Connecticut western news., 1893-06-01


 all the nice houses, criticised severely her toilet until it became perfect, daily met her on the avenue with the most charming man in town, who by one preteXt or another I turned over to her, made her the constant subject of con- versation, insisted upon 1t that she was to be the belle of the coming winter, advised her parents that she should have her first season at Bar Harbor where she could learn to flirt to her hearts content and vie with the other girls. Her second sumper, when she was older, I suggested her Aassing at Newport, where she should have a pair of ponies, a pretty trap with we'll gotten up groom and Worth to dress her.
 The method of dress used by this set of people among the women is fashioned for the express purpose of exciting the animal passions of men, and it is decol- lete to the limit of decency and far be- yond the point of discussion. The ex- posture is so complete, so vulgar, that it passes the realm of sane discussion. And yet so far is this custom established that there are those who seem to treat the matter as an event in life about which there is no question. There is tragedy that could be written about one of these girls that graduated under the tutorship of McAllister of the past who is now one of the most daring adventuresses in this city that would startle the world. She was brought up in this atmosphere. She was sold to lecherous wretch. He dragged her down to his own level and revealed to her depths of infamy of which she had never dreamed and then cast her off for evil women more suited to his taste She went to the bottom with re- markable rapidity and returned to the scene of her childhood with all the proud ancestral blood in her veins crying for revenge on society, and she has had it in the wrecking of hundreds of homes and in the debauchery of thousands of lives. It is no wonder that such results follow. The only marvel is that such lives are not oftener revealed to the public.
 Third-The occupations of this circle of people are such that any statement describing their position in the world of ethics could scarcely be overdrawn. Ex- travagance and luxury and idleness are the opportunities the devil always uses to wreck the human soul. The society of which I am speaking spends it's time in balls and receptions and suppers, op- eras, theaters ers-extravagance in the city and extravaganza out of the city. Their business in life is to eat and to drink and to sleep, to spend the winter and spend the summer. Think of @ normal, rational human being eating for a liv ing. Think of a rational human being living as an end of life simply to per form the daily functions of the body and think of the monstrous insolence of such an aggregation of asses calling themselves society,"
 The world in which we live is a real world, filled with real people, driven by gigantic motive powers, with heroes and heroines for actors, with grand causes to be championed, with great battles to be fought, victories to be won or defeats to be retrieved. And yet we behold a circle of people whose motive in life is to dance, and to eat, and to sleep, and whose body and mind and soul are actu- ally exhausted in the superlative effort of eating and drinking and sleeping and dancing and gadding about and gossip ing. And when they get too tired to dance themselves they hire skirt dancer from dive to come in and kick for them at so much night, while they sit by and witness, with their gentlemen friends. this elevating performance. What a magnificent spectacle in a world inhab- tied by real people,!
 The world in which we live is a world in which such men as General Booth have been born and work. It is 8 world in which the scientist is busy in his labo- ratory wrestling with nature for her se- crets, in which Koch pours over the se- cret of the fell disease that has haunted the race through the centuries and seeks to solve the riddle of consumption. And the world hangs breathless over his lab oratory to hear his last bulletin. It is world in which Louis Pasteur lives and moves to bless. It is world in which Darwins think and work, world in which the Edisons and Franklins and Peter Coopers are born and live to bless the race and lift it to higher things in it's everyday life. It is world in which the Earl of Shaftesbury lived, and when he died cried because he had to leave the world in which there was so much suf- fering, cried for the privilege of living another day that he might relieve the suffering about him. It is a world in which a thousand earnest, honest men and women are living lives of heroic self denial
 Besides, it is world in which there are thousand sulking wrongs to be righted. It is world that still has it's Darkest Africa" has its sin cursed stricken millions, who toll in darkness and in hopelessness and wrestle with de- spair and with starvation. It is a world that still has it's Siberias and it's under peasant world. And yet this aggregation of asses, calling themselves society, eat and drink and laugh and dance and loaf and deem that the world centers in their little circle.
 Fourth-We see it in the dissipations of this so called society. Where there is luxury and idleness dissipation is fore gone conclusion The dances indulged in by these people, in which women half naked spin round the room in the arms of all sorts of men, cannot be discussed in terms adequately describing the facts. | As one of our greatest women truly says, referring to the dances in vogue in this l circle of society: "Any fashion which gives to roue the right to clasp pure WOuldA LII llS 1uS buu uOko uCI lOI UlC length of an intoxicating piece of music is below moral defense. I firmly believe that the time will come when our pres ent license in this respect will be re- garded as we now regard the processes attending the worship of Aphrodite. It might be said that the nautch dance is modesty beside our waltz. Bluntly, to one who knows the facts behind these social scenes, how far do we seem to have advanced beyond the Congo idea of 8
 social entertainment? The Groves ot
 Ishtar were more frank about it. The
 drawing rooms of polite America veil and
 evade the eternal, unutterable, identical
 thing"
 This same lady asked young man
 who was 8 person of so called good
 morals, if he ever knew young ladies ir
 his circle of society to drink at balls
 Certainly" said the young man. q
 have often danced with young ladies
 who were intoxicated. It is not an un
 known thing to meet them too far gone to converse"