THE BASOT WILL CASE.

Clutha Leader, Issue 221, 4 October 1878, Page 5

THE BASOT WILL CASE.

The Saturday Review, commenting on the famous iiagot will case, says :—" One wonders how many more public ' exposures of the extravagances, follies, and worse i- elements now so largely prevalent in those ranks of society which to a considerable extent regulate the tone of national life, will be needed before people awake "to a consciousness of the neces« sity of a thorough reformation in taste and morals, if the English character is to' retain that simplicity and right-thinking: which we are wont to claim as among its peculiar virtues. The worst feature is that the decadence appears more rapid and widespread in the case ' of women than of men. So long as women continue to uphold a high standard of moraltty, courtesy, and respect for what is worthy of respect, so long will men at least endeavour to disguise their lower tastes and modes of thought. It is the women who set the feeling of society, and men have perforce U> avoid outraging that. feeling;. when women thought nonfe the worse of a man for drinking haid, men got drunk in society; when women tolerated swearing, men swore in society. Signs are unhappily ,not wanting that the influence of women in English society is either being less strenuously exerted .for good, or is actually tending to produce the opposite result. To judge merely from the public records, we have ladies spending large fortunes' in dress, submitting themselves to the degrading operations of enamellers, making free use of latch-keys, and indulging in dangerous .dissipations, while the Divorce Court deals with still more heinous derilections of female duty. Nor can an observant person fail to be struck with the manifest intolerance of restraint 6xhibit9d but too commonly by women who, from their position, might be expected to' take a higher view of their calling in life. We have now got to the stage at which the symptom is most strongly developed in the younger members of the sex — a discouraging omen for the future. It is painful to dwell on this feature of modern life ; .but the eyil is. a. crying one, and unfortunately seem <! likely to become. more permanent and progressive/ to. the downfall of all that i is good and elevating in society.??' ; , „ , , - ; . .■; '■•