The Leon reporter., 1901-03-07
Dancing and Things.

We are requested to publish the fol
lowing very sensible article taken from
the Enlporia (Kas. Gazette:
Last night there was a big Mixed
dance in town. At the opening there
were all kinds of people present-the old
crowd and the young crowd, and the
north endeFs and the south enders and
the truldle bed trash and the mqsh and
milk brigade, and few delegates from
the Kitchen sweats, and officers OF the
biscuit artillery, and others classified and
unclassiaed. At eleven or half-past, the
girls who travel in the palms and ferns
and smilax and chrysanthemum sets,
north of the trocha, Ne1t home. 1t was
late enough and good place to go.
The others stayed. They wanted to get
their moneys worth. ln half an hour
the young men, who took the more par
ticular girls home, came back to the
dance and danced with the girls who
stayed, and with whom they would not
have been seen dancing by their part
Aers early in the evening for pretty
penny. Also these hoys-who are not
doing the manly nor decent social thing
laughed at the girls in private and
took little Ppp-like liberties With them
in dancing that YES neither respectful to
the girls, nor the demeaagr Of gentle
men.
Now why9 Why do these boys treat
these young women 90 disrespectfully?
Why do the boys play horse before
these girls and walk chalk line before
the other girls? 1t is not matter Of
money. The parents of the girls, who
60 into what is called the best society
in this town are not all fairly we'll to do.
Their fathers work for aliying and often
a meager living. Their mothers keep
boarders and some of the girls them.
selves who move in the best set, are
working girls, who get no more money
and do no meaner work than the girls
who let the boys wool them oyer in the
SECOND hand dance. Yet why do the
boys do itf
The Gazette Is going TO talk plain to
these girls, because no one else seems to
be doing SO. The fact of the business is
this, that q girl makes her place in So
ciety; she doesn't make it by money;
she doesn't make it by the standing her
parents have; she doesn't make il by
her residence; she makesit by the way
she ssholds herself" If she stands the
sort Of thing these girls stood last night.
she is counted that sort Of a girl-and
you know exactly what that sort of q
girl is. A girl is What she makes her
self. She commands as much respect as
she demands. And whatever loss of
self respect she suffers she loses in the
respect of others.
The Gazette admires these girls who
work and who feel that they have to
take these insults from the snippy boys.
But the Gazette also wishes these young
women you'd learn a little sense-a little
social sense. The Gazette would like to
see them make themselves q little less
common. No one makes the girl COM
mon but the Girl herself. And girls
whD stand the Kind Of treatment the
girls stood last night, the girls who flirt
with travelling men, the girls who are
free With their favors, get just exactly
what they bargain for; the disrespect Of
the community that is eyer so hard. to
regain.
Mothers ought to tell their daughters
these THINGS probably many mothers
do. But the girls think their mothers
are "slow:" that they are oldfashioned;
that they never want a girl to have a
good time. The truth is the mothers
know what Q pup the average young
man is. The mothers have been through
the mill. They have seen other girls
ground into the grist of hell, by this mill
and the mothers who are wise fear wisely.
Why won't daughters learn some
sense, and have little self-respect?
This is plain talk. But the facts
prove that it is needed.
You should not feel tired all the time
healthy people don'tyou won't if
you take II God g arsapariila for awhile