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Show i j ; Dorothy Dix Talks j ' ml DANGER AHEAD, LADIES eyf By DOROTHY DIX, the World's Highest Paid Woman Writer If Listen, sisters, nil ye whose hus ' bands drive their own automobiles. 1 The court has ruled that it is nc ll crime for a man to beat his wife when she laughs at him because' he stalls I' ills engine, and can't make the pesky i, old thing go. i A Missouri doctor and his wife re- t cenlly went out for a pleasant spin In 3 , their car. Presently something went f wrong with tho spark plug, or the arm ature, or the feed pipe, or the electric ii . Y?hat-you-may-call-it, or some of tho cS other million thingamajigs with which the little iusides of automobiles are so liberally supplied. Anyway the doctor got out and put up the hood and poked and pried around, and jammed this, and jabbed that, without results. His wife made funf him, and he dragged her out of the machine and beat her and kicked her, whereupon the lady had him arrested, ar-rested, when tho aforementioned facts were elucidated. But Instead of sending send-ing the husband to jail, the judge dismissed dis-missed the case, and handed down this momentous decision: Against Wife-Beating. "As a rule," said he, "I do not in any sense condone wife-beating, but it appears that In this case the assailant suffered great provocation." This ruling of the court calls attention atten-tion to a strange phenomenon of mas-1 culine psychology which every obser-i ant woman must already have noticed, and that is the strange effect that I driving an automobile has on a man's disposition. No one has ever attempted attempt-ed to explain it, so far as I know, but the effect of sitting behind the steer- ing wheel of a car appears to be pre- 1 ma irw csely lat o ne ev spirit which ! i 1 turned tho amiable and kindly 'Dr. j JkV Jeckyl into the cruel and brutal Mr. Z Hyde. Any kind of a car will do it, I men exhibiting the same curious met-1 amorphosis of character whether they! are' driving a Rolls Royco or a Ford, j When automobiles were first In-; vented they were called Devil Wagons. Perhaps this was because we had an Intuitive knowledge of the malign in-1 fiuenco they were destined to have; upon the tempers of men, and that,' like some fabled genii of old, theyj were to have the power of changing lamb'Hko gentlemen Into roaring lions It ff .-, going about seeking Avhom they would ,'t ) - devour. I 'mi' (. Two Different Persons. j Whatever the reason, iC is indis- j putably true that tho m driving ai i car, and the fan at home are two en- 1 tirely different beings. Sitting in I his own library, or on bis own front! Ij 1 porch, a man may be the most .patient K ; and long suffering of human beings. . He may bo thoroughly housebroken, Ij t tho kind of a man who calls his wife 1 J I " -other," and asks her advice, and (1 is her pick out his clothes, and go Jj- wAs?" 'with him when he buys a new hat. The moment he takes his seat in a Ij car, however, ho Is a changed crea- 9 He who was a loving husband and K father, snaps and snarls at his women- M kind if thqy so much as venture' an a opinion about the rate of speed they - aro going. He who never makes a (move In business without getting his i wife's good, hard, horse sense on the trade, looks bloody murder at her if ; she reminds him that a certain road is ' shut off for repairs or that the Blue (Book says that you turn "to thg left instead of the right to go to Squee- dunk. j Makes Her Shudder. I As for making suggestions to a .man who is trying to diagnose the case of a temperamental machine that has suddenly stuck, or entering into pleasant and cheerful conversation with one who is changing the tire of a wheel well, that is something that no sane woman ever does a second time It makes her shudder to her dying day to recall the short, sharp, ugly word that her erstwhile chivalrous and devoted de-voted husband flung .at her, and the baleful look that accompanied it. j J That is why, when you see a carj in trouble by the roadside and a grim, perspiring man with"damn" written all over him tinkering -with it, you I will also observe that tho ladles of his party are gathering wild flowers, I or are gazing raptly at the view, or .otherwise communing In silence with .nature instead of helping the toller with his task or sustaining him with their presence. Safety first, i Has Bad Influence. I But, just as the automobile has a 'deteriorating influence on the character charac-ter of men, it ha3 an uplifting one on (that of women. In a few brief years ,the motor car has done more to teach; women self control, and patience and humility, the especially to hold their tongues, thau all the moralists and preachers, have effected in all the cen-ituries. cen-ituries. Indeed, it is not too much to claim that the auto is raising up a I generation of women who aro as meek ras Patient Grlselda, who have learned I not to speak until they are spoken to when they are out riding with their I husbands, and who have achieved the supreme grace of being able to refrain from audible criticism when hubby finds out that the reason the machine 'wont go is because it is out of gas instead of having broken some vital part. The attitude of a man when driving a car, and also tho sane and safe attitude at-titude of the woman towards the man under the existing circumstances, being be-ing matters of common knowledge, it is hard to feel any sympathy for the wife whose husband beat her up for laughing at him because he couldn't make a balky automobile go. Courage Is one thing. Foolhardinoss is another. an-other. Any woman who gets funnv with a man who Is monkeying with an automobile does so at her peril and deserves the consequences. rrv . |