The Irish standard., 1893-06-10


doubt Irish loyalty while her history
tells the story Of fredericksburg
PERSONAL PURITY.
Continued From First Page.
ness is always bold and daring; goodness
too often is timid and retiring The
need Of the hour is armed, soldierly viz.
tue.
See the wiles and activenass and open
warfare Of impurity. The popular liter
ature Of the day is largely subservient to
it. Novels exhaling its stygian stencil
burden news stands and b oks agents
baskets. Papers teeming with salacious-
ness obtain readers by the hundreds OF
thousands and drive out OF. the market
selt-respeoting and decent publications.
Painting and sculpture, whose mission it
should be to elevate and ennoble TIE
mind by the Representations of human.
ity's best deeds and dreams, reveal the
human form in hideous suggestiveness.
Theatrical posters, nailed up in promin-
| emit streets and squares Vt cities, are to
our young people unmistakable object
lessons ID lascivioushess, aud the stage,
which might be one Of the most useful
Interpreters OF wisdom and virtue, not
unfrequently becomes the panderer to
lowest passions. Cultured society, un-
consciously, perhaps, but not less effec-
lively, serves the interests of vice by it's
! immodest fashions in dances and in to-
male dress. Public opinion Is debased;
virtue, it is thought, is sufficiently
avenged when fallen woman is declared
an outcast; tut the man who comprised
her rum goes scotfree and is the wei.
come visitor to club and drawing room.
Laws against open immortality are dead
letters Tempters to sin promenade un-
molested our streets; homes OF iniquity
haunt their wlckedness before the public
gaze; orgies born OF demoniac fancies oc-
lcur in public halls with the avowed CON
nivance OF the police. Sin sets itself up
IS q profession under shadowy names,
through which the purpose is easily read
and advertises itself through the col
umns of our ne wspapers. Base men and
women 60 around entrapping unwary
girlhood into lives of shame, procurers
and PROGRESSES are constantly prowling
as so many jackale, in search Of human
bodies to cast them in prey to cruel
lust.
Laws protect sin. The child Of II or
Il years in many places is presumed to
be Of sufficient age to barter away her,
Innocence, and her seducer cannot be
convicted Of crime. There are sta es in
the country where the violation Of q
woman is no violation Of law, if her color
is not Caucasian white. The impndencs
of vice attempts to 60 farther, and de-
mands that infamy be licensed by law,
that woman be stamped with the badge
0 professional vice, and that the partners
in their iniquity be protected by the law
Of the land and be secured by legal in
quests from the discusses 10 which crimi-
nal indulgence might otherwise expose
them. Nor in the enumeration Of sins
agencies must I Overlook the prostitu-
ton of medical science in the service OF
passion, holding out to WON summarized
or married, the promise to Tree her from
the fruit Of the womb, nor that OF the
legal profession in obtaining, under Aim.
siest pretenses, divorces, and destroying
the sacredness. OF pare family life.
Preventive measures, in the shape 81
aid and encouragement to poor and I'M
protected girls demand the most serious
attention from the philanthropist and
the christian. The great majority Of nn-
fortunate women in the country have
come to ruin through the untoward Or
cumstancee into which they have been
thrown. Poverty il the great tsmpta-
ton. Bright, honorable girls are COM
PEELED to work for wages insufficient to
feed and clo he them; their life, amid
toll and struggling, is cheerlsss and dis
hear aning; the sole s,cg:n &C lar recrea-
ton q any kind ofsls amid plsriils..o|
which the stoutest hearts are rem tto
resist. I know Of no grestsr sdcisl cl,ar--..
ity than that which bushes itself IN the
care and protection and siding Of dss,
fsnssless young women
So Tar as the enac tment Is u ~ may ~
considered, the most strenuous efllorts,
should Sbe made, wherever the necessity
exists. Of raisiDg to1 q reasonable stand artl
the ot il ~ plicab to]
ne ls,i]