Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-09-22


thoughtlessness exists the action of the
common council may serve purpose in
calling attention to the justly alarming
fact that boys, immature in judgment,
with principles not yet fixed, do not
have that oversight and wholesome re-
straint from their proper guardians that
the world has a right to demand.
Nor is this all There is a
place where common councils do not
venture, but where a cautionary word
should be heard. The newspaper which
is more than a mere chronicler of daily
occurrences, enters the homes of a peo-
pie and does not transcend It's bounds
when it speaks of the daughters of the
| household
| 1t would be a matter of surprise, if
not modification, to many parents if
they knew the evils to which their neg
ligence exposes their chiefest jewels.
Girls of tender years, those who have
barely stepped inside the line of woman
hood, are permitted to walk the streets
unattended, are allowed to frequent
thoroughfares of trade with no ostensible
object except to be seen of men, and
this, however unwarranted may be the
result, gives rise to comment and too
often to remarks that would make the
cheek of innocence bum red with shame
and nerve the arm of any true man to
strike down the slanderer. Girls, for
some trivial excuse of shopping, loiter
at counters and renew there the chat of
the last dance or continue a Irritation
that, unbecoming anywhere, is especially
SO in hours and places of business.
Parents and guardians permit their
daughters and wards to attend places of
amusement, private and public enter
tainments, under the sole. protection of
some callow youth or, it may be, an
older escort, of whom they are absolute
ly ignorant, frequently not even familiar
with his face. A man in business who
committed any trust to one of whom he
knew so little would be unhesitatingly
pronounced careless in business methods,
and should his trust so bestowed be be-
trayed little sympathy would be spent
upon him. Yet, with less knowledge of
men, young women are committed to
their protection and when such sorrow
comes as not only whitens the hair, but
bends the heart in shame, the world
pities these careless guardians of young
women.
There is in an American of any age a
certain rebellion against curtailment of
liberty in action, and too often
liberty is construed into license
to do that which is agreeable to ones
self. When that self is immature or un-
trained it is right that restraint should
be put upon it; society expects and has a
right to demand it, and while it is true
it is equally true that the girls are the
future wives and mothers on whom a
nation depends for its virtue, and there
fore its perpetuity. Chaperonage has
long been a recognized condition in
European society, but it has been so
exercised as 10 appear to be more like
espionage than protection, and in that
way is offensive to American ideas. This
mode IS foreign to a proper care for
girls; they should be taught to rely on
the superior judgment and wider ex-
perience of older women in every ques-
ton that arises; they should feel that |
mother, sister, or elderly friend, is their |
best adviser, and when they repose the |
little condolences that girls must have,
these should never be treated lightly, but |
the bestowal encouraged by lively |
sympathy. Girls should be taught to
look upon their fathers and |
brothers as safe counsellors |
in everything that relates to |
the worlds estimates; men know
men, and seldom will loving sister or
daughter find their decisions arbitrary or
their conclusions erroneous.
THE GAZETTE has ventured thus far
into the sacred precincts of the
homes of its readers in the hope |
that its voice will arouse the
guardians of youth to keener percep-
ton of their responsibility, and awaken
all who can influence the young to
sense of the danger threatened by a
growing laxity shown to those whose
tender years and want of worldly wis
dom unfit them to be the directors of
their acts, and prevent them from form
ing just conception of whittier thought
less words and trivial acts often tend; a
laxity that is not limited to any particu-
lar locality, but which, if allowed to go
will carry doom and disaster
into homes and bring destruction upon a
people.
A Reporters Oversight Magnified.