Show IN DEFtNSE OF STtPftlOTHERS I Where tho Cinderella Story Has n Pernicious Influence on Society Most of us have been brought upon up-on the good old orthodox fairy tales is ihe poslllon taken by 11 E J Kol hey when making A Plea for tho Stepmother in the January Womans Home Companion We have Imbibed I with our earliest draughts of literature the notion hat I stepmothers arc all I wicked and cruol fiends Tho novelists I of laler date taking their duo from tho fairy stories have elaborated on Ibis uHHumpllon until th very name of I stepmother carries with It a suggestion sugges-tion of oruclty and oppression We find It qxilte credible thai when the sweet cut girl of out uoqualntanto becomes a stepmother she will feed her own babies on angelcnko and mnke the dead wlfos children got on wIth plain brown bread We are shocked of course but we expect all manner of atrocious things from stepmothers The stepmothers wide of the case In never hoard I scorns to be the first wiles friends who rubh Into print always al-ways As I rule lao they are the ones who stir up iroublo In the Ilrsl plarn between the I children and their stepmother step-mother Once In awhile no doubt there Is a wicked cruel stepmother 01 the storybook type because there are Sllll some wicked cruel women In the I world In Hplte of all the evidences I of womens advancement Whfii talking I about HlepmoiherH how over wo laroly recall the flno typos of slepmothors who stand out so gravely In the I pages of more than one biography There was that remarkable family to which Maria Etlgeworth belonged wllh its more than iwonty chlldiin and two stepmothers Their father had been married throe hues and oaoh stepmother step-mother was mournedas heartily by her stepchildren its by lieu own An there was Mrs Johnson Lincolns stepmother step-mother whom ho always loved and provided pro-vided for and she mUtt certainly havo loved him In quite motherly fashion Otherwise Rho could hardly Imv6 paid him lint charming tribute lie wag the best boy she ever lee or vvor ox pecled lo know She never Inew him once to refuse to do anything chic wanted V want-ed I him to do or to oem not to want to tie It I V |