The Women Of Our Time.

matter-of-fact reality , the prosaic utterances of this " grassier" aud uneasy generation . It is a remarkable fact in the history of the world , and of man , that the very moment woman becomes the plaything or the inferior creature , there immediately sets in personal demoralisation and national

degradation , the recklessness of unclean living , and the saddest phasis of debasing civilization . Woman was given to be the help-meet for man ; not the slave or the puppet , the jest or scorn , and whenever men forget that truthand take away from

, woman her earthly mission , or her divine characteristic , so to say , there and then we pave the way both for the hurt of society , and the degradation of the " homo , " man . Hence it becomes a very melancholy fact to note and to feel that we have arrived at

such a point in the progress of our own artificial social life to-day and the normal condition of society , that we have to recognise as a very striking feature of the times in which we live , of the manners which hem us in on every side , of the women whom we know and valueand worship

, and worry , and bless and bore , and cruelly ill-treat , and often savagely beat , by the way , in our great English amenity ; that " some" are " fast , " not as opposed to slow , but " fast" absolutely" per se . " What , thendoes " fast" mean 1 This euphonious

, epithet would simply convey the quality of rapidity , so to say—would imply that certain young women , tired perhaps of the rules of a cold conventionality , and not afraid of " Mrs . Grundy , " like to get the

bit between their teeth , " to do just as they choose , without regard to the mind or morals , or anything else you like , of a decent but less go-ahead society . Fastness may , I think , be also described as excess in various ways—excessive love of

dressexcessiveindependenceofthoughtex-, , cessive freedom of speech , excessive liberty of action ! Seeing the change which has come over society , and to which a distinguished jud ge warningly alluded the other day , we are often tempted , like the " old French Cornmandeur" to out" Mais ou aliens

, cry , MltsT It is rather difficult to say , as the Irishman answered , who was asked where the J ' oad ended , " Bedad , " says he , " it has so many turnings that niver a bit of an md will you ever come to . " Of course

he was wrong , as the old proverb is still true , " It ' s a long lane that has no ending . " Then , though perhaps it ' s not much use prosing on the subject—or heaping up the agony , for the evil , such as it is , like the Gaul is at our gates , the practical question appears to behow best shall we

, deal with , how best shall we amend , how best shall we put an end to what so many loudly deplore and eloquently denounce 1 What is the truest and safest method of removing altogether this jilague spot—if it be a plague sj > ot—from civilized lifefrom

, our homes and hearths , from that domestic existence , which all true Englishmen so greatly value and so manfully praise ? Now I do not take , for one , so serious a view of the situation as some people do . In the first place the proportion of this

" growing evil , " as it is termed by some , is , in my opinion , a good deal exaggerated , and the "fastness" of our' young women is only a " vertigo , " as I regard it , which , like other fashionable maladies , from time to time affect society and our individual life . As I have often before remarked in these papers , every departing generation looks on the young one treading

on its heels , as lax and light , as flippant and forward , as degenerate and disobedient iu comparison with itself , and we are all of us , more or less , fond of croaking aud making things out worse than they really are . Still there are , I fear Ave must conscientiously admitfast young ladies in

, these our days , and " fast young ladies , " ( though ours , I may observe , is not the only generation in which fast young ladies have appeared , ) and we must therefore seek to deal with the question as it comes before us so constantly , is so dinned

into our ears , is before our very eyes , and is so loudly and emphatically condemned as one of the great drawbacks of our existing civilization . First of all let us keep before us this undoubted fact , that fast young women , after all , are the

excrescences , not the natural products , of social and domestic life , They are the parasites which protrude themselves in luxuriant growth , not the real aud valuable and well-grown trees ! Now , fastness assumes various features , aud indulges in various gyrations amongst us . We have the fast young lady in dress , in language , iu habits , aud in opinions .