Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-03
WHY WASHERS" EXIST

man on BroaawaN. As she ran she kept
her rolled umbrella upraised. Her purpose
was to catch the elderly man and chastise
him with the umbrella. That purpose was
obvious to everybody. Il was particularly
obvious to the elderly man-so obvious that
he sprinted good and hard to avoid such
disaster. Despite his age, he was the bet
ter runner, making allowance, too, for the
fact that the young woman was hampered
by her skirts and by her very high heels
in the sprfnting business. After being
chased for block or so tine elderly man
numbered into an office building, jumped
into an elevator that was fortunately wait
ing on the ground floor, and went up to
to blow over.
The gaudy young woman. folled In her
effort to belabor elderly man with her
eiose-roiied umbrella. gathered a crowd
+ around the entrance to the Office building
by excitedly declaiming that the elderly
man was maSher, and that he had made
goo-goo eyes at her a couple of blocks be-
low on Broadway; wherefore she had in
tended to club him with her umbrella had
she been able to catch him
NOW, that elderly man hadn't tried to
goo-goo That girl at all. He Is one of the
solidest and most decent men in all New
York-a banker of the most unimpea liable
reputation In everything that appertains
TO high-grade man. He is the father of
a large family of grown daughters, has no
pleasure In life except in his own home is
just as far removed morally from the gay
oiu oos class as he is geographically re-
moved from Spltzbergen, and would Just
ABOUT as soon lie down and let a subway
car run over him as even dream of flirting
with a young woman. or an old woman,
any other kind of a woman on the street
or anywhere else. In addition to a. sort
Of cherubic rosy face. which gives him the
constant appearance of smiling, this thor
oughly decent elderly banker has a nervous
affection of the eyes, which at times causes
them to roam about until he gets a certain
focus, and when that focus Is reached
makes 1t impossible for him to remove his
gaze until the momentary paralysis of his
orbs has passed II he got that focus
dxed on the eye OF a yellow dog he couldn't
remove 1t until he'd passed on. And that's
how 1t happened. The young woman with
the punitive umbrella just got the wrong
..ea. that's all. She had a sort OF a chip
on her shoulder, and was just waiting for
something to happen that would enable her
to use her umbrella upon some british and
Boettan male person.
These imaginative women, who dream
that most of the peripa tetic males they meet
on the street are trying to slip them the
goo-g goo lamp are becoming mighty frequent
and numerous these days anyhow You
can hardly pick up paper without reading
about some women clubbing some man on
the allegation which she excitedly puts
forth after 1t is all over that he has at
tempted to mash her. l have gone to the
bottom of lot of these cases, and have
actually seen plenty of them. I've found
that the women are mistaken in about three
cases out of five.
There are some specimens of that grisy
species, the masher of course proving
about the streets of all cities; but there
are not one-tenth as many Washers as
some OF these imaginative women try to
make themselves believe there are.
There's one fact connected with this
| masherand-mashed business that stands
out In the light in plain view of all rea-
sonable persons, namely that not one
male person out of million, including the
actual masher, will take the chance of ac-
costing woman or even giving her the
happy eye unless she gives him the office
as the things called. Even the masher
doesn't pick out the woman on the street
who behaves, and, as for the non-masher,
he'd just as soon take a chance on trying
to attract the attention of girl or woman
who is going about her business as he
would of knocking a crossing cops helmet
off his head. Flirty men don't try to en-
gage in the asinne business of flirting with
women who manage their eyes circum-
specify.
"a woman who conducts herself with
propriety on the street-on any street in
any American city-will get by all right,
ninety-nine times out of a hundred, with
out ever being bothered by any male brute,
| masher or otherwise. But when girl or
woman fiirts along, giving out sort of half
smiles and saucyr eyes and thus laying her
self liable to the imputation that she
wouldn't resent a little word or so spoken
| under the breath of the passing man whose
attention she thus attracts, it's up to her
to take the consequences without COM
| plant.
Not long ago in Cincinnati they arrested
and punished a MISUNDERSTANDING young
| woman who had 'umbrelia'd O. about half a
| dozen male pedestrians for trying to mash
| her. as she told the police. 1t was found
| that this young female person deliberately
| firted with men for the purpose of having
| them fall to her charms, and then, when
they addressed her, turned upon them and
| tried to whang the daylights out of them
| y, Is.y, in
! than suspected by the police, and they ver-
| fed 1t by putting their best-looking detec-
tive on the shopping beat generally taken
by the young woman with the record for
umbrella cases. He met up with the girl
in due time. and she gave him the cum
min eye and the CHEEKY smile, and when
he walked over to her and made some
trifiing remark upon how much weather
there seemed to prevail, she up and tried
| to get her umbrella into action. She found
the umbrella coolly wrenched out of her
hands in something less than twinklng,
however, and about four minutes later she
found herself taking a ride in one of those
hurry-up vehicles. When the police put
her through a few of the little degrees she
broke down and. owned up that she'd got
by with her little stunt all those times
purely out of a love for notoriety
Il know fat women of fifty, and lean,
hatchet-faced spinsters of equal years, who
are complaining all the time that they just
simply can't go downtown without whole
persons-generally strapping. handsome
young men, the rude creatures!-trying to
flirt with them on the streets. They re-
mark petulantly that in their opinion it's
a sin and a shame that men on the streets
can't let 'us girls alone. And they never
see that they're just jokes. Even when
they catch the men who overhear these
remarks exchanging glances winking at
each other. they don't get next. They go
right on spinning their web about how the
| louis Of well-dressed men-'men that look
as If they ought to be gentlemen'-try to
ogle them on the streets, and all that.
ION the other hand. / know any number
of unusually beautiful women who frankly
nrofess themselves to be puzzled over all
these MASKING stories they are hearing
about and reading about all the time. They
saw that they have never been ogled or adj
dressed on the street by a masher in their
lives, and they simply can't understand
their immunity, in view of all the yarns
they hear about the MASKING that is sup
posed TO be constantly going on everywhere
These women are women who. conduct
themselves circumspectly on the streets
They aren't possessed of the rowing. saucy
eve. They don't even dream of taking the
initiative in any Irritation business, because
| l-.A. ~ ~ Is,