TO CURB POISONOUS TONGUES Anti-Scandal Formed

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 732, 3 August 1929, Page 18

TO CURB POISONOUS TONGUES Anti-Scandal Formed

aO check the evil of poisonous tongues, which he believes is the cause of half the sorrows of this world, the Rev. Frank Melville, vicar of Exhall, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, has founded an Anti-Scandal Club. Members of this club must take an oath either to speak well of people or remain silent. Before being enrolled they are required to undergo a secret probation to test whether they are strong enough to keep the rules. Among the first to jo.in was the well-known London vicar of St. Matthew’s, the Rev. T. V. Stevens, who some time ago threatened to “name" scandalmongers from the pulpit if they appeared in his church. “There is no doubt,” he said, “that scandal is as cruel as it is poisonous and unjust. Someone may see me coming out of a public-house, and tongues are wagging at once. They don’t trouble to find out that 1 have been to see the dying landlord. The great trouble with scandal is that even when one does not believe it, it is continually cropping up in the sub-conscious mind whether one hears the name of the victim mentioned.” “If women controlled their tongues,” said an authority of the law courts, “half of us would be out of work! While listening to such cases one gathers that women are deficient in the gift of sarcasm, for, when a woman wishes to say something particularly nasty to, or of, one who has aroused her disapproval, she makes blunt and exaggerated accusations. Thus, woman is more apt than mere man to overstep the line that, limits defamation of character. If she has a husband it is he who usually {(ays. for in law he is responsible for her slanders. Unfortunately, there are more serious slander cases, which reach the coroner’s court—when it is too late to set matters right. Some poor soul commits suicide and leaves a letter behind to explain why: “X have been tortured by a wicked woman’s tongue. I am innocent of all the slander, but I will be a white woman and not a traitor to my sex. I go a broken-hearted woman.” “1 Go—” “I go—.” Could anything be more tragic? And all through another woman's tongue. The coroner, referring to the woman who was responsible in this instance, said; “I wish there were some means of punishing a woman of this character. She is as morally guilty of the death of this poor woman as it is possible to be.

I only hope the neighbours will

make things uncomfortable for her. Her type of woman is a curse to society.” This is not an unusual case. Women with poisonous tongues are to be found in every hamlet and village. Who has not met the woman of little occupation and a mean, embittered mind, who is for ever spreading scandal about some perfectly innocent neighbour? In the big industrial areas, in the slums especially, where the busy workers’ homes are almost back-to-back, and where neighbours are brought more closely together, the humble folk have a way of their own in dealing with tile human viper who indulges in scandal-mongering. The outraged oue usually takes the law into her own hands, and the neighbours are not slow to show their approval. The Village Viper Truly, there is nothing so soul-sear-ing as the tongue of the village viper.

She steals around the hamlet, her lips moist with anticipation, and her crooked mind open for any tit-bit of gossip that may perchance be turned to scandalous account. The tragic result of her tongue-wagging seem to have grown during the past few years. Suicides are alarmingly frequent. Ancl utill she goes on her own deadly way, her mind doped with crazy suspicions so that she becomes unable to detect truth. Is there a scourge powerful enough to rid society of her? In the old days there was a useful implement to chastise such as her, known as the ducking-stool.