The Washington herald., 1918-03-29

One of the marveIs OF nature is
mans perpetual unsophistication
where women are concerned. and
the ease with which he can be sold
gold brick in the matrimonial con-
fidence game.
Age. observation. the experience
of others. the familiarity Of tricks
that have been repeated a million
times. appear to teach him nothing.
He still rises to the old bait, and is
hooked in the same manner as have
been countless others OF his prede-
| cessors.
In proof whereof consider the
story of the two women who have
recently been convicted of using the
mails for fraudulent purposes. Their
scheme was simplicity itself. They
subscribed TO a matrimonial journal
and answered the advertisements of
the men who sought for wives
through its columns.
| These women were literally all
| things to all men. and represented
! themselves as coming up to what
! ever requirements the man wanted
! in a helpmeet. but they explained
that the suitor would have TO send
them enough money for a wedding
dress and the railroad ticket. In this
manner they collected three thous-
and dollars before the heavy hand
of the law descended upon them,
and put a stop to their working the
gold mine of mans credulity about
women.
They sent along their pictures.
Oh, yes. but these pictures they OBJ
tanned by cutting the pictures out
of a movie magazine and pasting
them on bits OF cardboard. IF the
men had had any sense they
wouldn't have fallen for US" was
the only excuse that the women
urged in their own defense.
True. But when did man ever
evince any sense in dealing with
woman? No matter how clever a
man may be. no matter how keen
sighted everywhere else, no matter
how old and worldly wise and
cynical. no matter how cautious
he may be in other respects. when
/ he approaches the woman propo-
sition he lays aside all common
human intelligence, and becomes
as blindly trusting as a babes and
an easy mark for any vamp who
happens along his way.
Men don't reason about women.
They are guided by their desires.
and they believe that a woman is
just exactly what they want her
to be. without ever trying to find
out whether she is or not
These farmers wanted TO believe
that they would get wives for the
price of a railroad ticket and we'd
ding dress who would cook, wash. dc
dairy work. and be the living image
of Mary Pickford or Hazel Dawn
or Theda Bara, and so they send
along their money without further in
vestigation.
We laugh at them as easy marks
yet are they more stupid than the
men We see all about us who are
letting themselves be lured to the
altar by women who will make them
miserable wives, and who are accom-
plishing their purpose by means of q
few poor tricks so transparent that
even blind baby should be able tc
see through them?
There's the rich old man who mar
ries a girl young enough to be his
granddaughter, and Is perfectly as.
sured that his money has nothing to
|
for himself alone. OF course he
must have noticed that young girls
never fall in love with poor old men
but the fact doesn't rouse a single
suspicion in his breast, and when
his little darling tells him in one
breath about how she longs for a
string of pearls. and in the next how
she prefers mature men to callow
kids, he swallows it hook, line and
sinker.
How any girl of IS can run a finn
fam game on a man of sixty odd who
has engineered big deals and out.
witted the sharpest of his own sex, is
one of the mysteries that will never
be explained. But we've all seen il
done dozens of timea
Then there's the intellectual man
the man of books, cultured deeply
read. How often do we see him
married by a pretty little goose
who never read anything deeper than
a Robert Chambers novel in her life
and who hasn't two ideas in her
head.
Yet the wise man has married that
little idiot believing that he would
get companionship from her, and
that because her eyes were bright
with youth there was intelligence
and understanding behind them.
You would think that a man who
had devoted much of his life to q
study of feminine psychology, and
who could theoretically pick all OF
Roman's moods and tensas To pieces