The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-05-22
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
Danger Signals.-1

DdfiscT SlSudlS-1.
/ The other day the papers told about
young woman who was out riding
with young man to whom she was
engaged. The horse SHE'D at a paper
| in the road, and that made the young
man angry, and springing from the
buggy and seized a stick and beat the
animal numerically.
| Whereupon. being an intelligent
young person who could read signs
when she saw them, the girl imme-
diately broke her engagement, declar-
| ing that she knew that a man who
would beat horse that way would
| beat woman as soon as she was his
wife and in his power.
| This incident Is interesting because
| it shows that at least one woman has
enough sense to take hint when it Is
given to her. and thus save herself
from trouble. 1t is also Illuminating
because it calls attention to the stupid
ity Of most of us, who blindly shut our
eyes and go stumbling on into misery
when there are plenty of danger sig
nails posted all along the road of life
| if we would only bother to take note
of them.
| One of the commonest excuses that
people make for matrimonial plumbers
| is that they were deceived, and did
not know the real disposition and
character of the individual they were
marrying. or else. Heaven knows. they
| to have united themselves to the ones
they did
To say this is to admit that we are
all of the thirty-seven different varie-
| ties of an idiot, and yet it is only too
true. We do marry people who have
the most Objectionable characteristics.
without so much as suspecting them,
when all the time we might have seen
their faults. If only we had used the
slightest detective ability.
Not many people are clever enough,
or designing enough to hide their real
| natures, and pretend to be something
| that they are not. They couldn't take
| US in if they tried. And they don't
try. 1t is we who deceive ourselves
simply because we don't use enough
| que out what certain signs must in
evitably portend.
t.. No man, for instance, would marry
a bossy woman who will henpeck him
all the days of his life, If he knew
! it beforehand. Yet he will see a girl
who has got her family under her
| thumb, who runs her home, and
| doesn't let her little sister come into
the parlor, or her father smoke ripe,
| without once perceiving that she will
| she has always practiced over hes wr,
people. 1t is his fate calling out
warning to him in a voice like mega
| phone. He hears the noise but he
| doesn't take the trouble to investigate
| it's meaning.
Nor would any man deliberately
marry shrewish woman with a red
| headed temper. and a double action
| tongue, if he was aware of it in time
| to sidestep the altar. Yet a man will
| observe that a girl is nervous, with
| thin lips. and quivering nostrils. and
| that she has the facility for saying
sharp things. and is easily "riled'', If
! things don't go exactly her way.
! Nature itself has hung out the red
| light danger signal in the hectic flush
| that comes with the slightest excite
ment in such woman's cheeks, but
| the poor, blind bat of a man never
stops for it. He rushes right along
| into a marriage that is a perpetual
I battlefront.