Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1893-04-06
IN WOMAN'S BEHALF.
WoMAN'S FAULTS AND VIRTUES.
What One Man Thinks OF Some of the
Curront CritIcisurs M, tha Fair Say

What One Man Thinks OF Some of the
Current Criticisms on the Fair Sex.
Woman has ever been an attractive
subject in literature. Without her our
reading would be indeed bare, and
often wonder what some of our writers
would do if woman should happen to
grow so perfect that there remained
nothing more to be said of her, Our
magazines and newspapers fairly bristle
with articles about her at the present
time Now it is woman's this and then
it is woman's that First she is Landed
up to the skies, and then she is pulled
down again in q hurry As whole
the sight is quite an interesting one,
but it would have more interest if the
owners of the pens who write these ar
tices had little clearer conception of
their subject A witty French writer
has said that man always writes best
on subject of which he knows the
least but even this is untrue of some of
the articles on woman which l have
read within the past few weeks.
1t is possible that the large increase
in absolutely nonsensical articles writ
ten about women nowadays is due to
the growing desire among periodicals
of all classes to eater to woman and
the home" A periodical of the present
day is no longer complete without q
"womans column" ''womans page"
''woman's department" or some
!, bnf mi,
mir about it, and bring that paper into
the home and enable the business de-
partment to tell its advertisers that the
paper has "a home circulation" The
consequence is that more pens are
writing about woman and her interests
to-day than ever before. In one re-
spect this is an excellent tendency, for
the more woman is written about in
diligently, the more will her worth be
appreciated by the world at large. But
mark, say ''intelligently." To discuss
| her life and interests in the manner
done in scores of cases to-day, is simply
to bring upon the paper printing the
stuff the ridicule and condemnation of
the sex to which it is catering. Women
can bear criticism, and bear it bravely
when they realize that the criticism is
fair one. They bear it far better than
do men. But they resent, and justly
so, many of the imputations which are
allowed to be printed in some of the
best periodicals of to-day If these
lapses of accuracy were simple errors,
women might forgive them. But will
full misinterpretation vies with abso-
lutte ignorance. The most amateur girl
writers would not make the assertions
that are advanced by men supposed to
be logical and of good mental capacity.
] will, with few illustrations, point
out more clearly my meaning.
One of our most carefully edited re-
views, in recent issue, printed an arti-
Gle in which the writer chose to make
the following statement: 1.-THE most
careful search among authoritative sta
tistics plainly points to one condition,
more than three-quarters of all the
great commercial defalcations and fail
ures during the past twenty years was
woman's extravaganza" Now, this
statement is made by one of the most
careful writers of the day, man who
is accepted in the world of thought as
an erudite scholar and an authority on
the question he discusses. Yet no state
ment is more utterly false on its face.
/ have taken the pains to gain access to
precisely the same Authoritative sta
tistics" from which this writer formu-
lated his opinion, and this is the phrase
used, which he has chosen to twist into
an accusation against woman: 'Our
conviction is that when the great COM
mercial disasters of the past twenty
years in America are traced to their
true source, it will be found that they
are due principally and almost entirely,
to false position sustained in the
home" Whether such deduction is
justified by the facts is not the present
aim of these comments except that
am quite ready and willing to question
its accuracy. But to put "a false posi-
ton sustained in the home" entirely
upon the shoulders of woman and
parade her before the world as a willful
breaker of business interests, is as silly
as it is unjust.
Another wise sage, in a prominent
magazine, discusses the question Of
woman's dress, and concludes his deduc
tions by telling his readers that Gamer
lea is the most overdressed nation or
the globe" and that American womer
were never more outrageously over
dressed than at the present day." In
deed! Strange how some writers have
n way of acquiring exclusive informa
ton withheld from the rest of the craft
Now, the simple fact is, as every woman
knows, that not for the past twenty
years has there been time when the
fashions were more simple, more arts
tic, more picturesque and more service
able than at this very day. 1t was only
a week since that one of the most prom
inent women's tailors in New York wa!
bewailing to me the fact that the sim
plicity of the immediate styles allowed
of so few ''eXtras," and consequently
a decrease in his profits. 81 confess, hi
said that women have never, within
my experience, dressed more sensibly
But our harvest is in the fancy modes
and what you term the far-fetched,
and of this class of dressing there ha
not for years been so little as there i
this season." And yet the writer whom
l have quoted bewails the very thing
which the best authorities concede doe
not exist.
The timeliness of this writer's infor
nation also appealed very strongly t.
me. The article in question was writ
ten, as ! ascertained, in December
1892, and printed in January, 1898, ant
yet this critic of the fashions was still
bewailing the bell skirt" and the ''bo,
coat" He says: "These filth-accumu
lators and grotesquely-hideous gar
ments are to be seen on every prone
made" Are they? Where, pray? Thel
he say: There was beauty abou
the Empire STYLES when thew wer