The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-04-09

on gossip on this page and asked
 the opinion of some of the Corner 0 ties on the views put forth at that
 time. Following are few of the letters l have received on the subject, and l am sure it will interest others as well as myself to observe the wide diver gence in points of judgment.
 The first letter I give is from a valued correspondent whose communications have frequently appeared on this page and always with pleasure and profit to the readers:
 '' was much interested in your chat on gossip, and I believe it is subject on which we should all think seriously. First. we should ask ourselves, What is gossip?'
 :. am so thoroughly interested and in sympathy with every one I meet that sometimes I'm afraid people may think me a gossip, so I should be glad to have some one define the word gossip. I have met few scandal mongers, but I always gave them wide berth. But if we discuss our neighbors, even their in timate family affairs can't see why we should be supposed to be gossiping.
 q Let something unusual happen any eIiSl ' elilO ilOW qulSh bliC pdpSIS dlS lO get the details and how quick we are to get those papers! Why? Is it because we are natural born gossips? No, but because it is human nature always to be asking for the unusual. We listen to unusual tales about our neighbors, not because we delight to see the evil of their ways, but that we may compare them with ourselves or with other peoples affairs and learn what is best or not best In life. Women would not have been slaves so long if they had not covered up their domestic affairs and tried to make other women think they lived lives of connubial bliss, but as they grew wiser and compared notes with other woman they learned that others were suffering the same neglect and abuse and so they held a conclave and decided to take mat ters in their own hands.
 q Somehow I can't agree with the wom- an who said, There is something of the carrion crow in each of us She goes on to say, The woman fairly smacked her lips after telling some bit of scandal as though she had just had something good to eat I believe that the woman was only gloating because she had been the first to tell the news. Don't our daily papers boast in large type how their own columns were the first to publish the news? Then why should a woman be condemned by doing what we are willing and anxious to pay the newspapers for doing?
 lost women's lives are so narrow and -lonotonous that gossip, as it is called, is really necessary to rouse them out of the rut they are in. That is why, in small communities, one hears such trivial gos- sip.
 q The harm in gossip is that so few ever tel: & thing as they hear it. I think it would be funny world if nobody wanted to know about any one else. If some woman comes to me with an unlikely tale about people I know well question her authority, and if I think she has mis- judged these people from the information she has had. try to argue her out of 1t in a kind, friendly way. If I think she tells the story just for spite or that she knows nothing tor sure, tell her plainly how un-Christian she is. To my knowl- edge have never made an enemy or an unpleasantness by following this plan. I hat is the stand I have taken in SUD- pressing gossip.
 |" may be wrong in my ideas If so wish some one would convince me other wise. because I try to live my life as near ly right according to my lights as pos sible. I am always willing that every one who cares to may gossip about me to their hearts content, and furnish all the materic, I have, but it would help me so much if I only knew how they saw me. so that I could mend my ways.
 AUNT MAUD"
 The paragraph of this letter which asks for definition of gossip can answer with the aid of the dictionary. Gossip; ldle talk, as of one friend or acquaintance tc another; especially, confidential or minutely personal remarks about other people; tattle; scandal; trifling or ground