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Fi&ht-Lovinfc Women a Menace to the Race ? Psychology’s Lessons from the Cruel Joy with Which Hun dreds of Fashionable Women Witnessed the Last Three Brutal Pugilistic Encounters Abroad By Dr. Ham Huldriksen, The Distinguished Swedish-Amerlcan Psychologist. SPOILED daughters of society, whoso tortured and Jaded nerves are sllmulaled by the sight of two human brutes beating one another black nnd bloody, you are a menace to our race! Spoiled daughters of society, who eomoine the cruelty loving InstlnctH of the savage with an Inordinate love of the costliest luxuries and display, you are a peril to our womankind I Three recent prise fights In Europe have been made remarkable by the attendance of a large number of W'omrn of the aristocracy, many of them young and attractive, wearing jewels and modish evening dress. They made a coarse and brutal con test the excuse for u brilliant social gathering. The prixo fights thus distinguished were those between the negro, .lack Johnson, and Frank Moran, In l’arls: between “Freddie” Weigh and ••Willie" Ritchey, in J.ondon, and be tween "Gunboat" Smith and Georges ■Carpentler, also in London. In this unblushing patronage of a brutal spectacle by those who should he the most gentle and refined ele ment of society,, w« see not merely a display of had taHto, but an omnia takablo indication of social corrup tion, a warning that an upheaval Is coming In the communities where such degraded taste prevails. When ever In history the women of the up per classes have succumbed to the fasclnstlon of cruel ami bloodthirsty spectacles, the downfall of a civiliza tion has been surely decreed. Thus It waa In ancient Rome, Rabylon, In Carthage, In Egypt, In Greece, In Spain The psychologist who atudles the news about the recent prizefights la forced to conclude that France and England are doomed to pass through an upheaval like those which befell the earlier civilizations. We In America are closely affected by these occurrences, for a consider able number of American women were among those who witnessed the prizefights. Moreover, the tendency of our socially conspicuous class to imitate the society of England and France Is so strong that there Is nec essarily grave danger that the con tag on of such social customs will spread here. Listen to a newspaper report of the fight between the negro Jack Johnson and Frank Moran In Paris'. •'The singular spectacle was pre sented of several hundred women In beautiful gowns applauding the two pugilists as they struggled up and down the ring, feinting and dodging and punching each other. “Among the women were those that bore such great names in society as Baroness Henri do Rothschild, the younger Duchess d'Utes, the Duchess de Rohan, Countess MalhlSU do No allies, the poetess Princess Morou aieff, and Countess de Prounlers. “Johnson’s white wife occupied a prominent position, wearing many diamonds.” Before the fight, we nrn told, tho loveliest women of the French aris tocracy bearing names that have been famous since the crusades felt the rippling muscles of the colored gladiator Johnson and thrilled with a brutal Joy In the contemplation of hi* colossal development In a misplaced enthusiasm for the triumph of the white race, the at tractive Mrs. J* .> **.' *T r .of New York, richly gowned, planted a kiss full on the lips of the Pittsburgh pugilist Frank Moran. During the encounter the women became fran tically excited nnd applauded wildly whenever the fighting seemed vicious. Similar scenes occurred at the tight between Welsh and Ritchey In lxvn don The Earl of Ixmsdale. a lead lug English spotting nobleman, was there, and with him was his wife, one of the handsomest women in aw ciety, and many other women of the English aristocracy. Tall, fair-hatred maids and matrons, who should have been attending to their duties in the stately homes of England, sat by the ringside nnd cheered the fighters. Among them, too.l regret to say, wad g prominent Anglican clergyman, tho Rev. Michael Vernon Handler, led tfyere by the fallacious Idea that the love of fighting would develop man liness In his parishioners. Similar scenes were repeated at the contest In London between the French pugilist Georges Carpentler and the American "Gunboat” Smith It was a mitigating circumstance of this affair (tint reason triumphed over hruie force. Carpentler’s course in wresting a victory from ills stronger and more brutal opponent, "Gunboat” Smith, by taking a tech nical advantage of tho rules, was in a degree a triumph for the mind of mam We can best, appreciate the ulti mate tendency of these demoralizing pugilistic carnivals by referring to the gladiatorial contests of ancient Rome. That