The Washington herald., 1916-11-17
Isolate the Gossip Peddlers.
By ORIs0N SWEET MARDEN,

4 ~~SSAF S0NASaos
By ORIsoN SWEET MARDEN.
The New York State Board of Health reports
that there are some thirty-nine habitual carriers
of typhoid germs in that State,
There is one among them who has long been
known as Typhoid Mary" She was formerly
cook, but is now practically prisoner of the city
isolated at Blackwells Island; yet the only crime
she has ever committed is that she spreads typhoid
germs and 1t is dangerous to the health of the
community to have her at large. Physicians have
traced at least twenty cases of typhoid to her.
| This woman suffers seriously from what is no
fault of hers. She cannot help being uneon-
lsciously dissemnator of these dangerous germs
Nevertheless she is socially ostracized; everybody
avoids her because they afraid she may infect
them with the dread disease of typhoid.
| What pity that the dissemnators of all sorts
of dangerous mental germs-germs that destroy
character, that blight happiness, blot out the light
of hope and courage and ruin innocent lives-are
not isolated; put away where they will not have
power to injure and destroy their fellow -beingsi
There are tens of thousands of habitual gossip
germ carriers who are far more dangerous to So
ciety than the carriers of any merely physical
germs. There are people in every rank of society
who spread germs more deadly than the typhoid
germ. They gossip They are mind poisoners
Many women who stand we'll in society peddle
gossip germs and kill regulations destroy the hap
piness of innocent beings people who never in
jured them without shadow of compunction.
These women form the gossip habit. Many of
them do not really think of the enormity of what
they do; they do not out Of pure malice mean to
injure the people they talk about; but they pass
injurious gossip along from force of habit
The tattlers, those who are always meddling
and misunderstanding, carrying gossip from one
to another, are the sort of people who Henry Ward
Beecher says always speak dirt" "When the alb
sent are spoken Of" Beecher says, some will
speak gold of them, some silver some iron some
lead, and some always speak dirt; for they have
natural attraction toward what is evil and think
1t shows penetration in them. AS cat watching
for mice does not look up though an elephant
goes by. so they are so busy mousing for defects,
that they let great excellences pass them un-
noticed. l will not say that it is not Christian
to make beads of others faults and tell them over
every day; | say it is internal. If you want to
know how the devil feels, you do know if you
are such one"
Some gossip peddlers seem to think that unless
they tell deliberate lie about some one they are
not gossipng slandering. But it is just as wick
ed to pass along gossip that would tend to mar
another's happiness blight another's life as it
is to start the gossip. Indeed the one who passes
along the original story whether it be true or false
may be worse than the originator. He may exag-
gerate or add to the original, though perhaps not
in words, in such way to make it more in
furious, more deadly when it reaches the next gos-
sip. shrug of the shoulder, an insnuating ges-
ture, the lifting of an eyebrow, may do this. One
can multiply and intensity story without chang
ing or adding word. Many a reputation has been
blighted by significant gesture, by subtle innuen-
dos and insinuations, expressed in silent panto-
mine.
The peddler of scandal and petty gossip wheth-
er it be man woman is the meanest, the
crueleSt and most contemplate criminal on the
face of the earth Yet there are plenty of gossips
who would feel grievously insulted to have the
word criminal applied to them. These people would
never think of taking penny or appropriatng
anything of the slightest value belonging to Others
yet they will not hesitate to smrch their reputa-
tions and rob them of their good names They
would never think of nfcting the least bodily
harm on others, but they do not hesitate to stab
them behind their backs with their cruel gossip
1t is a thousand times better to strike person
in the face than to stab him with cruel words
behind his back
The Good Book tells US that the power of life
and death is in the tongue The gossip is con-
tinually dealing death with his tongue And like
the coward he is, he always stabs in the back