The San Francisco call., 1898-02-13
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By HENRY JAMES.

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 MT. Lynn of Oakland possesses ap- parent confidence in the theory that the Lord commanded him to kill Mrs. Lynn. The conclusion that Lynn is a homicidal liar is the one naturally drawn from the situation. There is lack of evidence that the Lord would communicate with a creature of the Lynn stripe, even If an exchange of ideas were common between the AL mighty and his subjects. There is an improbability that an order contrary to the peace would have been issued. But granting that Lynn might have received the Instructions under which he claims to have acted, certainly had he done so he would have been clothed with power to carry them out, and would not have fired five bullets with out fatal results. It seems to me the best course would be to treat Lynn as a dangerous criminal rather than as one inspired. As a rule authority to kill does not come from heaven, but there are reasons for supposing that it comes from the other place. True, Abraham thought he was told to sac rif1ce Isaac, but the fact that he was willing to do so is one of the darkest spots In record, which was more than ordinarily reprehensible. Abra- ham should have been clapped into an asylum or a jail, and this man Lynn Is no better. If Mrs. Lynn chance to succumb to her injuries, then her as sailant ought to be hanged with all reasonable dispatch. If he was acting on divine orders he will have nothing to fear beyond the gallows, while if spared he might get some more orders.
 
 Several men had the misfortune to be carried over Willamette Falls last week. l am unable to see, however, why the sad event should have been confidently chronicled In the Examiner under the heading Swept to Perdi- tion." The victims were not Exam iner men.
 have not the unhappiness to know Ruth Ashmore Whether she is old or young, single, married or a widow are matters not of public knowledge, and possibly of no consequence. Ruth writes advice for girls, all of it based apparently on the idea that girls have mush where they ought to have brains. If anything could induce a good girl to throw discretion to the winds it would be such stuff as Ruth drools at her through the columns of Bok's comic monthly known as the Ladies' Home Journal. The worst feature of Ruins pious ooze is the undercur- rent of nastiness which is never ab- sent. So keen an eye has the lady for the vile, so acute a scent for moral decay, that she detects iniquity where another would find innocence. She be- lieves man to be possessed of the idea that every girl is legitimate prey, the most ordinary courtesy yelled insult. She thinks that a young woman who fails to resent the overture of mere politeness has been lured to ruin. She wants our sisters and daughters to be lot of vinegary spinsters treading the path of life with no object but to ob- serve and rebuke the affrontS lining the way. What the gentle Ruth needs is clean mind. If she has 8 real re- gard for the young she will quit writ ing for them. Her ebullitions of
 
 and corrupting. She does not know it. I am forced to the conclusion that she does not know anything. Yet Ruth harmoniZes beautifully with her en- vironment. The male impersonator who runs the concern Is also sweetly modest to the point of indecency. In the same issue in which Ruth demon strates that there is no middle ground between the prude and the outcast Box announces that hereafter there will be nothing more printed in re- lation to styles in ladies' underwear The details, he explains, are lex tremely and pardonably offensive to re- fined and sensitive women,' Noble Bok lovely women! The refined and sensi- tive will have to secure their under wear without the guiding intelligence of Box, 1t might be said, the Bok Looking on different page of the same number I was surprised and made sor- rowful by observing that the reform is not complete There was a picture there of a girl who had on an under shirt and nothing more. Think of the horror of it! To be sure, the picture represented tot of or thereabouts, but tot grows, and in later years may not the memory of this picture cause her pain and bushes? Then a bed shoe was not only described, but &C., tually portrayed I marvel at such a lapse into depravity. If a shoe foot; if @ foot, 8 leg; If a leg, then under wear or influenza. Thus Box sets a trap where by easy stages we are car ried to the forbidden topic. There were female figures in corsets, over which they gracefully bulged, with naked shoulders and bosoms as bare as your hand. I ask Ruth ask Box, is it right? There was an angel with noth- ing but the shadow of it's wing to shield it from the eye. There was a lass on bike in a position plainly in- dicating that she had two legs. and that with an abandon imperiling her soul she had thrown one of them over the wheel. There was buxom kitchen girl, with her sleeves rolled so high as to show a round and wicked arm all most to the top, and the glimpse of an undervest. Ruth and Box, their hands clasped and their faces turned toward the light, may be battling against the