The Republican journal., 1899-07-13
Plain Talk from Kansas.

In decided contrast to the ''Side Talks
with Girls,' Heart Throbs," and the
sickly sentimentalities of Ella Wheeler
Wilcox and her imitators is the following
article from the Emporia, Kansas, Gazette
IN BEHALF CT THE BOYS.
Because the graduating classes of the
schools and colleges contain dozen girls
TO three or four boys, at this season OF the
year it is the time honored custom to jaw
the boys of the land for not staying in
school. Boys are used to jawing. They
get it at home. They get it when they
try to rest, and they do not mind it much.
Still it is wearing on their nerves. And
because the Gazette is a friend of boys,
this paper desires to give the girls of this
town dose of jawing that the boys have
stood patiently tor generation.
A great deal of jawing is done because
the boys come down town at night, and
loaf all around Commercial street. Per
haps the boys would be better off at home
reading good books, or thinking high,
ennobhng thoughts, but the Gazette de-
sires to say right here that boys are in lot
better business down on Commercial
street than their sisters who are rugged
out in fluffy dresses, perched on the front
porch, waiting for fellows; too many girls
in this town are given over body and soul
to the fellow business, and their brothers
who smoke an occasional cigar, or drink
a glass Of beer once in a while, Will be
worth lots more to this world than these
morbid, hand holding, rattle -Pated fell
low chaseIs. And they are becoming too
numerous. Put two average Emporla
girls in a room together and you can
hear the work .'le,'' ''he, - ''he," bub-
BILE through their conversation for hours
at a time. Ii some smart man would
come along and put up temple with
nothing but a pair OF trousers on the
altar, it would seem that these girls W ould
pack the house day and night with their
devotions. Fathers complain about their
boystruc girls, but mothers encourage
it. They go away and leave their daugb-
tiers on dark front steps with peach faced
kids, who couldn't support motion to
adjourn, and when 1t gets mighty quiet
down there, the father upstails in bed
growls. and wants to 60 down and break
it up. He knows what's going on. But
the mother fears to embarrass the girl,
ana let's the folly proceed. The Gazette
contends that the boys down on CONNER
cial street, who haven't passed out of the
eighth grade in school, who are loating
after hard day S work, are deserving of
more praise, and will bring more honor
to the family, than the silly girls who go
TO school and learn just enough TO hate
dish water, and then come home and
spend their evenings incoming and hand
holding with any dirty faced boy that
comes along.
The Gazette would advise parents to
-. A.
attention to the girls. Society is so az
ranged that fool boy can see his folly and
repent of it; but a fool girl has no chance
She needs advice badly. The world beats
sense into boy. BY the time the world
has beaten sense into girl, she is settled
for life, and can mend matters and use
her sense. Between the ages of Is and
y, girl needs sound, plain talk fearfully
bad, and she generally doesn't get it, be-
cause her mother thinks she is an angel
She isn't an angel, and there are more
temptations to a girl at home in the parlor
and on the front stoop than the boy finds
down town. There are hundreds Of good
girls in this town; girls who work hard
and keep their hearts and minds clean,
and who preserve ideals that will bring
happiness aud hold it through adverst.
ana trials, But these girls have sensible
mothers, who know that a girl is made of
the SAME kind OF flesh and blood that the
boys are made Of. But TOO many girls
are growing up like weeds. and the Won
der IS that there is not more trouble with
them than there is. For when a girl gets
boy struck, she is a bigger fool than
boy with an Inherited taste for whiskey.
Men who know something about their
own tollles are wise enough to know that
Other things beside the whiskey taste are
hereditary.
The men growl, but it does no good.
With the advent of summer the hand
holding tournaments begin. Why doesn'
some of the row at the breakfast table
that the boy gets for coming in after cur
few, fail ON the head of his big sister
who moons around until nearly midnight
on the front porch with her fellow? Let
up on the boys. If they work all day,
they should be allowed little liberty;
but when girl shirks the cooking. and
sights the dishes and slouches around
the house in wrapper all day, and toys up
at night and lays in wait for fellow like
huntress for her prey, she is every bit as
bad hearted as a whiskey tiend, and if she
calls ner ailment love. she should be told
frankly that her diagnosis is wrong. Love
doesn't act that way. Love makes its
victims work it aspires them to achieve
ments. 1t is the motor that moves the
world. But moonshine destroys the soul,
and the best antidote is good spanking.
Too many mothers quit spanking their
daughters five years too early. The
Gazette believes that every girl she aid be
spanked IN the old fashioned, bare hand
fashion until she can and does make her
own clothes, cook the family meals, and
take care of her own room. If she
doesn't learn until she is twenty, she is a
child and needs the red finger marks just
as badly as youngster of eight.
CHILD ENJOYS