22 OCTOBER 1881, Page 14

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

WOMEN AND CENSURE.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Will you allow me to express the pleasure I have felt in reading your article on this subject, and my general agreement with your remarks on the undesirableness of inquiries by women into the private lives of their male acquaintances ?' Perhaps I had not sufficiently remarked this point, in touching on the subject in the little book of which you speak so kindly,. but I did press the matter of " notorious " guilt only coming properly under the social ban, and added, " It is not our busi- ness to pry into any one's secrets." It is not, I think, practically difficult to draw a line between notorious vice which insults the community, and vice which at least has the grace to hide its head. No one has any hesitation in tabooing a - wretched man who has cheated at cards. Why should the still baser and direr cheatings in far more sacred transactions, which usually become exposed in the Divorce Court, be deemed less open to- univeqal censure ? A few years ago, all England rang with the trial of an officer for a most disgraceful crime. It was said at the time that ladies of his society visited him in prison; and it is reported that he has been since restored to his Club. If this be true, I can only say that, in my humble judgment, those women who visited him and those men who restored him, alike failed in an unquestionable duty.

Pardon me, if I add that I do not think you attach quite- enough importance to the personal, as distinguished from the social, duty of women in this matter. We should rejoice to do whatever is most expedient for the purification of society ; but our first duty is to be, ourselves, perfectly honest and straightforward. Even supposing it were best for society, or most merciful to the sinner, a truthful woman could not knowingly interchange the cordial courte- sies of society with persons whose deeds she loathed. She could not echo the laugh of the fraudulent Director who. had ruined thousands by his dishonesty, or shake the hand which she knew had been engaged that morning in the torture of animals. Religious people of the last generation shrank from social pleasures, because they considered them tainted irremediably by vanity and falsehood. Were we really called on to pay honour and exhibit friendliness to those to whom honour is not due, and who are unworthy to be our friends, then those old Puritans were assuredly in the right,. and we should each-pray to be banished to " a lodge in some vast wilderness."—I am, Sir, &c.,

[As Miss Cobbe now explains her meaning, we believe that there is no essential difference between her view and our own.— ED. Spectator.]