MODESTY AND MUSCLE.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9326, 29 January 1896, Page 5

MODESTY AND MUSCLE.

Apropos of athletics and women, the World says :•—" There is not the least reason why a movement, excellent in itself, should be made subsarvienb to an attempt to obliterate the divuling-liue between the itoxee. Let her bo ever so proficient in all sports and exercises suitable-to her condition, a woman ia a woman ' for a' that, , and, as eucb, is debarred from entering upon indecorous public competitions of physical strength, if eho would retain any claim to respect or any consideration for nor womanhood. It is an invariablo rule that the typo of 'new ' woman who strives to make herself au imitation man never by any chance succeeds in imitating a gentleman. Solf-assertion and belf-exuibi-t»ot>, of one kind or another, are her «nuiliug • notes ;' but it is doubtful whether even the man-woman of the platform and *h« lecture-rostrum ia quite as ugly a libel jjpou her sex as tho niar-woniau ot the footWi Sold and tho athletic arena. For v* n eiU **"* f ormer ie > generally epe&king, chiefly obnoxious from a moral point of view, the latter adda to her offence by making owwlf physically disgusting. A woman Who presents herself as a grotesque caricature of a man commits a sufficiently grave crime against her sex and against society, ■oat when, into the bargain, sho odds to the repui»ivene»B of tho exhibition by taking part, coram popufo, in muscular contests w»th others oi her kind, eho prejudices the good cause of the physical training of women, aud deserves repression rather than the encouragement unfortunately extended, j or late, to some of her order."