The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-01-02
SOCIAL INSURGENTS.
Women Who Want to Do Everything
TeGt the Men Do.
Mrs. Linton in Nineteenth Century.

Mrs. Linton in Nineteenth Century.
Rten nest Sdcre pour I'm Sdpeur. Moth
ing is forbidden to the wild woman as a
social insurgea:; Cor the one word that she
cannot spell is FITNESS" Devoid Of this
sense of fitness, she does all manner #
things which she thinks bestOw on her the
power, together with the privileges, OF a
man; not thinking that in celebrating she
finer distinctions Of sex she is CELEBRATING
the finer traits OF civilization, and that
every step made toward identity of habits
Is step downward in refinement and
delicacy, wherein lies the essential core Of
civilization.
She smokes after dinner with the men in
railroad carriages, in public rooms-when
she Is allowed. She thinks she is thereby
indicating her Independence and honoring
her emancipated womanhood. Heaven
bless her! Down in the north country viii
lagos and elsewhere she will find her proto-
types calmly smoking their black outty
pipes, with no sense OF shame about them.
Why should they notl These ancient
DANES, with "whiskin' beards about tAeir
MONS" withered and unsightly, worn
out, and no longer women in
| desirableness or beauty-why should
they not take to the habits
of men! They do not disgust, because they
no longer charm; but even in these places
yON 'AO AApL lltltA tIt lOuHRbE hOHibu Win
Guilty pipes between their lips. Perhaps in
the coal districts, where women work like
men and with men, and are dressed as men,
you Will see pipes as well as hear bias
phemieS; but that is surely not an admir-
| able state of things, and one can hardly say
that the ptt-brow women, excellent persons
| and good workers as they are in their own
way, ore exactly the glasses in which our
| fine ladies find their loyeliest fashions-the
molds wherein they would do we'll TO run
their own forms. And when, after dinner,
| our young married women and hus-
| bandie;s girls, despising the old
| distinctions and trampling under
| foot the time-honored conventions
of former generations. light up"
up with the men, they are simply assimi-
lating themselves to this old Sally and that
ancient Betty down in the dales
and mountain hamlets, or to the stalwnrt
cohort Of pit-brow women, for whom sex
has no aesthetic distinctions. We grant the
| difference OF method. A superbly dressed
young woman, bust, arms and shoulders
bare and cleaning white and warm beneath
! the subdued light of a luxurious dinner
| table-a beautiful Young creature, painted
| dyed and powdered according to the mode
| her lips red with wine and moist with
| liqueur-she is really different from mump-
! ing old betty III unwOmauly rags, smoking
| at her black Guilty pipe by the cottage door
| en- the bleak fell-side. In the one lies an
| appeal 10 the passions of men; in the other
is the death Of all emotion. Nevertheless,
| the acts are the same, the circumstances
| which accompany them alone being diff
| ferent
This desire to assimilate their lives TO
those Of men runs through the whole days
| work of the wild womeu Not content
with croquet and lawn tennis, the one of
which affords ample opportunities for flirt-
| ing-tor the wild women are not always
| above that little pastime-and the other for
exercise even more violent than is good for
the average woman they have taken to golf
and cricket, where they are hindrauces for
| the one part and make themselves sights"
! for the other. Men are not graceful when
! jumping, running, stopping, swinging their
| arms and all the rest OF it. They are t1ue
and give sense OF power that is perhaps
| more attractive than mere beauty; but as
school boys are not taught gymnastics after
| the manner Of the young Greeks, 60 the
| rhythmic cadence Of music, 80 that every
| movement may be rendered automatically
| graceful, they are often awkward enough
| when at play; and the harder the work the
less there is Of artistic beauty In the man
ner Of it. But If men, with their narrower
hips and broader shoulders, are less than
! classicauy lovely when they are putting out
| their physical powers what are the women,
whose broad hips give wider step and less
steady carriage in running, and whose arms,
/ because OF their narrower shoulders, do not
| lend themselves to beautiful curves when
they are making a swinging stroke at golf
| or batting and bowling at crickets
The prettiest woman In the world losses
| her beauty when at these violent exercises.
| Hot and damp, hopping her flushed and
streaming facs with her handkerchief, she
has lost that sense of repose, that delicate
! selt-restraint, which belongs to tho ideal
! woman. She is no longer dainty.
She has thrown Off her grace and
| abandoned ell that makes her lovely for the
| uncomely roughness of psstimes wherein
she cannot excel and Of which it was never
| intended she should be a partsker.
| We have not yet heard of women polo
| players, but that will come
In the absurd endeAvor 10 be like men,
| these modern homasses will leave nothing
| untried; and polo playing, tent pegging and
tltiug at the quiutain are all sure to come
in time. When weeds once begin to grow,
no limits can be put to their extent unless
| they are stubbed up betimes. The wild wo-
| men, in their character OF social insurgents,
are bound by none Of the INVENTIONS which
once regulated society. In them see the
odd social phenomenon OF the voluntary
descent OF the higher to the lower forms of
ways and works. "Unladylke" is a term
that has ceased to be significant. Where
'unWomanly" has died out, we couldiscarcely
expect this other to survive. The special
must needs go with the generic; and we
find it so with a vengeance! With other
queer diversions the frantic desire of
making money has invaded the whole class
Of wild women and it does not mitigate
their desire that. as things are, they have
enough for all reasonable wants. Women
who, few years ago, would not have
shaken hands with a dressnaker, still less
have sat down to table with her, now open
shops and set up in business on their own
account not because they are poor, which
would be reason enough, but because they
are restless, dissatisfied, insurgent, and like
nothing so much as to shock established
prejudices and make the folk stare.
BEAUTIFUL MEERSCaAUMS.
The Correct Way Of Smoking and Col
0riYcrH ham