n.
It is far better and easier to prevent the danger than to escape from
it.

Flirtation.--We cannot find language sufficiently emphatic to express
proper condemnation of one of the most popular forms of amusement
indulged in at the present day in this country, under the guise of
innocent association of the sexes. By the majority of people,
flirtation is looked upon as harmless, if not useful, as some even
consider, claiming that the experience gained by such associations is
valuable to young persons, by making them familiar with the customs
of society and the ways of the world. We have not the slightest
hesitation in pronouncing flirtation as pernicious in the extreme. It
exerts a malign influence alike upon the mental, the moral, and the
physical constitution of those who indulge it. The young lady who has
become infatuated with a passion for flirting, courting the society
of young men simply for the pleasure derived from their attentions,
is educating herself in a school which will totally unfit her for the
enjoyment of domestic peace and happiness should she have all the
conditions necessary for such enjoyment other than those which she
herself must furnish. More than this, she is very likely laying the
foundation for lifelong disease by the dissipation, late hours, late
suppers, evening exposures, fashionable dressing, etc., the almost
certain accompaniments of the vice we are considering. She is surely
sacrificing a life of real true happiness for the transient
fascinations of unreal enjoyment, pernicious excitement.

It may be true, and undoubtedly is the case, that the greater share
of the guilt of flirtation lies at the door of the female sex; but there
do exist such detestable creatures as male flirts. In general, the male
flirt is a much less worthy character than the young lady who makes
a pastime of flirtation. He is something more than a flirt. In nine
cases out of ten, he is a rake as well. His object in flirting is to
gratify a mean propensity at the expense of those who are pure and
unsophisticated. He is skilled in the arts of fascination and intrigue.
Slowly he winds his coils about his victim, and before she is aware
of his real character, she has lost her own.

Such wretches ought to be punished in a purgatory by themselves, made
seven times hotter than for ordinary criminals. Society is full of these
lecherous villains. They insinuate themselves into the drawing-rooms
of the most respectable fa