"THE LADIES COLUMN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 111, 24 March 1870, Page 6

"THE LADIES COLUMN.

A smock-frock philosopher, whom we once met in tho -country, compared-wife-beating to thrashing a sack- of flour, "You may knock all tMe fineout of it," he said, " but 'penlL'pon. it, the coarse will stop behind.!' Tho* more we think of this saying the pro*founder it becomes.

The Byron controversy has gives- a« loophole to " A Member of Congress,"' evidently a savage Southerner, to. vilify Mrs. Beecher Stowe, "and all. the Beechers," in "^The Times." His letter, coining, too, from a man who dared not to put his- own name at the bottom- of this bit of personal malice, strikes us as about the pettiest act of" political, spite we can remember. " Mrs. Beecher Stowe," he says, "is a mere sensationalist writer ;" she " will at any time sacrifice truth, if by sodoing she can succeed in obtaing notoriety." Her only literary character was derived from " TJncle Tom's Cabin," which was devoid of truth of statement " in its attempt to describe Southern society- "' as in the story,, of Lord and Lady Byron's separation; " In America, the- Beechers are lmowji as mere sensationalists, without -true, merit or substantial talent." The " thinking portion " of the American people pay no attention to what they write — and so forth. The "thinking portion" of the American people must think a great deal too much for their poor brains, if they can see no substantial merit in books of so wide and solid, a genius-as-^TTnele Tom's Cabin" and the "Minister's Wooing." No. doubt, Mrs. Stowe, when she writes* not, out of her literary imagination, but out of her superficial personal im-. pressions, aa her " Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," and' the story of Li<ly Byron, is a sentimentalist, and can write very badly indeed, as well as judge badly. But she is a thoroughly sincere and high-minded woman. Noanonymous charge was ever meaner orfalacr than. this, that she does not scruple a bit at sacrificing truth for the sake of attaining notoriety.

To c\ T ery man there are many,, many dark hours — hours when he feels inclined to abandon his best enterprise ; hours when his heart's dearest hopes, seem delusive ; hours \A T hen he- feels himself unequal to the burden — when all his aspirations seem worthless. Let no one think that he alone has dark hours. They are the common lot of* humanity. They are the touchstone to try Avhether Aye be stealing coin or not.

A lady Avas taken befoae a magistrate at Cincinnati charged with appearing in male attire, but the case Avas dis-» missed as there was no law applicable to it. A Cincinnati paper declares that, '•'men have to rise iiow before their Avives or Avear theic Sunday clothes, and they have no assurance AA'henral^'undress at night that they will ever see their unmentionables again."

What we may expect Avhen Female Ascendancy sets in. — The Council. Bluffs ([owa) 'Nonpareil' says that Avhen the " good time coming " comes, announcements like the following- will be frequent : — " Died, in the 35th ye;irof his age, Mr. John Smith, husband of the Hon. Jane Smith, at her residence in the Nashua' this morning, atG -o'clock. Mr. Smith Avas a meek and quiet husband, beloved for the graces, of a cultivated and trained nature. He excelled in the domestic virtues, washed and ironed his oAvn linen ; as cook he was surpassed by few; as nurse equalled by none."

There are some women whose physical and intellectual powers are alike great ;_ but these form the exception, and they are generally as remarkable for the masculine qualities of their bodies as for those of their minds. While ay& fully agree that it is a mark of the loAvest and most depraved form of civilization for women to be reduced to the positon of being little more than slaves to man's passions, or child bearers, Aye do not think that any one acquainted Avith the physiology of the female organism could deny that they would, in this respect, labour under great disadvantages in the race with; men. Philosophers and men of abstraction may, but practical every-day people cannot ignpre these distinctions. As long as it is the fashion*-'?)* this world to " marry and be given in marriage," just so long wiU^riatural instincts propel the majority/*)? young people in tha^ direction, in spite of philosophers. The physical education of girls has' been, and is still, bad ; and' their system ck mental training is not much better. Instead of putting the minds of all girls through the same vicious educational mill, totally regardless of their tastes and frittering their time on music for which they may have no ear, and draw-, ing for which they may have no aptitude, how much better it would be to exercise some discretion in teach-v ing these accomplishments? Why should not girls be taught the rudiments of logic, be scientifically instructed in the rules of arithmetic, and taught something of the privileges of geometry and natural science? Then the hygienic aspects of modern education are radically defective. The absence of proper physical training and healthful out dbora exercise, as a relief to theclose and stuffy school-rooms in which girls are too often confined, has to be charged with much of that subsequent delicacy, feeble health, and proclivity to hysteria to which the female sex is relatively so liable. Every girl's school should have its playground and gymnasium.--* " Lancet,"