Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1911-06-02
Gossip Gives Life

TN Germany, where everything thai
l you have a human impulse to do
is "verboten," the burgomaster of g
small town has undertaken to stor
women from talking too much. Cos
sip is given the double cross" as il
were, and dire penalties are to be in.
flicted on those ladies who are given
to discussing their neighbours affairs,
The worthy burgomaeter believes
that the trict enforcement of this law
will bring about a reign OF peace and
sweetness and light in which the
newsgatherer shall cease from troub-
ling and women's tongues will be al
rest. 1t is to inaugurate sort of
earthly millennium in which your
dearest friend will not publish to the
word the secret you have told her in
strlctest confidence, and in which YOU
may be the first one to leave an af-
ternoon tea party without the dread
certainty that you are leaving your
character behind you.
If the law against gossip could be
enforced-which, thank Heaven, 1t
never can-what good little place
mat german village would be, and
now 1ntolerably dull! How safe it
would be to live there except for the
danger of yawning ones self to
death! How elevating the conversa-
ton, where one might discuss moth
ing but Shakespeare and the musical
glasses, and how tediousi
For gossip is the very ozone in the
atmosphere of social intercourse
Take that away and all talk expires
OF hamilton. If Mrs. A. and Mrs. =.
cannot discuss Mrs. C.'s little peeul-
1arities when they meet, what inter-
est have they in meeting? It's the
exchange of personalities that makes
the world go round. Otherwise, we
could each live, shut up in our sep
arate sphere. as calm, self-contain-
ed, emotionless and as unfeeling as
an oyster in a shell.
The truth is that instead of being
abolished, gossip is thing to be en-
couraged and promoted. Not scan
dal mongering, of course, though
there is no more effective police
force in the world than "They say"
The fear of our neighbors' tongues
40 ttiC .bSS1lAAlAE VI NllluS WIFI the
majority of us, and many a man who
walks the straight and narrow path,
and many a woman who is a model
wife and mother would do deal of
side-stepping if they could be per-
fectly assured that they wouldn't be
talked about.
Not all gossip, however, is mali
cious. Most of it is just a kindly hui
f-afn In
tie sorrows and joys, and it is the
touch of nature that makes the
whole world kin 1t is the outward
expression of kind heart, a gener-
GUS hand and q catholic sympathy.
Show me the woman who collects
news as irresistibly as O magnet
picks up iron filings; who knows
what the people next door have for
breakfast; and how often the beau
of the girl across the street comes to
see her; and when the wash-woman' S
husband beats her; and what Mrs.
Brown said to Mr.. Brown when Mr..
B. stayed out until 8 o'clock at the
lodge, and 1 will show you a good,
kind woman who is always ready to
sit up with the sick, to give to the
poor, and to mingle her tears with
She belongs to the great sister
hood and brotherhood of life. and
she is interested in other peoples af-
fairs just because her heart is beat
ing in tune with theirs
Show me a woman who never Cos
sips, who never knows the people
next door to her even by name, who
never inquiries who is dead when she
tho yuhitn Init aptY,
the house across the street; who new
er knows why her servants go about
with smiling faces or tear-swollen
eyes, and l will show you a woman
whose selfshness and egotism are
steel lined and copper riveted.
She is woman without sympathy,
without heart, without generosity,
without EMOTION woman who
does not care a picayune what hap
pens to the balance Of the world SO
long as things go well with herself
Robert Louis Stevenson put being
good gossip at the head of the de-
sirable qualities that man should
look for in picking out a wife; and
he wasn't amiss in doing so.
There are no women such agree
able companions as those sprightly
ladies who, during the day, accu-
mulate an interesting budget of
harmless news that they vivaciously
retail over the dinner table
Fancy these delightful gossips be-
ing suppressed, and having to sit up
and gorge ones food in silence, or
else listen while Madam discoursed
upon the philosophy of Ibsen, or the
symbolism of Maeterlinck, instead of
being RECALLED upon the details of the
filtration of the widow with the per-
oxidized hair, and the inner details
of the spat between MIR. and Mrs.
Smithkins!
Of course, men, who make a pre-
tense of despising women's tattle,
will give loud approval to the law
suppressing it; but every wife will
bear testimony that the masculine
adherence of gossip is only a pose,
and that her husband never reproyes
her for talking about her neighbors
until after she has told him the last
word of her story.
1t would, indeed, be a sad and
dreary day should the burgomaster's
law, suppressing gossip be generally
enforced. We should all bore each
other to extinction; for the only sub
ject of perpetual interest that never
flags is just our neighbors.