Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-09-23

tn HE other day woman complained to
ner husband that every time she met
a certain man, on the streets, or in
the cars that he oggled her. and tried to flirt
With her. This so Infatuated the husband
that he shot and fatally wounded the man.
who protested with his dying breath that he
had never noticed the woman at all, and
could not even distinguish her in his mem
DRY from the crowd of females he saw every
where, every day
The murdered man was a. staid. resnecta-
BILE husband and father, with no Don Juan
tendencies, and no leanings towards the dou-
BILE life. Undoubtedly he spoke the truth
when he protested his innocence of having
cast amorous glances at the lady, and il was
only her standardization that made her see
herself irresistible to every passing male.
But her vanity cost a fellow creature his
lie, widowed sister woman, orphaned help
less little children, and stained her own hus
bands hands with blood.
This woman offers an extreme illustration
or very common feminine foible, which con-
slsts III the belief that every man they meet
falls dead in love with them at sight, and
that as they go through life they leave trail
of broken hearts behind them.
Curiously enough, the homelier and less
attractive to men woman is, the more firm
ly does she hold to the belief that she is a
Vamp before whose hypnotic eye the entire
masculine sex goes down like ripe wheat be-
fore the sickle. Among my acquaintance
there is a woman, grotesquely fat old and
grizzle-headed, with an calculated temper,
and tongue that is picked in gall She is
the very type of all that men hate and loathe
and they avoid her as they would death and
destruction.
Yet this woman spends hours recounting to
you the lists of men whose lives have been
blasted by her refusal to marry them. Sh
thinks nothing of telling you tina men young
enough to be her grandsons are hopelessly
enamored of her, and she says that the rea-
son she has never been popular with women
is because all of her friends husbands have
fallen in love with her, and their wives have
been jealous of her
1t is these self-elected sirens who are re-
sponsible for most of the stories about the
Wickedness Of man, and the wolves in sleeps
clothing who are always in pursuit Of DOOR
pretty little Red Riding Hoods There are
certain women who tell you hair raising tales
OF never being able to go out on the street
without being accosted by strange men, who
follow them to their very doors.
Other women will relate blood curdling ad-
ventures on sleeping cars. and in hotel cor
ridors, and avow that they would never dare
to travel fifty miles alone, and as you look
at them you are filled with wonder and
amazement, for they are invariably the sort
of looking women whose faces you would
think require no ,haperone anywhere.
And your own experience has been so diff
ferent. You have worked with men half a
lifetime, and never had anything but kindness
and help from them. You have travelled
around the world, and up and down in it,
hundreds of thousands Of miles, and been in
every imaginable sort of hotel, from shack
to palace, and no man has ever said or done
thing to you that he wouldn't want any 9TH
er man to say or do to his own sister. You've
been out on the street alone at every hour of
the night, and no man has even given you
second glance.
So you can't help specializing as to the part
that these women's imaginations play in their
adventures and wondering if they did not
read their own desires into the conduct of
men who would have been perfectly amazed
to know what motive was being ascribed to
them, what hidden meaning was supposed
to underlie commonplace speech. These
women yearn for adventure, and so they heard
the feet of the pursuer in every man who hap
pened to walk behind them. They had NOR
bid craving for admiration, and so they saw
in 1t every casual glance in their direction.
I get hundreds of letters from women tell
ing me that they know that such and such a
man loves them, out that he is too timid to
speak, and asking how they can bring him to
the proposing point. And I get hundreds of
men have been coming to see them for years,
and going about with them, and they were
sure the men loved them, but now they have
gone away and left them lamenting.
These women have made The mistake of
taking too seriously every trifling attention
from man. Because a man comes to see al
woman is no earthly sign that he is in love
with her. He may come because she has COM
Portable chairs to sit in and a warm fire in
winter and good electric fan in summer.