BETTER WOMEN?

The public loves generalizations, especially those of a sensational nature. Therefore when the records of the New York State Reformatory for Women indicate fewer prisoners than five years ago, and when male prisons show the opposite trend for the same period the press immediately runs scareheads to the effect that "Women Are Getting Better, Men Worse". Thus the female of the species is given a chance to demonstrate, paper in hand, to her husband that there are two sides to the argument concerning male superiority. Baffled by the maze of figures, the only refuge for the criminal male is silence.

Ring Lardner once wrote a book and called it, intelligently enough, "What Of It?" The same title might aptly be applied to the above journalistic summary of any man's weakness and woman's integrity. As merely frivolous fancies of average minds such analysis of social problems are, if not welcome, at least endurable. Their greatest service is to fill space which would otherwise be either empty or devoted to some less innocuous article. They have no possible value to any except, perhaps, as a starting point for conversation; and it is questionable whether or not they even have any news interest. Nevertheless they form a goodly part of the daily reading matter of the average person. The public will never cease loving generalizations but it may eventually tire of what any honest editor would label as so much bologna.