Nashville Union And American

pause here to say a word about that monstrous disgrace to the intelligence of our age, which makes so wide a difference in its judgment between the sexes in the matter of chastity. Here the lecturer spoke at some length on the subject, condemning the uncharitable disposition of society in making the woman who has fallen an outcast forever, while the man who has caused her ruin is treated with the utmost leniency. She referred at some length to the womanly girl, denying that the term "womanly" was appropriately applied by men. She contended that the same virtues which are esteemed "manly" in men, such as honor, courage, truth and virtue, are "womanly" traits in women.

There are three different types of the American girl who are peculiarly interesting as representing the three different sections of the country. These are the Yankee girl, the Western girl, and the Southern girl. My Yankee girl lives in New England generally, and in Boston particularly. (Laughter.) She can make a bed or demonstrate a proposition in algebra with equal facility. Her studies in mental philosophy never interfere with the perfection of her toilet. She has a large household of sisters. It is amazing how many sisters girls do have. (A laugh.) She sees that her chances of getting a husband to support her are rather slim; so she has quietly laid her plan for the future in such a way that if she is obliged to, she can support herself. She is not exactly a strong-minded girl, understand, but she leans a little that way, Well, that is good so far as it goes, for it is a step in the right direction; my creed being, and it has always been, that girl should be educated just as a boy is, to support herself. Then she can marry, if she wishes to marry, the man she wants, without regarding the question of his pocket-book. She can be her husband's partner, and support him if he falls ill. Many a woman has to support her husband when he could work. [Laughter.] My Yankee girl has very decided opinions on all those subjects. O yes, indeed! She is a girl that has "views." She wears spectacles and carries a blue umbrella [laughter], and she expresses her views, too, whenever she can get anyone to listen. She also has her sense of humor, but her jokes are always marked by her shrewd Yankee character. It was a Yankee girl who, tasting a glass of cider at a neighbor's house, asked, "Mrs. Skinflint, how many barrels of cider did Mr. Skinflint make this year?" "Seven barrels." "Seven barrels! well, if he had had another apple he might have made another barrel." [Roars of laughter.]

The Western girl is nothing in the world but a Yankee girl let loose. Some of those Western girls are half Yankee. When they are, they prove that the best thing is to get out of New England and go west to the broad, free prairies.

The popular idea of the Southern girl rates her as a luxurious, enervated creature, capable of nothing but lolling over novels in the sunshine, or the fatiguing exercise of shopping. She is supposed to be entirely lacking in self-reliance and possessing neither the desire nor the ability to think for herself, her only idea of existence is inseparable from being cared for by a man, her only ambition to make herself pleasing to his eye, her only education those smattering of French, algebra, drawing and music which are taught for so much per quarter at watering places. But those who hold this type to be the true one are in error. My Southern girl is in some degree an ideal girl, but she is not a creation of her fancy for all that. She is, in fact, made up of every good quality in the Southern character, and when you take the best qualities of the warm impulsive heart, your own heart must be made of ice or snow if you do not love and admire them. There is that within her breast which helps to keep a woman pure and true, which helps her to stand by her own and suffer or die, if need be, in defence of those she loves, and defiance of those she hates, and she can hate, this girl, as earnestly and as deathlessly as she can love. Once let this girl array herself on the side of the good and true, and no one in the world can find a champion more zealous.

The lecturer referred to the noble devotion of the Southern women to the cause of the Confederacy during the late war and continued: Those who had known only lives of ease and indolence became the angels of the hospital, nursing the sick and wounded. The fashionable belles forgot their silks and laces and clad themselves in coarse stuffs. They said, this is my father, this is my brother, this is my lover; where they suffer there is my place. I declare as a woman who throughout that long and terrible struggle sided heart and soul with the Stars and Stripes, that she is no true woman and he is no true man who cannot, looking upon the past, rise superior to prejudice and passion and honor the brave, earnest suffering of the Southern women who cast in their lot with the South.

After pursuing this subject for some time in the same strain, she spoke of the strong-minded women, who, very naturally received a most complimentary notice. She defended their claims to a wider sphere of usefulness, and concluded by tendering some good, wholesome advice to the ladies in the audience. The lecture was one of the most successful that has been delivered in Nashville for many a day. It abounds with sparkling wit, caustic sarcasm, touching pathos, and saving common sense. Many in the large audience which was charmed with her eloquence last night, will regret that she has decided not to deliver her lecture on "Young Men," in Nashville