power bore a close re semblance to modern England since Rome wan merely the metropolis of u vast empire Inhabited largely by savage and dependent races. In the later days of the Roman empire, when It was tottering to its fall, the women of the leading Roman families thronged tho Colosseum to witness tlie great gladiatorial festivals hold Roman Women Petting the Murderous Victor of a Gladiatorial Contest. A Scene Which Psychologists Find Has Its Parallel in the Caresses Women of Fashion Showered Upon the Actors in the Recent Prize Fights Whose Meaning Is Asserted to Be Degeneration. there There men fought with men and with wild beasts. Hundreds of men wore killed In a day. while the Roman beauties applauded with (renzy. When one gladiator had another helpless at his feet, he appealed to he Roman women In the front seata to settle the fate of the fallen one. If the loser had not fought with euf Ilcient savageness, the women turned their thumbs viciously down and the victor cut the throat of his fallen op ponent. Just as the French women exam ined the muscles of the prizefighters the other day In Paris, the Roman women Inspected the leading gladi ators before they w ent to the slaugh ter and examined their physical con dition closely, ancient Roman writer tells us that however brutal nnd ugly gladiators were, there were always women ready to adore them and to consider them as beautiful as Adonis At Pompeii, which was a Summer resort of the Romans, there is a scribbling on the wall preserved to day which speaks of one of the glad- iators as "the sigh of tne girls” (sus ptrla puellarum). Evidently an Inor dinate and unwholesome Interest of the Roman women In gladiators, brutes recrultde from tho criminal classes and from the savages of every known country, was an im portant factor In the downfall of Rome. The Roman matron, who was absorbed by the demoralizing Joys of the Colosseum, would not take up the arduous duties of raising a fam ily to fight the battles of Rome and to preserve its Intellectual suprem acy. Why docs the love of brutal spec tacles by women foreshadow the downfall of a society? It Is a re version to savagery without the courage and the impulses that led the original suvage to struggle up wards. Savages love exhibitions of brute strength and ferocity, war dances and barbarous display of all kinds. Fnllke the over-civilized men and women who go to prizefights, they are all eager to risk their own lives and hodiea In contests of feroc ity and endurance. Civilization ia simply a process of replacing the savage rule of brute force by the rule of reason Every prizefight Is a display of savagery worse than any war dance or scalp hunt of the real savages. It ia an undoing of the good that has been done. > In nearly every human being there Is a lingering love of cruelty, or. at least, cruelty exercises a certain fas ctnation for him. The suppression of this primal Instinct Is the great work of civilized morality. Many a man of refinement feels a curiosity to witness a scene of cruelty which he would ba ashamed to acknowledge. Copyright. 1»14, by the Star Company. Groat Britain Rights Reserved. That he feels such shame proves the force of civilization and morality. The instinct of cruelty is derived from the stage of evolution when man killed and hunted his food with his o(Mi* napdy. When woman be comes* dominat'd hy the instinct of cMioUv. 1 a far more com plejJvqrjozpl dogigpjjaGpn and rever sal of ihe iuw-eaßf'’s"“ot civilization tbAlt when man- exhibits that trait. Havelock Ellis, the foremost Eng lish authority on sex characteristics, tellß us that while women are Iq@s often criminals, their crimes are more often marked by cruelty than those of men. "It must he said,” re marks Ellis, "that besides this ele ment of cruelty In women, we have the element of compassion, which Is founded on the maternal Instinct.” In other words, woman first devel oped her compassion while disebarg Ing her most elementary duty of caring for her young and while con templating Its appealing helpless ness. The sentiment of compassion In women must, therefore, be as primitive as the Instinct of cruelty In man. Woman also has cruelty, for men and women were not so greatly differentiated la the first stage of human existence, and she shared hts fierce brutal struggles for food, but In the best type of womsi the cruelty instinct la more com pletely suppressed than in man. Thus we see that the English or French duchesa who applauds a prizefight displays the Instincts of the lowest form of savage life. But for her descendants there will be no struggling upwards towards the heights of humanity and civilization. Biology proves that when a species reverts to an earlier and lower fortni It will