Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1903-11-20
A Mob Of Women.

One OF the most remarkabl silly
demonstrations made 10y presumably
sensible human beings was that at the
Roxburghe -Goelet wedding, in New
York, ON the 10th inst, and the mob
for we can call it nothing else-wss
composed OF women, several thousand
OF them, whose stylish appearance in
Dictated that they walked ordinarily in
the middle and higher pathways of
life. The exhibition, we are pleased to
know, is unparalleled, and seems to be
attributable to a form of hysteria
which sometimes overpowers large bod
les of people. There are times, under
great excitement, when people seem to
lose all reason, and it is induced by
a violent emotion from almost any
cause, love, veneration, fear, hatred, or
at times simply curiosity, and the
more distracting when the minds Of
large assemblages of people are swayed
by common psychic or hypnotic i'm.
pulse to follow each other in acts
which would be resisted with horror
when in the normal condition.
1t is said that there were several
thousand women in the streets ad-
joining st. Thomas church, and that
they not only blocked the way so as to
impede the wedding party in its ap.
proach to the sacred edifice, but that
they had to be removed by the police
using force; that they found entrance
to the church and had to be elected
by the ushers; that fifteen, we'll
dressed women attempted to gain en-.
trance by the coal-hole and the cellar,
and were removed with their raiment
ruined by coal dust; that they broke
down the altar-rail and tore down the
decorations and appropriated the flow
ers and vines for keepsakes; that they
thrust their arms through the windows
OF the BRIDES carriage and tore flowers
and lace from her garments and per.
formed other equally foolish acts, that
could not be sanctioned by the most
lenient license due such happy event.
Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, the
famous author OF Little Lord Faun-
leroy" in reply to query as to the
cause OF such an unseemly exhibit and
release from the restraints of propriety,
says:
"The mob seems to have lost all rea-
son. When I first heard of q mob of
women about the church doors and sur
rounding the brides carriage on the way
to the ceremony, could not credit it.
"That such morbid curiosity should
have actuated 30 great crowd as that
which made the wedding married event.
is Of itself astounding and perpleAing,
especially in view of the fact that the
great majority are described as being re-
spectacle, weil-dressed women.
"As the story was told me I began at
once to endeavOr to reach some solution
of the thing as problem. What finally
suggested itself to me is. that looking
back uron the history of all great mobs,
in fact all upheavals, such, for instance,
as the French Revolution. the mobs seem
to become hysterical and lose all reason.
People who under ordinary circum-
stances. and taken singly. are quite sane
and reasonable, when they find them
selves multiplied and under no immedi-
ately perceptible law, lose their heads,
and, as in this case, have to be dragged
away by their heels.
1.-The action of that mob of women
about st. Thomas in forcing their en-
trance into the church, Decorating the
place, breaking the sltar-rail and tearing
down the decorations. does not impress
one as the action of responsible persons.
than of mood that il respons IDLE for it.
aalfo