Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-04-28
Ole
Home Maker
EDITED BY
ALICE f. TALCOTT.
The Meanest Girl.
ALICE F. TALCOTT.
(BY Dorothy Dix.l

ACI the luSducoJ man Ndo bAC man
whose attentions were without inten-
ticns. ! mean the man who just to
amuse himself and crafty his vanity
deliberately wins a girls affection,
Iuonopolizes her society, and keeps
her from marrying some other man,
although he never has the slightest
intention of marrying her himself.
A man, who agrees with my esti
mate of the meanest man. asks me
whom l consider the meanest girl in
the world
If l were called upon to hand out
the medals for pure, unadulterated
meanness l should bestow the decora-
tion on the girl who is a CRATER, the
girl who is a hinter, the girl who is
a sneak thief at heart, but who is too
c?wardly to do her own pocket pick
ing and take the risk of it, but
makes some man do it for his love
of her.
There are many bad and wicked
women, many women who ruin the
lives of men through their evil in
fluence, but there is not one who is
worse, or who does more harm than
the grating girl. She occupies a
fine place in society, and considers
herself a model of virtue. and yet
there is many a bedrabbled woman of
the street who has a kinder and no.
bier heart than she, and many a
woman thief serving her term in
prison who is more honest.
The girl CRATER is young. She is
pretty. She looks soft and tender,
but a marble statue has not less
feeling nor less sympathy. She is
determined to have things, and she
does not care how she gets them,
nor what suffering the getting of
them entails on other people.
Her first victim is her father. You
see him often. A shabby, weary,
worn man, with bent shoulders, who
tolls far beyond his strength to sup
ply his grating daughter with fin
cry. He is being killed by inches to
buy her silks and satins and send
her to places of amusement, but nc
pity for him for ever stirs her stony
heart. She would sell his very body
Ond cntt1 for thirty tNin nf 81
or thirty cents-if she thought it
good bargain, and the most she coulC
get out of him.
But the grating girl is only try
ing her prentice hand en- father
She gets in her great and perfec
work when she is grown and wheI
she can use all of the charms of hel
womanhood to decoy unwary youth!
into her parlor and rob them.
OF course, the grating girl is al
ways on the lookout for some ricf
man to marry, but in the meantime
while she is waiting for the money
bags to come along, she does not dis.
cain small game, and there is nc
man on small salary so poor and
so needy that she cannot wheedle
something out of him in the way OF
a present or treat.
She can't talk two minutes with
man without discanting on how
Sha 1nvac tho tbaa+ra o.d - .
see some particular play, and how
she dotes on sitting in a box, until
she backs him up into corner where
he has to have superhuman courage
TO refrain from asking her to &c
with him to see the play that she
has determined he shall take her to.
When she has birthday CIR Christ
mas rolls around, she holds up every
man she knows and forces him to
send her the expensive presents she
wants, and that she has already
picked out for him to give her
And she's so subtle and insidious
in her ways that the men who have
been mulcted never know how it hap
pens that they are always sending
her candy and jewelry and silk
stockings, and taking her to expen.
sive places of amusement. But she
knows. She is perfectly aware Of
how to work them by hints and ca
jOlery, and playing one man. of
against another and telling Bob how
perfectly dear and sweet il was o
Tom to give her that silver mesl
bag, until Bob feels that he will b,
piker and tightwad if he doesn'
come across with hand-carved sill
Yer vanity case.
The grating girl is the meanes
girl in the world.
1t is the girl CRATER, and sh
grows up into the grating woman
who is responsible for many a man
dishonesty. Weak of the man? O
course But what man is stron
when the woman he loves is urgin
him on, tempting him. tender whe
his hands are full. cold when the
are empty?