The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1891-09-12
VOICES.
From the Virginia University Magazine
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Mr.. EDITOR AN afflicted sufferer
begs leave to unburden himself through
the columns of the Mag" and to deliver
round, unvarnished tale" of woe. in
order to counteract as far as it lies in the
scope of his meagre abilities, pernieious
eVli winch Is fast roofing itself here, and
which bids fair to vitiate the social atmos-
phere in which We live There are towns.
there are colleges and colleges, and uni.
verSitles and universities, but differ as
they may as regards their various adyant-
ages and disadvantages, they all possess at
least one "bdte noir" in common. band of
gossips, an evil surprising in the enormity
Of its pernieious effects any other that can
be found in the catalogue of crime. They
are "the ghoulish outlaws of humanity
as some philosopher has aptly termed
them, who swoop down upon unsuspecting
regulations and murder them in mid-air, so
that the populace may look on and enjoy
the beautiful sight, And it is truly re-
markable how thoroughly these gossip
mongers do their work. No conscientious
seruples hinder them from their vivisec-
tions, for long since they have encompass
ed their feelings with an adamantine coat,
in order that it might not hinder the pro-
gress Of their filthy traffic. La Montaigne
says that gossip is sort of progressive
lying. And so it is Starting with a
distortion of facts, it enlarges like a rolling
SNOWFALL, accumulating dirt as it goes
alongr until at last it becomes an ugly
mass Of falsehood and venom. For ex-
ample, Mrs. A. will meet Mrs. B. on the
street, and after the exchange of usual
salutations, will remark "Oh, dear do
you know that they say Mrs. G. danced
outrageously often with Mr.. d. last night?
This is merely "on dit" so for Heavens
sake don't say that | told you ~ Next
morning this insinuating remark will have
passed from mouth to mouth, growing,
growing, each one adding sensational
clause of their own till Mrs. X will, on
spreading it from Dan to Bersheba say
that Kit is an open secret that Mr. and
Mrs. Q. have begun cross suits for
divorce" ''Alas for the rarity of Christian
charity !" What enormous battalions of
lies are suugly enscouced behind the in
vincible bulwarks of the eternal "they
sag y And again, if two or three are
seated together, and they take up man,
a girl or a woman for discussion, they pick
flaws until nothing is left, but should their
victim happen to approach, they greet him
or her with smiles as sweet as honey, and
thus to the crime of slander they add the
sin of hypocrisy!
These are bad enough, goodness knows,
but after they have been painted by these
retailers Of ready made, secondhand
SANDER, they are morally blacker than
Beelzebub ever was. And it is upon the
young that the attacks of these hateful
scandal mongers fall most heavily, for un-
deserved scandal hangs over them like the
sword of Damocles, and they are afraid to
do this or that, however free from wrong
the act may be, lest it be misunderstood
and misunderstood, the sword descend
price, their regulations, and more eternal
ly, their lives 1t is a crying shame that
this should be the case, but it is neverthe-
less true. Let young girl with an exu-
herance of spirit and a natural fondness
for the company of young men try to have
a good time; she, perhaps, is as pure as
snow, but she will not escape the calumny
which the gossip mongers are ever ready
to heap upon her,
In "I4ife of Lincoln" the biographer
says that on certain occasion an intimate
friend of the president asked him the ex-
tent of his bank account, and Mr.. Lincoln
replied: 81 have exactly $4,000"
"Ten thousand dollars p repeated his
friend, in amazement, chow on earth did
you make tP' To which Lincoln
answered; II made So, 900 by minding
my own business, and $4,000 more by
letting other peoples alone There is
piquant moral to this story, and as the
average individual is not rocking in the
untold wealth of Cresus, let him or her
follow the example of the illustrious presi-
dent, if for no other reason than improv-
ing their respective bank accounts.
Ben johnson, in one of his essays, says
that "the ordinary London gossip is not a
natural liar; she merely lets her imagination
play around in the space once occupied by
reason, memory and charity. American
gossips, however, are equivicators of the
first magnitude, equalled by few, excelled
by none, And the saddest blow that can
possibly befall one of this class is to dis
cover that his or her powers of imagina-
tion are failing; to be a real, prime, first
class, genuine, unadulterated gossip, one
must be an easy, graceful, and altogether
picturesque falsifer. Nothing escapes
them; from "early morn till dewy eve"
their all seeing eyes, their ever wagging
tongues and always open ears are plying
their shameful vocation. They know the
minutest details between husband and
wife. lover and sweetheart; they know the
cause and extent of all family feuds; they
can tell to the fraction of cent how much
each ones Indebtedness to the "butcher,
baker and candlestick maker" Isl they
know about engagements long before the
contracting parties do themselves; they
know who plays poker, and what the
limit, ante and winnings are; they know
who drinks, and what, and when, and
where, and how much he drinks, in short,
they know, or profess to know, eUesy-
thing.
If a part of the thousands of dollars
annually SUBSIDIZED by the various religious
denominations for the foreign missionaries
who are engaged in the work civilizing and
Christianizing the poor savages, could only
be applied to the reformation of some of
the gossip fiends we have at home, it
would form the nucleus of work that
would take the present surplus now lying
dormant in the vaults of tho U. S.
treasury, at Washington, to complete
Gossips are social murderers; for isn't a
woman dead whose virtue is reported lost !?
And what is man without reputation
There is such thing as righteous indig-
nation, for endurance ofttimes ceases to
become virtue" and it is high time for
Congress to bring gossiping under the
scandal laws and make it a penal offence,