Woman the predominant partner Author:Edward Sullivan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III I AM not a purist. No, thank God. I regard purists of both sexes as the avowed enemies of reason, common-sense, and civilisation. I don't know which is th... more »e worse, the male or the female purist They have both done, and are still doing, more cruel harm to their fellow-creatures than all the criminals in the country—at any rate, that is my belief. Moreover—and this is very sad—I don't believe in their purity ; no, not one little bit. Drink causes impurity, and impurity causes disease ; therefore drink causes disease. I believe this is a syllogism, and it proves that those who manufacture drink, who own public-houses, who sell drink, who advertise drink, who by every means in their power stimulate the consumption of drink, are the purveyors, the disseminators of disease. When, therefore, I recognise in a prominent purist an owner of public-houses, a vendor of drink in all its most destructive and abominable forms, I know exactly how to appraise this man's vaunted purity. ' Non olet, it doesn't stink,' said Vespasian, as he handled the money raised by acertain unsavoury tax in Rome. ' Non olet, it doesn't stink,' say the brewer and the distiller when they handle the money extracted from the crime, the impurity, the degradation of their fellow-creatures. ' Non olet, it doesn't stink,' smelling it again. No, smug brewer, perhaps not; but your purity does, most damnably. I have no Utopian ideas of social reform. I don't want to see the morality of women sink to the morality of men ; if that ever happens the human race is doomed. And I know perfectly well I shall never see the morality of men rise to the morality of women ; but, in common with everyone endowed with the smallest glimmerings of intelligence, I do see that the distinction society draws between immorality in women...« less