New York Morality.

Hastings Standard, Issue 278, 23 March 1897, Page 4

New York Morality.

If the New York papers, instead of raking up scandals regarding ex-Presi-dent Cleveland, or any other individual, were to devote themselves to an effort to improve the social condition of the city, they would render a better service to the people. It is quite possible that Mr and Mrs Cleveland may have parted on account of marital disagreement ; but is New York in a position to throw a stone, either first or last, at those who fail to attain conjugal felicity? It most emphatically is not, if its own public men and women are to be relied upon as its judges. The Rev. Dr Parkhurst, whose name is favorably known in connection" with the moral movement in New York, made some startling statements in the course of a recent sermon on the subject of marriage. "I do not know," he said, "how many unfaithful wives and husbands there are in this city, but I calculate there might be a quarter of a million. I would not, at any rate, issue an insurance policy for more than five years on any couple's conjugal felicity unless on the contingency of offspring." In reply to reporters who interviewed him he said " I have not made these statements without careful observation. The subject for months has had my careful scrutiny, and I have found the condition of affairs to be absolutely damnable. When I said a quarter of a million it was a round figure coming near tlie truth." Indeed, it fell short of the truth, according to Mrs Elizabeth Grannis, president of the National Christian League for the Promotion of Social Purity. She stated to an interviewer :—" Dr. Parkhurst erred in placing the figure at a quarter of a million. There arc more than that, and most of them are in the upper circles of society." " Here we are," .she went on, " trying to save some some 10,000 publicly depraved women in this city, but what are they compared to 250,000 married women who are no better '? What we want is a law on the subject. There is not a semblance of a law protecting marriages." Even if these statements are only approximately true, they show a flaw in the social system that must ere long prove fatal to the very existence of society.—Lyttelton Times.