We are dangerously near an epoch of intellectual if not carnal
debauchery. The prevailing tendency on the part of the young girls of
to-day to imitate the dress and makeup of the Parisian cocotte is
unconsciously due to this general lowering of the social moral tone.
Young women in good society seem to feel that they must enter into open
competition with their less fortunate sisters. And in this struggle for
survival they are apparently determined to yield no advantage. Herein
lies the popularity of the hobble skirt, the transparent fabric that
hides nothing and follows the move of every muscle, and the otherwise
senseless peculiarities and indecencies of the more extreme of the
present fashions.

And here, too, is to be found the reason for the popularity of the
current style of dancing, which offers no real attraction except the
opportunity for a closeness of contact otherwise not permissible.

"It's all in the way it is done," says Mrs. Jones, making the customary
defense. "The tango and the turkey trot can be danced as unobjectionably
as the waltz."

Exactly! Only the waltz is not danced that way; and if it were the
offending couple would probably be put off the floor. Moreover, their
origin and history demonstrates their essentially vicious character. Is
there any sensible reason why one's daughter should be encouraged to
imitate the dances of the Apache and the negro debauchee? Perhaps, after
all, the pendulum has merely swung just a little too far and is knocking
against the case. The feet of modern progress cannot be hampered by too
much of the dead underbrush of convention.

The old-fashioned prudery that in former days practically prevented
rational conversation between men and women is fortunately a thing of
the past, and the fact that it is no longer regarded as unbecoming for
women to take an interest in all the vital problems of the
day--municipal, political and hygienic--provided they can assist in
their solution, marks several milestones on the highroad of advance.

On the other hand the widespread familiarity with these problems, which
has been engendered simply for pecuniary profit by magazine literature
in the form of essays, fiction and even verse, is by no means an
undiluted blessing--particularly if the accentuation of the author is on
the roses lining the path of dalliance quite as much as on the
destruction to which it leads. The very warning against evil may turn
out to be in effect only a