POISON TONGUES

Evening Star, Issue 19616, 23 July 1927, Page 17

POISON TONGUES

AGONY CAUSED BY SCANDAL A distressed husband stated at an inquest that his wife had been driven to suicide partly through the influence of a gossiping friend. In this article in the ‘ Sunday Chronicle,’ Olga Hall-Brown makes an urgent plea that scandal should be fought as a social evil. Tho inability to mind one’s own business brings out the best and the worst in the human being. _ Though it actuates the people who bring about the world’s reforms, it inspires the forked tongues of the scandal-mongers. Yet I have no use for the individual who minds His own business. He is a dull dog, and useless _ withal, unnatural, inhuman, and effete. For it is natural and right that the most interesting study _ of mankind should be man. Minding his <nvn business is the dreary profession of the tyrant and the egotist, and the hobby of tho bore. It is the antithesis of the warm, living interest every ln° human has in his fellow-beings. Listen to any intimate conversation. How much movo often you will hear or “her” or “him” than of ‘ this or “that.” Pick up any bright newspaper which interests you and analyse it Is it not filled with tho doings or people rather than of concrete and abstract facts?

Gossip is attractive to us all. H c all gossip. Wo all listen to it. And by it we are scll-botraycd. SNAKE METHODS. You may learn little of the character of the subject of the gossiper s conversation, but of tho character of the gossiper yon will learn much. Hie generosity or the meanness, the kindliness or the spite, the approbation oi tho jealousy—there it is upon the smface for all who will to sec. Gossip, kindly or otherwise, has a way or gravitating to the weaknesses of our fellow-creaatnres. And this is where the poison-monger overstep the border lino into the dangerous realms of scandal. I have less respect for the scandalmonger than 1 have for the murderei. The weapon of the poisoned tongue is too cruelly parallel with the methods of the snake. To hide and to strike—and to leave the poison behind to do its deadly work. Only last week a distressed husband told the coroner who held an inquest on his wife that gossip had a good deal to do with the depression winch clvorc her to suicide.

MENTAL MURDER. Tho husband alleged that a “socalled friend” had arranged amiceting with his bride of a fortnight and told her all she could to poison her mind against him. . 'She is not the first to commit tins mental murder. History cannot bmp hut bo chequered with the tragedies brought about by tho scandal-mongers, for history is tangled up with the lives of great men and women such as have been considered fair game since the world began. Wc are so accustomed io scandalous attacks on outstanding personalities that wc have conic to take them lor granted. Jealousy will never speed tho barbs of scandal aimed at the rich, the clover, and the successful. But it seems that ordinary people like you and me should reasonably expect to bo 1 rec ol tho gossip that crosses the danger line. Yet it is not so. Slander is as busy and as fruitful of discord in the lives of harmless, quiet people as it is in high places. Women have long had the reputation of being the malignant sex in the realm of gossip. I would like to refute the charge, but the evidence is overwhelming. I think that women are the worst in spite of tho fact that male slanderers are uncomfortably common. But Ido not think this is so much a reflection on the sex, as a reflection mi man for so long condemning women’s brains to rot for lack of exercise. For slander is the outcome of the weak brain, the idle brain, and tho unbalanced brain. It might, therefore, he ignored as the. occupation ol tho idle and halfwitted, were it nob for the inct that it numbers innocent and sensitive members of society among its victims.

Slander has got to he fought. Too many fine men and women _ have made the mistake of considering it beneath their dignity to defend themselves. It is beneath no one’s dignity to fight it. It should bo stamped out from decent .society. TIGERISH DEFENCE. Tho slanderer is not entirely to blame. There i.s a law of supply and demand. Lot the demand cease and tho supply must die a natural death. It is as foul to listen tn tho words of the poisoner as to distil tho poison. There is a method of dealing with the vicious gossip. Withhold credulity and strongly assert doubt. Claim that the victim should have an opportunity of killing tho scandal. Insist on investigation, and take steps to sift the matter to the bottom.

Let no weak laics of promises not to tell stand in the way of frightening the slanderer into reform. Few bearers of ill tides are willing lo hate their stories thoroughly investigated. And should that love murderer, that devil incarnate, who seeks to break the bond which exists between two who love come your way, be tigerish in your swift defence. SELF REVEALED.

Let no poison of words sink in and corrode tiro fair thing that all may. envy,/but only devils would destroy. The trade of the slanderer flourishes too well. It is an indictment of tho society that permits its presence in our midst. It is up to all of us to wage war on it that thj pleasines ot gossip may remain. Tho gentle jest at a friend’s expense, the self-complacence at another’s folly, the marvel at another’s love choice, tho interest in tho neighbor’s wash line, the comings and goings across tho street—these are tiro stuff that life is made of. We will be senile when they cease to interest. But remember criticism is selfcriticism, and in our condemnation of our friends, our enemies, our neighbors, wo stand mercilessly selfrevealed.