Vamping for Vamping's Sake A well known American was quoted in the papers not long ago as having said, "If I were a woman, I would vamp." He understood the appeal of this tendency to the feminine nature, and was human eneugh to admit that, were he a woman, he too would indulge in the art—or artifice. But what is "vamping'? We hear the word on every tongue. We see the act every day. Nor is it anything new which we can take the credit for inventing or discovering. Mere tan would say that Eve vamped Adam, and we could well reply—the serpent vamped Eve. This interesting little game is as old as humanity—we have merely coined a word for it.
Our usual avenue of escape when we do not understand is to twa to our faithful.friend Noah Webster, Surely in his day there were vamps. But this time we are foiled. If he knew the real meaning of the word he successfully concealed his acquaintanceship. Or perhaps he had suffered in the process of being vamped, for he says a vamp is "Any piece added to an old thing to make it look new." No, the light of this new word had not dawned upon him for such is far from the meaning.
Another futile attempt would be to relate the vamp of to-day to the legendary vampire of Bram Stoker's Transylvania, whose mis. sion in life was to suck blood from the neck of a victim, and who was so ethereal that his or her entrance to a room even through a cranny in the door was only frustrated by the liberal use of garlic. We must grant that there are certainly some points in common—for example, no woman could vamp against such an odoriferous defence. But there the similarity ends, Tre Love or Conaurst "Vamping'' is the eternal mani-testation of the love of conquest. Never breathe a word of this to a man—it would concede too much. We women are not conteht to be beautiful or attractive in the eyes of men, are we? We must compel them to admit the attraction, to acknowledge that we hold them as our willing vassals. This is the law of the vamp—the untiring conquer-And when each successive man has passed under the yoke she has no time to sit in state and watch the procession of ber slaves file by. Once victorious the interest ceases. and her eye searches the horizon for fresh fields of adventure.
We need nov be concerned at the moment with any moral issues. The woman whose sole ambition is to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.