EVE-BAITING.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 22, 21 October 1907, Page 3

EVE-BAITING.

°. WOMAN BLAMED BY, MEN FOR EVERYTHING. A good deal has been written lately about ' women—not always truo, not always complir montary, indeed usually quite the reverse. t May I ask (writes "John Strange Winter - ' x in the " Daily Express ") when men aro going j to stop the rare sport of women-baiting, of ! '''.ve-baiting? It is not manly; it is not . , 'glish—at least, I ought to. say it is not accordance with tho chivalrous, splendidly f generous type of man which the English nation is supposed to have created as its very own. I much fear.that the oft-vaunted chivalry of the Englishman is practically as extinct as the dodo, else our newspapers would not " be filled, as they are to-day, with ono in- > stance after another ot tho noble sport of ! Eve-baiting. ' What a tit-bit tho suffragettes or suf- ; fragists have given to bravo and noble men I ' No reasonable person could for one moment I doubt the absolute sincerity of tho women ! who are going agaiust all tho conventions of womanhood in a vain hope of getting what they believe is the best thing for humanitj; I in general. Yot how they have been ro- | viledl And what is tho result? Their standpoint is not changed in the least. But apart from political matters, Eve-bait- | ing is quite the sport of tne moment. Every- \ whore it is claimed that women aro the chief . culprits for tho " sordid fiction" epidomic. Now, as a niatter of fact, if there aro any fields of action peculiarly left to men, surely they are, first, the management of publishing books and the establishment and rule of free libraries and booksellers' shops; second, tho drawing up of education rules and tho control of schools; third, the conduct of elections and the choice of party tactics. The results of men's almost, exclusive control in the first field is that every'author and writer, man or woman, lias been urged, cajoled, badgered, and practically forced to write sensational books or those as near the borders of indecency as is possible. Now that there i≤ an indignant outcry from the decent public,'tho women are blamed for it all I In tho second field, men's education Acts have produced hordes of persons who demand the newest fiction for nothing, but will , not read " improving " books at a gift, oven with, fine library promises thrown in. The blamo of this is placed at tho door of the parents, but particularly tho mothers, tho rather interested parties so sedulously ignored by most " educationists" until someone has to bo blamed for conspicuous failure. In the greatest sphere of all—maternity— tho doctors.aro now getting up a howl against women on tho score of not nursing their offspring. Yet who have moved every art to demonstrate the superiority of infants' foods, and have helped to bring them to such perfection that the ordinary woman could not but feel that it was her duty to give hor children tho benefit of these splendid products, "so uniform in quality"? Men, all men. . But now, when tho raco is suffering, on whom docs tho blame fall? On the women. More Eve-baiting, you see! Then as to the/feminine extravagance so 'continually laid at tho door of wpmen, do we not all know the sneers which are cast at everything connected with women's clothes? But who is it that has carried dress, millinery, hairdressing, toilet articles, and every other adjunct now necessary to a woman's 'appoaranco to their present perfection? Men, almost all men. But who are blamod for the men's often mischievous success in theso directions? Tho women, of course. .... . May I suggest that-the true remedy for this epidemic,of Eve-baiting is for every wife and mother t0..,ca1l upon her husband and sons to straighten up the hfdeous-mess, they have made of every man-controlled business.