Year: 1860

If there is any feature of American
society that cries more loudly than any
other for reform, that feature par excel
lence is the system of Irritation carried
on by married women.


Nne-tenths Of all the divorce suits
brought by husbands against their wives
for criminality, can be traced directly TO
"innocent firtations." And the weak
victim of an elopement can almost al
ways look back to her first error as COM
mitted at the time when she received the
attentions of another than her husband.
These innocent flrtations of married wo-
men are the denominations of modern So
ciety, and tend to subvert the domestic
relations, as visiting tipping shops does
drunkenness.


Sidney Smith says, "show me wo.
mon who will not blush while displaying
her beauty, her charms or grace, and you
will have shown me one whose virtue
hangs upon thread that a word Will
cut" There are some women who can
always see in the many who surround
them in their comminglings with society,
certain attractive points that their expe
rience tells them are not possessed by
their husbands, and whenever they dis
Germ one of these apparent excellencies
in others they are sure TO see cores.
ponding deficiency at home. Forgetting
that none are perfect, such women are
apt to magnify of fault into
mountains of crimes. An uneasiness,
therefore, takes possession of them, and
they think over the faults Of their hus.
bands until their happiness is destroyed,
and they are prepared to receive the at
tentons of all those who approach them,
hoping to find "congenialty" which
their own imaginatons have convinced
them is essential to happiness.


This disquietude is heightened when
they consider that they are bound already
in matrimonial obligations which cannot
be severed, and as society, though guilty
of the same failings, perhaps equally
with them, will not look upon them with
complaicency in receiving familiar atten-
tons in public, clandestine meetings are
next in consideration, and honor and
virtue yield willing prey to perverted
Judgment, and sensual appetites. The
wife seeks TO keep from her husband the
knowledge of her preference for another,
until from her oft repeated intimacies
with Others, her heart is utterly estrang-
ed from him. Then actuated by guilt
alone, feeling herself debased beyond re.
demption, she throws oft the cloak of
privacy and energies into the world des.
pissed by those equally guilty, and by So
ciety at large. Is proof of this needed?
Are not elopements the order of the dayp
Are they not coming TO be more prevalent
than other species of crime? Divorces
by the dozen are of common occurrence,
and society is continually nauseated by
tales of guilt brought to light by news
papers and the courts. We are not sure
as there is any remedy for this state of
things so long as parents persist in train
ing up their daughters in idleness, and
sons in luxury aud effeminacy--utterly
ignorant Of the true aim and object of
lfc--with only parlor education for the
first and "fast life" for the other--hav.
ing no greater care than to carefully fit
their daughters in extensive appearance,
for the matrimonial market, and to es-
tablish their sons in positions among
the corrupt surroundings of fashionable
society, thus giving to both an outside
show which is entirely at war with the
real business of life.-N Y. Express.


EI- A well known wit says: No
Yankee is satisfied with the truth unless
you can prove to him that IL is worth from
eight to ten per cent.


Ez- An English paper says Gen.
Dred Scott commands the United States