SLURS ON WOMEN.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 550, 4 September 1869, Page 2

SLURS ON WOMEN.

At a recent dinner in an Eastern city, at which no ladies were present, a man, in response to the toast on " Woman," dwelt almost solely on. the frailty of the sex, claiming that the best among them were little better than the worst, the chief difference being in the surroundings. At the conclusion of the speech a gentleman present rose and said: " I trust the gentleman, in the application of his remarks, refers to his own mother and sisters, not to ours." The effect of this most just and timely rebuke was overwhelming. The maligner of woman was covered with confusion and shame. This incident, says a contemporary, serves an excellent purpose in prefacing a few words which we have for a long time had in our mind to say. Of all the evils prevalent among young men, we [know of none more blighting in its moral effects than the tendency to speak lightly of the virtue of woman. Nor is there anything in which young men are so thoroughly mistaken as in the low estimate they form of the integrity of women—not of their own mothers and sisters, thank (rod, but of others who, they forget, are somebody else's mothers and sisters. A.s a rule, no person who surrenders to this debasing habit is safe to be trusted with any enterprise requiring integrity of character. Plain words should be spoken on this point, for the evil is a general one, and deeprooted. Ifyouugnien are sometimes thrown into the society of thoughtless, or even lewd women, they have no more right to measure ail other women from what they see of these than they would have to estimate the character of honest and respectable citizens by the developments of crime in our police courts. Let young men remember that their chief happiness in life depends upon their utter faith in women. No worldly wisdom, no misant hrophic philosophy,no generalisation can cover or weaken this fundamental truth. It stands like the record of God himself—for it is nothing less than this—and should put an everlasting seal upon lips that are wont to speak slightly of women.