious, that are under
mining the moral sense and the modesty
and cleanliness of the people and substi-
tuting for them those things which are
shameless and hardening, and tend to the
increase Of insensibility, to ofienses against
modesty, womanly virtue, manly integrity
and the sanctity of the home