Morning journal and courier., 1891-01-22
IMMORAL PUBLIC MEN.
France Wfnks at Lapses Like MIR.
Parnell,s In Her own Statesmen.


Parnell's In Her own Statesmen.
lucy Hooper's Letter to the ST. Louis Post
Dispatch.l
am very much amused at the amaze
ment expressed by the Partisan newspa-
pers at the developments in the Parnell
affair. None of the French journalists
can comprehend why the immortality in
private life of public parsonage should
be held as an obstacle to the career of that
parsonage. 1t is not so in France, else
would General Boulanger have failed to
exercise any influence over the voters of
the nation, and Gambetta himself would
have been relegated to private life long
years before his death, to say nothing of
NJ. Theirs, from whose married life Ouida
took the plot of her novel, "Moths." In
fact prominent Frenchman is thought
none the less of, but rather the more, for
his breaches of the seventh command
ment, and he is apt to announce his love
| affairs of the left hand with much blare of
| trumpets and beating of drums, being
even willing to invent few little romances
| of the kind with himself for the hero if
| there are none that really exist. The atti-
| tude of the English public is much more
| respectable, it is true, and tends far more
| to preserve the outward purity and de-
| cency which form the wide difference be-
| tween the literature and journalism of
| France and England. One has only to
| compare the successful novels and plays of
| the past decade in the latter country with
| those of the former to perceive the whole
| some check exercised by public opinion in
| the one land with the wholesale license
permitted in the other.
But, and here comes the rub, there is
nothing on earth much more inconsistent
than British prudery. Mr.. Parnell, and
before him Sir Charles Dixie, have been
hooted and hunted from public life for
conduct not one whit the worse than that
of most of the princes of the royal fami-
ly. That exquisitely sensitive flower,
English public opinion, can endure with
hardihood the fragrant and countless liai-
sons of the Prince of Wales, while smit
ten as with sudden frost at any revela
tions of radical misdemeanors. Duchesses
can fiaunt their lovers and countesses theiI
illegitimate children in the very face of So
ciety, and society will accord them not one
invitation or one visiting card the less
British aristocrats may leave their welded
wives at home and go travelling around tn,
world with those of other people, ant
British prudery closes its eyes and stop
its ears against all revelations concerning
| pTOCocOluS5. LII 1uSt1 sh0 PASoSA
code of morality of English society SEEM
to be: "Princes and powerful mobiles ant
great ladies can be as naughty as they like
but the rest of the community must re
spect appearances"
Consistency, thou art jewel" is
| proverb that has good deal of truth il
, it, but that gem is certainly not foun'
!, adorning the British treasury. Ever
Queen Victoria, that most severely prope
) of all old ladies, and the chief of tina
sternly virtuous class, the British matron
did not hesitate to welcome to her home
s few months ago one of the most immora
I women in all Europe, simply because tina
woman was a queen. She has refused t
receive at her drawingrooms far more re
4 spectacle women than Isabella of Spain.
= However, must confess that I prefe
r even these partial demonstrations of Eng
lish propriety to the half Indifference +
' all such matters that sometimes character
S ICES the actions of the French functiona
8 ries. 1 remember the indignation aroused
| for instance, in the British mlnd oy th
:, action of one of III. Grevy's ministers
who sent as ambassador to London gen
tleman whose home and heart were openl
presided over by a lady who was the Wit
L of another man. And the funniest pal
j. of the whole affair was the amazement G
: the minister aforesaid at the objection
raised by the English government to tn
reception of the new ambassador, on ~
j count of the irregularity of his priva'
= lie. BE could not imagine why bis o.