Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1913-07-10
Williams in Indianapolis News
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"THEH SAY" AND "HAVE YOT
HEARDP
From the Pictorial Review

They say Have you heard ,"
Two wee phrases Five short words
But they have done more damage than
all the rest of the dictionary rolled
together! They have wrecked homes
and broken hearts. They have ruined
promising careers and thrown bust
ness firms into bankruptcy. They have
disrupted churches and plunged old
friends into bitter legal fights. They
have driven men to drink and women
to insanity. They have robbed inno-
cent children of their parents and sent
young girls, broken hearted and I'M
welded to their graves. They have
turned merely foolish girls into wicked
ones and they have sent innocent men
to prison. And they belong particular
ly to the vocabulary of women. They
are peculiarly the weapons of the So
called gentler sex.
Marshall Briggs arrested Jim Jones
for beating his wife" remarks d man
to the circle of loungers in the post
office. And it is so. Jim Jones is tried
and fined in open court. This is not
gossip. 1t is a plain, brutal statement
of fact
Have you heard that Mrs. Blank
has left her husband?" inquiries Mrs.
Meddlesome at the Sewing Circle.
They do say he treats her something
awful. Last night coming home trCIQ
prayer meeting my Mary hea 4 aer
carrying on fearfully and this morning
l saw, her bag in hand, hurrying ter
the 7:40 train. They say she ) gon"
bacl TO her folks"
And so Tom Blank, silent, perhaps
eycL surly, but adored by his under
s::nu wife, acquires reputation
for GEelty, when in reality Mrs. R,a!.k
was carrying on" over a teleg:l II an
nouncing the death Of her favorite sis
ter In her grief she had forgotten
to announce to her curious neighbors
that she was going home to the flu
neral.
Had the meddlesome and imaginative
mother of Mary, the eavesdrOpper,
been pinned down to facts, she must
have admitted that no one had really
heard Of Mrs. Blanks leaving her hus-
band and that no one had said that
he treated his wife lily. The entire
story was built on the imagination and
sensational tastes of a gossip-monger
Innocent, if surly, Mr. Blank wonders
why his neighbors look at him coldly
in his hour of loneliness. When Mrs.
Blank returns she must add to the
burden of her grief that of denying an
ugly story about her home life.
All this does not mean that men are
devoid of curiosity or malice, only that
they have a more direct and a safer
way of justifying both. They go after
facts. Men do gossip but they repeat
what they know. Women take a
chance on repeating the little they
have seen, plus the much they have
heard, and color the result with a
thick application of imagination. Men
rarely use the phrase, They say
Rather it is, Brown told me-" And
then Brown is held responsible for the
'rumor or the statement Men may be
curious about the doings of their neigh
bors or what goes on in the offices
and stores of their competitors. but
they also have a wholesome respect
for scandal and libel laws, and sam
pie and practical way of demanding
facts concerning current stories.
The story which is built on facts. or
the bit of gossip which is cruel but
true, will not work an injustice, nor
injure the innocent. But the tale pre-
faced by the little phrase They say"
is reasonably sure to drag some guilt
less party through the mire of scandal