Nobody is
altogether bad; the scoundrel who has grown rich by underpaying workmen
in his factory will sometimes endow an asylum for indigent seamen. To
oppress one's own workmen, and provide for the workmen of a neighbor--to
skin those in charge of one's own interests while cottoning and oiling
the residuary product of another's skinnery--that is not very good
benevolence, nor very good sense, but it serves in place of both. The
man who eats _pate de fois gras_ in the sweat of his girl cashier's
face, or wears purple and fine linen in order that his typewriter may
have an eocene gown and a pliocene hat, seems a tolerably satisfactory
specimen of the genus thief; but let us not forget that in his own
home--a fairly good one--he may enjoy and merit that highest and most
honorable title on the scroll of woman's favor, "a good provider." One
having a claim to that glittering distinction should enjoy immunity from
the coarse and troublesome question, "From whose backs and bellies do
you provide?"
So much for the material results to the sex. What are the moral results?
One does not like to speak of them, particularly to those who do not and
can not know--to good women in whose innocent minds female immorality is
inseparable from flashy gowning and the painted face; to foolish,
book-taught men who honestly believe in some protective sanctity that
hedges womanhood.
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