The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1907-02-02
PLAIN TALKS TO WOMEN.

AS long as money likes OuI Stduu-
ard of social superiority, society it.
self can never be an elevating inhu
ence. Our ideas spring from the So
cial organism, and the uplifting of
the individual depends largely upon
the uplifting of society as whole.
Today the rich, having attained to
a plane of material independence, can
desist from labor and merely attend
to keeping things as they are. The
only motive which seems to move
them to any strenuous exertion is the
striving to differentiate themselves
in as many ways as possible from
their brethren whom they have dis
tanced in the race for wealth. In
particular it is through women, their
dress, their manners, their culture,
that the difference in classes can be
most easily and clearly shown, and
so it is naturally the women of the
wealthy classes who perform the
function of differentiating. The
first thing to be learned is that the
rich woman shall not do anything
voluntarily that the poor woman
must involuntarily do. She must be
everything that the poor woman can
not be. Her clothes, her manners,
her food, her habits, her education,
her accent, her companions, her very
body must exhale money. The ram
part of class distinction must be but
ressed by large bag Of gold at every
point of possible attack.
Of all the distinctions of class none
has shown more clearly that it was
the product of the desire of diferen-
tiation than the comparatively recent
charge of the attitude of the rich to-
ward bodily health and the care of
the body.
In the days before we had factories
and slums; and when the work in
which the woman of the poor was
forced to engage, usually tended to
keep her in good physical condition
rather than otherwise, health was
made a point of differentiation be-
tween her and her rich sister. So
much was this the case that the pop
ular fiction of the day always then
represented the poor woman as the
healthy mother of a large family,
thanking God for the honesty of her
husband and the health and virtue of
herself and children. To this picture
was always contrasted that of the
rich woman as half invalided moth
er spending part of her time burying
her sickly infants, and the balance
partly in grieving over the vice of her
husband and partly in envying the
fate of the healthy and virtuous poor.
The fashionable woman of the times
prided herself on her delicacy and
poor health. Blue blood, caused by
the veins showing through as the re-
suit of an anemic condition, was the
outward and visible manifestation of
a born aristocrat. But all this is now
passed.
Today the change in the nature of
woman's work, brought about by the
evolution of industry, has taken from
the woman of the poor the blessing
of health, and at the same time a
more correct knowledge of hygiene
and corresponding attention to phys
ical culture have resulted in the rich
woman learning how to gain health
at the very time the old reason for
her not wishing to be delicate disap-
peared. 1t now costs more to exer-
else and be healthy than to be idle
and delicate, hence it has ceased be-
ing fashionable for women of wealth
to be delicate. It was all very well
to be so when feebleness and delicacy
was an indication that poverty did
not force her to work, that she had
the money to afford to be sickly but
now that ill-health is an indication
that she cannot afford to purchase
health, the whole fashion is reversed.
This is particularly so when ill-health
in woman is more likely to be the
result of long hours in factory than
from lack of work. Sports cost money
and so it has now become fashionable
for the wealthy woman to go in tor
all sorts of outdoor sports, and more
over her body must furnish the proof
of her life. To be fashionable she
must be a magnificent physical exam
pie of all that a woman may be who
can spend her time exercising in the
open air yachting, gol6ng and auto
mobiling. She must have bright
eyes, high color, glossy hair, broad
shoulders, a slender athletic waist,
and narrow hips. She must suggest
horseback rides, tennis, rowing,
swimming and skating. Her body
must be 1.-THE from hours at fencing.
She must have clear skin, springy
walk and perfect teeth, for all these
are the signs by which the woman OF
her class is to be known, and they
all cost money.
The distinction between the health
of the mass of womankind on the one
hand and those of the wealthy class
on the other is becoming more appar-
ent every year. Yearly the women
of wealth and their children become
more beautiful specimens of what
the human body under proper condi-
tions can be made. But the wider
open the door of opportunity is to
the rich woman to make herself a
model of physical perfection, the more
closely shut it is to the poor woman.
Physical exercise to the poor woman
means taking time from her hours OF
sleep or from her time for intellectual
development, both of which are al
ready curtailed by her long hours in
the workshop. She is too exhausted
for further physical exertion, helpful
as she knows it may be. If she hac
the usual. reserve of physical force
which woman not overworked al
ways possesses, it would mean very
little to take the few moments night
and morning for the physical culture
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