Evening star., 1896-09-11

impartial in giving voice to men and wo-
men alike on this beer and bicycle ques-
ton. Thousands of women and girls are
watching the discussion with unusual in
terest. To the Young Lady who 'sassed'
the doctor i would say: For the love of all
that is good and beautiful, abstain from
drinking any kind of intoxicants. 1t will
unfit you to maintain even the tamest
kind of a dash for liberty, and, besides
creating a desire for unrefined company, 1t
Will give you liver and kidney troubles, as
well as bad breath, with complexion to
match Liquor drinking is acquired
taste, anyway, and can very easily be
overcome. If there is anything more des-
picable than drunken lady 1t can only
be her proper mate, the drunken gentle
man. You are probably member of the
Marshmallow Wheel Club and can safely
rouch for the pure characters of its other
members, Bessye, Mayme, Edy:he and
Saliye, while the male contingent, Gdssie,
Willye, Harrye and Charlye, have never
SAID anything worse in your presence than
nit L don't think and all such little
witticisms % How every nerve In you
thrills with excitement and pleasure at the
little taste of emancipation you experience
when you dash up to that beer garden on
your wheel and order beer! Freedom and
independence are what the human race de-
sfreS above all things But l ina gine that
your free-born American spirit waxed
Wroth when you read the creed of David
G. Bangs the other day. so full of artless
Jealousy Is guilt, it spills Itself in fearing
Is SO. as well as ably substantiate the un-
deniable fact that If your beer garden
friends are men, they will, in almost every
case, behind your back speak slightingly of
you, and by innuendo asperse your good
name and give out an impression of you
10 other men, at which your parents and
you would blush Apropos of your beloved
wheel, wear II out and save enough out
OF your salary to buy yourself a better one
next year. But don't wear boomers they
are so hideously ungraceful. The cartoon
ist settles that question when he makes
ridiculous pictures of hts dear, good. pa
uent, fat, old mother on a bike all rigged
up il boomers of the loudest description.
She doesn't deserve such treatment at his
hands, but what's the difference so long
as the racy world is amused? Methinks
Charlotte Smith could protect you girls bet
ter if she would get herself a bicycle and
direct her crusade against the real enemy,
the men who are only sowing their wild
oats"
Another writes thus briefly over the ini-
tials IL. A. r. Please give me space in
your paper to state that good citizens
do not really know how low some of their
daughters have fallen since cycling has
become the fad. Nor do they realize the
temptations for them in their long spins
out in the suburbs. If they would like to
know let them ask some of the county
police. They could tell tales if they wish-
ed to do So"
b. Mordaunt Wilson has this to say:
"Your correspondent who signs his letter
Thomas w. Gilmer says men will certain
ly not reach the high level occupied by
women until the millennium etc. Now, If
he lad kept to beer and bicycles / should
not have taken part in the discussion, but
to say men Will certainly not reach the
high level etc, Is such a libel upon men
that L must answer him, with your per-
nlssion. That some men do not reach the
level of good women is evident 10 all but
let us thank God for the thousands of
good men who do attain 10 a high level
and reach down strorg, kind hands TO men
and women below them, and bear them up.
Does Thomas d. Giimer know his little
verse by Dallctt Fuguet?
" He whistled as he went, and still
lie bore the yourg where streams were
deep,
Ard helped the feeble I'd the hill
he seemed TO go with heart athrill,
Careless of deed. and wild of will.
dc whistled that he might not weep
lHahk God there are many, many such
men, Who fight against sin in themselves
ahd who help others up the HILL they are
on level with the best women for they
are fighting shoulder to shoulder with
them
G. S. Barnes, in writing to The Star.
thinks one should look for the beginnings
OF evils complained of in the infancy of the
bicycle girl He writes:
L haFo been reading with much interest
the many contributions which have ap-
peared IN what may well be styled the
beer garden or bicycle girls column" |
have been amused, interested and some
times astonishod at the views which some
OF the writers have taken. but giving any
one the right to express his honest con-
ticuCnS, allow me to ask the writers who
have already expressed their views the fol-
lowing question: If the bicycle girl and the
peer gardens are as bad as some have pic-
tured them, how about your nurse girl?
Is IT not a well-established fact that as
tWlg Is bent SO will ii grow? and nine out
OF ten times the first impression is ALWAYS
a lasting one. Mothers. start your child
right in its infancy. and you may rest as
sured your daughter will not be found I'm
beer gardens or on her wheel on the out
skirts of the city at late hours and often
with young men whom she would not for
the world invite to her own house. 1t was
only this m orning while coming through
one of our parks in the northwest that /
noticed five colored nurse girls, with small
children in their charge, talking to one
another and using language unfit for the
V1lest criminal to use. Can you expect
your children to be the noble boys or girls
that they should be when they grow up
under such circumstances? l am not con-
demning the riding of bicycles by ladies'
On the contrary, 1 think and believe IT
beneficial and healthful. Do not condemn
the whole for the faults of few"