become extinct. A degenerate is worthless. The danger of the race from the fight-loving duchesses is that many women will follow their example. Our hope is that their kind will dis appear and that the compassionate refined, broad-minded wromen will be the mothers of the future. \ \ \\vHf \ \\«a- \W. - * The Beautiful Duchess de Ro han Who Ap plauded the Fight Between Jack Johnson and Frank Moran. y • W 1 m •. J ° J \ J/\ \c\ ■ / lr Exclusive Society of Traitors * Descendants THE only known society In the world of descendants of traitors is in process of for mation in Philadelphia, the Cradle of Liberty. Prominent people of Colonial lineage, whose ancestors were Tories or sympathizers with King George during the Revolution ary War. are being urged to join an organization, as yet unnamed, which will have for its object the glorifica tion of so-called loyalists who were found guilty of high treason against the infant American Republic. The fact that their ancestors mixed ground glass in flour sold to Wash ington's army at Germantown or re fused to send provisions to his starv ing and freezing army at Valley Forge does not detract from the en thusiasm evinced by the organizers. The idea of the formation of the society originated with the recent discovery of an ancient document ' H V ' wS<j j HaF : igjflr / / HBr / / / / f ertown asths m*» / / Tory Black. W/f J Hat, publish ***'// / <*d by the At- I / torney General 111 of Pennsylvania U / after the war. ijj|||jpy7 / This list contains J the names of many msMIl / prominent men In IKy / the affairs of Penn j mil / sylvan ia In those days mrj/ ] —men who frowned up ’Sl/ I on the Continental Con- W// J gress. who entertained y7 I the British during their 7/ occupation of Philadelphia. / and who openly scoffed at / the Declaration of Indepen ' dence. A movement was start ed after the war to prosecute them for treason, but it never re sulted in action. “Both Member? of This Club”—The Fae mous Painting by George Bellows Re vised in the Light of the Increasing At tendance of French and English Women at Prise Fights. %h kih mm v Y fr 4pr , Although the seat of the patrlo, Government and the Cradle of Lib erty, Philadelphia in Revolutionary times was still the hotbed of loyal ism. The Quaker element, opposed to war and violence, passively sup ported the British crown and refused aid to the struggling Continentals The fashionable element of what was then the leading city in the Colonies, likewise was Tory. Mo season was ever so brilliant as that of the Win ter of 1777-78, when the British army occupied the city, while Wash angton's tattered forces froze and starved at Valley Forge, a few miles away. The families whose descend ants are still among the leaders ol fashion in the city, royally enter tained the redcoat invaders. It is among these social leaders that the society is being formed. They are taking it seriously, too. They see no joke in the fact that their organization will be based on a list of men who were once threatened with prosecution for a grave crime. Eligibility to membership in the so ciety. in fact, will be determined by the blacklist issued by the Attorney- General. A self-appointed committee of these descendants is now engaged in a canvass for other members, and in the near future a meeting will be held for the purpose of effecting a permanent organization. This will doubtless be accomplished in one of she Quaker meeting houses, the con gregations of which contain many descendants of men who are admitted to have hindered the cause of in dependence by their loyalty to the English King. Their object, they declare, is to preserve records of these men. their ancestors, who were maligned by the Continentals, and whom many per sons despise to this day, and to per petuate the interests in common formed by their ancestors under try ing conditions when they believed they were doing their' duty by God and man in supporting their sovereign. King George of England, and opposing war and bloodshed w(th all its horrors. The present genera tion of Americans in this age of pro gressiveness. they declare, ure more apt to recognize the justice of this The committee is now delving into genealogical lore to ascertain, if pos sible. just who the descendants of these loyalists are. They also will advertise through historical societies and magazines for persons eligible for membership. There will be no attempt, however, to secure a great number of members, as the society will retain a certain exclusiveness In order to afford proper prestige and standing among other hereditary or pnizations Not much is expected to be accomplished during the Sum mer months, but with the advent of 1m ? h i n ! of ,he organization will take definite shape.