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Show Changed Circumstances. Some short time ago an aged lady was attacked at-tacked on the street close to the railroad rail-road depot, by a ruffian, and before released her clothing was nearly torn off her in his efforts to accomplish his hellish designs. On Saturday evening two young ladies were stopped on the street by a couple of fellows, and were insulted. These facts, with others we have lately heard of, tell the people that circumstances are changed, and ladies cannot now walk through the streets of this city unmolested at any hour. There are two sides to this matter. One is that ladies should not walk out unattended whem they are thus exposed expos-ed to insult ; as strangers coming here might suppose from seeing them thus on the streets without male protectors that they arc like the poor, miserable creatures who are found in too maDy places in the world. On the other hand, it is held that women have as good a right to walk around at any reasonable hour as men have, and that insult to them is an invasion in-vasion of their natural rights, which sheuld be promptly and properly punished. pun-ished. This is emphatically our opinion, opin-ion, yet under existing circumstances, expediency requires them to. bo attended attend-ed by some male friend when they have to be out at night; and they should be out at such hours no more than is absolutely necessary. At the same time, we wish young ladies to understand, that if they put on bold, forward airs, they can expect nothing better than insult from strangers whose ideas of virtue and chastity may be rather lax, and who may view such manners as evidences of immorality instead in-stead of independence. We speak thus plainly because we have no desire te see strangers punished pun-ished here for what might be deemed a trivial offence in many other places; nor to see young ladies exposed to insult in-sult caused by misplaced levity; while we endorse in the strongest manner the application of the full penalty of the law to ruffians who attack defenceless defence-less women, or fellows that force their presence upon ladies who simply happen hap-pen to be unaccompanied by a male protector. |