The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-01-22
EUening Chat
An Unfair Game.
BY RUTH CAMERON.


If anyone asked you to play a game
with him, and to stake in it twice as
much as he staked, you would say
that the party who asked you to do
such a thing was mean and unfair,
wouldn't you?
Well, isn't that just what the mar
ried man who persuades a young girl
to go about with him and accept his
attentions is doing?
One of my most precious possessions
is little slip of paper on which are
typewriter the words:
1T may afford you some salts
faction to know that your few
lines of advice have deeply i'm
pressed a thoughtless, impulsive
girl of twenty-five, who only this
morning about decided to accept
and encourage the attentions of
married man of about forty years
who has been flattering and max
ing love to her for the past two
years.
That was sent me some years ago
and in the Intervening years, again
and again, 1 have come into touch
with these sordid, pathetic little tragi-
romanceS
see them in the business world, 1
hear of them in my home community,
people write me of girls whom they
know who are treading the path
where primroSeS so soon give way to
thorns, and sometimes the poor girls
themselves write to ask advice when
they begin to hurt their feet on the
thorns.
The thing that gets under my skin
in all these affairs is the unfairness
of them. They play the game to-
gether, he and she, but his stake is
always SO much less than hers
She is stalking her reputation, her
hope of a happy home of her own
with a good man who is in a position
to take her honorably as his wife, her
/ 4 i~i
her position.
His stake is the anger of his wife
! if she finds out, which she probably
won't. In some cases it might mean
| divorce, but little repentance, a re-
pudiation of the girl and a few assur-
ances that it was all her fault (Which
he will doubtless be willing to give)
will usually salve hurt like this, and
anyhow divorce doesn't mean to a man
what it does to a woman.
! 1 wish 1 could stop every girl who
is drifting into a relationship like this
| (thcy almost always do drift down the
apparently gentle stream of similar
tastes, loneliness, sympathy, platonic
| friendship. harmless little attentions
on the mans part and gratitude on
| the girls and never realize that under
meath that placid surface is the strong
current of sex attraction) and make
her look all the facts in the face.
1 wish she'd let herself see that he
| is meanly permitting ner to put up
more than her share in the stake;
that only a selfish man would risk
her happiness and the happiness of his
wife and children as he is doing, that
whatever happiness there is in it Tor
her can only be reached by the road
that leads over another woman
bleeding heart; and that the POSSIBLE
tiles of unhappiness and disgrace are
large.
And now. dear foolish girls, let me
tell you a true story. There was once
q girl whom 1 knew who drifted into
this sort of q relationship. At first il
was only Il platonic friendship (like
yours), but by and by it was more
She gave up everything for him, her
friends, her reputation, her own fam
lily By and by her health broke down
and she had to go away. By this
. time he was tired of her and made il
perfectly plain. One day she wrote
= him to ask if he would let her have
his old fur coat to protect her from
the bitter cold of the climate where
she was fighting for health. He re.
fused
: It's not a pretty tale. but it ough
to wake up some poor girl who i.
: dreaming foolish dreams. If it does
: know that other poor girl (she's dead
now will not be sorry l wrote hel
story Protected by The Adam.
Newspaper Service.)