THE VOGUE OF THE “SHAMEFULLY SHAMELESS.”

White Ribbon, Volume 21, Issue 245, 18 November 1915, Page 6

THE VOGUE OF THE “SHAMEFULLY SHAMELESS.”

A WOMAN'S APPEAL TO WOMEN

Like a deadly miasma, an evil is enveloping society, stupefying some so that they are unconscious of their own or others’ danger, or under its sway are launching out in action that must involve themselves or others in disaster, present 01 future, in time or in eternity. It is amongst the evils one would fain ignore, would fain not touch. Hut the answer to the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” makes silence and inaction criminal. What is the evil? It is a repetition of the Eden scene, where woman tempted man. One would think her action on that occasion, with its terrible entail of loss and suffering on all mankind, would make her for ever afterwards walk softly, and do her part to bless where she has cursed. “Made of a woman”; “Did not abhor the virgin’s womb.” Thus Christ appeared in His earthly role as the Redeemer of mankind. And these phrases assume new meaning when we think of her as the one discordant element in the Garden of Eden ; the one to cast the first shadow on God’s fair creation. She who had blocked the path to heav**n, w is now made the avenue thereto for Him who, in His person, vanquished sin and Satan. Thank God for the vast army of pure and noble women whose one aim in life is to co-operate with their Redeemer God in His plans for the sal vation of mankind; for the many other women, too, who, though not on this exalted plane, are on the world-plane protesting with all their souls against the lewd and abominable as soci.il reformers. Hut there are still unaccounted for a vast army of women who are in danger of lapsing from those high moral standards associated with the sex, whose moral barrier is being, or has been broken down. We refer to the girls and women who, in their close adherence to Fashion’s dictates in dress and undress, are a menace to public morals. In shameless exposure of as much of their person as they dare, combined with a recklessness Oj manner, a painful self-consciousness, a bold self-assert-iveness, one looks on with dismay at the new woman developing in our midst. In our streets and public conveyances, they draw unenviable notice

to themselves. Jt is no uncommon sight to see line, well-developed girls sitting in careless attitude trams, making no attempt whatever to cover what even might be covered with their scanty clothing, and mothers indifferent to the spectacle. It would seem as if a physical or moral blindness, or moral inertia, or callous indifference of results, had seized a vast number of our women. Alas! when women for any reason cease to be the custodians of public morals. In suc h plight, history is ready to repeat itself in national ruin.

What are the contributing causes that have brought about so disastrous a change in female modesty ? To mention a, few . From the mawkish ’ove tale has evolved the sex novel, • lid the pandering to the doubtful and ignoble in the cinematograph, wilh consequences that till with apprehension the minds of thoughtful men and women. The victims themselves are not always able to give clcai account of the steps that have led to their moral lapse. Perhaps the descent has not been marked by anything more than general moral inertia or receptivity which, in the physical realm, is the precursors of disease. “How oft the sight of means to do id deeds, makes ill deeds done! Had’st thou not been by . . . This . . . had not come into my mind.” Some on the physical plane are already reaping the fruits of their folly in heeding Fashion’s dictates, but it is with the moral consequences we are now concerned. Speaking from the Bench the other day, Sir Robert Stout severely commented on “the prevalence of sexual crimes.” Are you, reader, adding anything to its sum total by any needless exposure of your person ? \\ hat if you or yours provide unholy feast to eyes that shall make some distraught youth or degenerate man seek outlet on some innocent victim ? What if your son knows not where to turn his eyes that he may not behold iniquity? What if your daughter, through precept and example, or lack of wise, firm oversight, is for ever lost to purity and virtue, or has, through agony of shame and sorrow, to retrace her steps thereto? “Evil is wrought by •want of thought, as well as want of heart.” Are you ignorantly making it hard for some mother’s son or daughter to tread virtue’s path? Then

pause, and think, ‘and act, and tften let us all do what we can to cleanse our little world of all defilement. Let girls and women attire themselves in modest apparel, and men and boys refuse to associate with any who are not thus attired. And may we each and all regard ourselves as indeed our brother’s keeper, and avoid in dress and manner “anything whereby our brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak” (Rom. xiv. 21). GERTRUDE COCKERELL.