Year: 1871

Certainly it is that part Of polite


which least needs cherishing. 1t il


politics just dipping into PERSONAL


ty-personality the least offensive


it is true, but politics the least i'm


proving, either to politician or con


stituent. Congress is public pro


perty and l suppose We have Q


perfect right to gaze at its members


from the galleries, and pen-photo-


graph their Sphinx-like faces, thei,


naughty lips, their beetling brows


their opal eyes, and their majestic


noses, for circulation in the rural


districts. To be sure, / never saw


a congressman who looked any


more like Sphinx than he did like
a lynx, or any other sort of cat OF


wild beast whatever +; though, for


that matter, 1 never saw a Sphinx,


and am, therefore, no Judge OF
sphinxitic physiOgnomy. But has
this kind of criticism a tendency to
make or to keep public men up
right ?. So far as it has any in
fluence at all, is it not to call of at
tention from careful, conscientious,
impartial work, and to make man
rather aspire to present a good ap-
pearance on the public stage I? Al
ready that tendency is sufficiently
strong. A "spicy scene," a piquant
repartee, will be telegraphed from
one end of the country to the other
when careful research and solid ar
gument, that really advance the
case and would really inform the
people, are buried past resurrection
in the columns of'the Congressional
Globe. But women fall into this
current, and float along with it
rather than resist it. They do it
not only in Congress, but they do it
everywhere. If they are reporting
the proceedings of their own con-
ventions, they will give yon the
color of the feather in Phoebe Coz
zen's hat but Mrs. Howe's weigh
tiest epigram they will leave you to
learn from chance conner or from
a male reporter. If you demonstrate
with them, they say the publishers
want it. 1t is personality that is
most in demand. Every fresh batch
of eyes and noses, of ample cloaks
and leonine hair, is in response to
a fresh call. They are valued as
letter-writers because they do this
kind of thing SO well. And it has
even happened that a man has
been asded at headquarters whether
he could not fashion his letters
little more like those OF his wife
headquarters not being aware that
the lady in question was his wife.


Yes, but the worst crime of which
we can accuse a man is yielding to
temptation. Not the most willy and
wicked politician that ever wrought
it except for the sake of procuring
some good to himself How are
women to introduce incorruptibili-
ty into politics if at the first stroke
of the publishers wand they con-
sent to descend? Why is it worse
for man to vote below his best
than it is for a woman to write be-
low her best ? Why is it worse for
a politician to "talk buncombe"
than it is for a woman to write it t?
Htakes To be sure it does. The
very worst letter to which / have
referred--the one whose pen was
dipped in venom to describe a.
comrade-was copied into other
papers as charming" letter. But
are women coming into political
and public life to confirm or to
combat trivial taste and low inclina
ton to render public service
more effective, or to obtain a share
Of the spoils ; to minister more
to the love Of gossip, or to
for it something worthy
Of both men and women I?