The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-11-09
TIE WHEEL. AND BLooMER.

L
| Is the law of the survival Of the fit
| test destined to rob woman OF her
| feminine beauty and to fill the world
| with brusque, unattractive business
women? Is the only light the only
| inspiration that the world holds for its
plodder to be envolved by environment
and left the occupant Of a pair OF uous-
ers of the same cut as his own and as
| homely? VIII love and romance nave
| fed and the maid be left less attrac-
| tive than the average man. Are dell
cacy of mind and softness OF physical
conditions in the woman TO give place
| to rugged masculinity:
These questions involve problem
growing out of the departure of
woman from her old paths and are
being seriously discussed by writers.
The evolution of woman's condition is
unquestioned, revolution imminent
The type Of womanhood IS changing
from the old ideal, from an a 'stheltic
standard. to one less attractice. Fol-
lowing an early and excessive mental
development the girl has gone TO fenc-
ing. rowing, driving, and even boxing
and playing ball. Becoming woman
she enters the professions and into al
most every field heretofore occupied by
man, and as his competitor, with more
industry than her brother, satisfied
with less wages, she is successfully
crowding him out. Will she not, as
consequence, inevitably lose much of
that feminenity Of mind and Of body
which have constituted both her
charms and beauty? Will not those
things in which she has been superior
to man disappear as she becomes like
him. and his equal in other directions?
These questions seem TO concern the
new woman but little, but they are ser
ious ones for their masculine admir-
ers. Dina in fleeing from the en-
brace of her lover, will no longer ap-
peal to the gods to turn her into a
flower but will turn about and put
head on him. 1t is hard 70 deny that
if the new woman follows up her pres
ent tendencies to perform the same
work. to live the same life and to IN
dergo the same physical exposures
that she will become very much Ike
her man mate. Indeed such has been
the experience of the world touching
tribes and even nationalities. In fact
woman sooner shows the effect of
hardships and more marked delerior-
alton when subjected to like life than
man.
In British India there is a tribe
known as the Nepauls, where the most
perfect equality prevails between the
sexes, one enjoying everything that the
some labors and duties. Privileges
are universal. AS a consequence the
Nepaulese women, although enamel
pated up to the new woman standard,
are the homeliest in the world, actually
repulsive to look upon. They are
females, but they never wiring a lovers
heart by dying or in any other way.
In view of the wheel and its bloomer,
and the long array of admirers of the
new woman, and of advocates of equal
suffrage and the like, we have no adj |
vice TO offer, nevertheless it seems that |
if the men have any desire that their |
sons after them shall not be robbed of |
all that renders life worth the living, |
that it is high time they were getting |
together on some scheme to protect |
their daughters from the insidious in /
fuences which are leading the femin-
inc half of the world to distrust the |
protection of the home and to despise
its refining influences.