Largely through the influence of Mr. Comstock, laws have been enacted which promise to do much toward checking this extensive evil, or at least causing it to make itself less prominent. Our newspapers still abound with advertisements of various so-called medical works, "Marriage Guides," etc., which are fruits of the same "upas-tree" that Mr. Comstock has labored so faithfully to uproot.
It is a painful fact, however, that the total annihilation of every foul book which the law can reach will not effect the cure of this evil, for our modern literature is full of the same virus. It is necessarily presented in less grossly revolting forms, half concealed by beautiful imagery, or embellished by wit; but yet, there it is, and no law can reach it. The works of our standard authors in literature abound in lubricity. Popular novels have doubtless done more to arouse a prurient curiosity in the young, and to excite and foster passion and immorality, than even the obscene literature for the suppression of which such active measures have recently been taken. The more exquisitely painted the scenes of vice, the more dangerously enticing. Novel-reading has led thousands to lives of dissoluteness.
[Idleness.]—This evil is usually combined with the preceding. To maintain purity, the mind must be occupied. If left without occupation, the vacuity is quickly filled with unchaste thoughts. Nothing can be worse for a child than to be reared in idleness. His morals will be certain to suffer. Incessant mental occupation is the only safeguard against unchastity. Those worthless fops who spend their lives in "killing time" by lounging about bar-rooms, loafing on street corners, or strutting up and down the boulevard, are anything but chaste. Those equally worthless young women who waste their lives on sofas or in easy-chairs, occupied only with some silly novel, or idling away life's precious hours in reverie—such creatures are seldom the models of purity one would wish to think them. If born with a natural propensity toward sin, such a life would soon engender a diseased, impure imagination, if nothing worse.
[Dress and Sensuality.]—There are two ways in which fashionable dress leads to unchastity; viz., 1. By its extravagance; 2. By its abuse of the body.
How does extravagance lead to unchastity? By creating the temptation to sin. It affects not those gorgeously attired ladies who ride in fine carriages, and live in brown-stone fronts, who are surrounded with all the luxuries that wealth can purchase—fine apparel is no temptation to such. But to less favored—though not less worthy—ones, these magnificent displays of millinery goods and fine trappings are most powerful temptations. The poor seamstress, who can earn by diligent toil hardly enough to pay her board bill, has no legitimate way by which to deck herself with the finery she admires. Plainly dressed as she must be if she remains honest and retains her virtue, she is scornfully ignored by her proud sisters. Everywhere she finds it a generally recognized fact that "dress makes the lady." On the street, no one steps aside to let her pass, no one stoops to regain for her the package that slips from her weary hands. Does she enter a crowded car, no one offers her a seat, though she is trembling with fatigue, while the showily dressed woman who follows her is accommodated at once. She marks the difference; she does not pause to count the cost, but barters away her self-respect, to gain the respect, or deference, of strangers.
[How Young Women Fall.]—It has been authoritatively stated that there are, in our large cities, hundreds of young women who, being able to earn barely enough to buy food and fuel and pay the rent of a dismal attic, take the advice offered by their employers, "Get some gentleman friend to dress you for your company." Others spend all their small earnings to keep themselves "respectably" dressed, and share the board and lodgings of some young roué as heartless as incontinent. Persons unaccustomed to city life, and thousands of people in the very heart of our great metropolis, have no conception of the frightful prevalence of this kind of prostitution. Young women go to our large cities as pure as snow. They find no lucrative employment. Daily contact with vice obtunds their first abhorrence of it. Gradually it becomes familiar. A fancied life of ease presents allurements to a hard-worked sewing-girl. Fine clothes and comfortable lodgings increase the temptation. She yields, and barters her body for a home without the trouble of a marriage ceremony.
Wealthy women could do more to cure the "social evil" by adopting plain attire than all the civil authorities by passing license laws or regulating ordinances. Have not Christian women a duty here? A few years ago, some Nashville ladies made a slight move in the right direction, as indicated in the following paragraph; but we have not heard that their example has been followed:—
"The lady members of the first Baptist Church, of Nashville, Tenn., have agreed that they will dispense with all finery on Sunday, wearing no jewels but consistency, and hereafter appear at church in plain calico dresses."
A more radical reform would have been an extension of the salutary measure to all other days of the week as well as Sunday; though we see no reason for restricting the material of clothing to calico, which might, indeed, be rather insufficient for some seasons of the year.
[Fashion and Vice.]—Let us glance at the second manner in which dress lends its influence to vice, by obstructing the normal functions of the body. 1. Fashion requires a woman to compress her waist with bands or corsets. In consequence, the circulation of the blood toward the heart is obstructed. The venous blood is crowded back into the delicate organs of generation. Congestion ensues, and with it, through reflex action, the unnatural excitement of the animal propensities. 2. The manner of wearing the clothing, suspending several heavy garments from the hips, increases the same difficulty by bringing too large a share of clothing where it is least needed, thus generating unnatural local heat. 3. The custom of clothing the feet and limbs so thinly that they are exposed to constant chilling, by still further unbalancing the circulation, adds another element to increase the local mischief.