The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-11-22
Keep An Eye on
 Your Daughter
Dorthy. Dix in New Orleans
 Picayune.

I Picayune. N ess<sss 7ss SsesGeSO
 An incident that throws a queer social side light on the negligence of parents re- gently occurred in Brooklyn. In that city, week or two ago, q young woman of blameless character and respectable fam fly was murdered under mysterious cir eumstances. In the investigation into the crime that followed, it developed that, although the murdered girl was soon to be married to a man who had been pay ing court to her for years, none of hec family knew either his address or his occupation.
 This case is a remarkable and, per- haps, a fragrant one of the carelessness of parents, but it illustrates the abso- lute recklessness with which American girls are permitted to marry and in a way explains the prevalence of the di- vorce evil among us It is a national peculiarity that no other people in the world makes such a fetish of their daugh- ters as we do. and no other people de so little to safeguard them. We rear them as tenderly as a hot-house plant we do not suffer the wind to blow harshly upon them, and then we chuck them out into life to live or die, with broken hearts or without, as chance may determine.
 No better example could be given of this than is found in the criminally loose way in which girls are permit ed to make acquaintances and form their own visiting list of people with whom their parents are totally unacquainted. Our darling Maud meets Tom, Dick and Harry at a party or on the golf links, or Is introduced to Adolphus or Augustus on the street car by some other girl just as poor a judge of character as ignorant and as undiscriminathing as she is her selif The man who met the man, who Saw the man. who knew the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo does not present fewer or hazier credentials as passport to our home. Nevertheless. in accord with the ethics of our beautifully democratic society, Tom, Dick and Harry. snd eke Adolphus and Augustus. happen Ing to pass the house and being pleased with Mauds beaux yeux, drop in for a sall and, before anybody knows 1t. like Inc Vaneefings. they are established as her oldest friends.
 Apparently nobody stops to inquire who Tom, Dick and Harry are, what sort Of family they came from, what they are ioing. or what sort of a moral character they possess. Sometimes Maud's mother has a speaking acquaintance with her daughters beaux. sometimes she has not As for Maud's father he doesn't know them by sight; and as for Investigating The character of young Smith, or young Jones. or young Brown. who are camping on his doorstep and perhaps, holding his daughters hand, he would never dream of putting himself to so much trouble. Yet in other matters, Mauds father Is neither blindly trusting nor wildly reck- less. If he were going to hire a ten- dollar-a-week clerk he would look into the applicants references. ascertain whether he played the races or was addicted to drink; and if he were going to trust him with his cash drawer. instead of his daughter. he would require him to give bonds for his conduct. It is only with his daughters welfare that he takes chances, and, as a matter of fact, the attitude of the general father who gets Dun's or Bradstreet's report on his clerks and takes his daughters visitors on trust, can only be compared to the prudence of a man who would lock up a stock of iron pots and kettles in his fireproof safe and leave his government bonds on the side walk.
 When a strange man appears on the scene, or opens uD voluminous corre- Epondence with Maud, he is sufficiently explained if Maud says she met him at Mrs. Flighties. or was introduced to him by Cholly Addlepate. yet on no other sub ject would Mauds parents take the opin- lon of a woman notoriouslY silly and inn nuisive. or of man whose judgment they dcspise and whose discretion they doubted. So it happens that hundreds of girls all about us are receiving visits. and going to parties. and writing letters to men of whom ther fathers and moth CTS know absolutely nothing, and it is to the standing glory of the manhood of our country that so little harm comes of these uncensored acduaintances. and that American men protect American girls bet ter than their own parents do.
 But if parents are recklessly careless in letting men visit their daughters that they do not know, they are criminal in letting men come to their houses that they do know and who. for any reason. they are unwilling to let their daughters marry All Of us have seen young lives wrecked and young hearts bruised and broken times without number. bv this parental sturidity. Fathers and mothers may set it down as an unalterahle fact that youth is youth and love is love and that their own children are going to fol- low the primrose path. just like every other lad and maiden. When young Grigshv takes to snending seven evenings a week at their house. and he and Maud develop an ability to talt to each other from o'clock until midnight without yawning they are not discussing the po- IiticaI outlook or the state of the mar. ket or the chances of Pea~v discove-ine the north pole. They have gotten down to business and to the one question of which no human heinC ever hears enough the old. old question: DO you love me?' It Is not considered whether young GriRshv is ireliriS'e or not He may be cousin. and Mouds parents may have violent views on the subject of cous%e marrying: he may be of a different re- Hgious faith and MaS5's parents may he franticSlly opposed t' people marry ing out of fheir own church: he may have