The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-02-15
The FRIEND AND THE
BACCHANTE."

The Friend, in the interests Of
decency. protests against the ac-
ton Of the managers of the BOs-
ton Public Library, III placing
within it's halls. a. the Friend
saws. IAN extremely lewd statue
called the Bacchante." and it de-
cIares that Il society which cher
ishes such art is OH the high road
to- utter rOttenness."
We notice this comment, be
cause false notions about ''deccn-
CIV and ..lcwdncSS' have laid
thousands. if not millions. of sui
fering women III their graves, and
sadly misled as many promising
young men. The immortality of
the mOraIiStS il most dangerous
thing. IF the Boston community,
imbued with Puritan principles
for 200 wears. must go TO pieces at
the sight of Il Bacchante, there
is something rotten in those prin-
cipIes. They are like the sailors
monkey. which, he said, had plen-
~ of brains. but was only skin
deep IN his personal piety. Better
cross. mt once, some HOttentOt
blood on the Puritan stock and
improve it, so that ii will have
enough staying power to look at
a Bacchante and not go TO pieces.
When God made man, in his own
image. he made nothing ''lewd"
in him. 1t is the immortality of
the moraIists that discovers it.
Mrs. ID. LOzier, noted woman,
opened a school for girls in New
York in 1885. She taught them
physiology. The parents with
drew their daughters on the
ground that it tended To produce
s9rOttennessr and "lewdness." 1t
was the immortality of mOralists.
Queen Victoria requires every wo-
man who appears at her court To
wear n every lOw-neck dress.
The purists say, Indecent. rot
ten" but the Queen. though she
never reached the moral attitudes
of The Friend manages TO keep
herself out of ''rOttenness. III
the editor of The Friend is sent
TO represent us at the Queens
Jubilee. as we hope he will be,
must he he led. blindfolded.
through the thrOng of refined,
Christian British matrOns in their
indecent dress? Must we take
the pure American girl from the
streets of Paris, because the
Frenchman considers her "lewd'
if she walks the streets even in
the daylight without escort?
The Chinese Minister at St
James wrote, with much sOlem-
nity. to his Sovereign that the
European women dressed indc-
Gently. The Japanese say that
the dress of Europeans. both
male and female, is "lewd.
Shall we change our dress in or
der to ''save" China and Japan?
Did the sights of troops of naked
natives. i'm the early days. corrupt
the editor of The Friend? Is the
sensitive mind of the learned Pro
fesSOr Brigham made rotten by
the contemplation of various
images without tailOrmadc' cloth
ing in the Bishop Museum? An
eminent purist. Mrs. MuldoOn. of
Hamburger. Conn. became SO dis
tresSed at the nudity of her three
dogs she put them in trousers,
or. rather. dressed them in their
own pants" She was consistent
and logical. There is nothing
more Iewd in art than parts of
Paradise Lost" in literature. if
The Friend is right. But that
wonderful classic is put i'll the
hands of school children. There
are hundred passages in the
Bible that the editor of The
Friend will dare not discuss with
young girl Is, then. the Bible
'Iewd"?