The Anti-Flirt Club

In the early-1920s in Washington, D. C., a lady named Alice Reighly founded the Anti-Flirt Club — an organisation "composed of young women and girls who have been embarrassed by men in automobiles and on street corners," and which aimed to protect such women from future embarrassment.

The club issued the following list of rules.

(Source: Shorpy, via P. Robbins; Image: The club's "charter members" in 1923, via Wikimedia.)

1. Don't flirt: those who flirt in haste oft repent in leisure.
2. Don't accept rides from flirting motorists—they don't invite you in to save you a walk.
3. Don't use your eyes for ogling—they were made for worthier purposes.
4. Don't go out with men you don't know—they may be married, and you may be in for a hair-pulling match.
5. Don't wink—a flutter of one eye may cause a tear in the other.
6. Don't smile at flirtatious strangers—save them for people you know.
7. Don't annex all the men you can get—by flirting with many, you may lose out on the one.
8. Don't fall for the slick, dandified cake eater—the unpolished gold of a real man is worth more than the gloss of a lounge lizard.
9. Don't let elderly men with an eye to a flirtation pat you on the shoulder and take a fatherly interest in you. Those are usually the kind who want to forget they are fathers.
10. Don't ignore the man you are sure of while you flirt with another. When you return to the first one you may find him gone.

10 Rules for Wives

In 1923, the Legal Aid Society of New York City published some advice to wives in the area, in the form of the  following list of rules.

(Source: Family (Great Contemporary Issues.); Image via.)

1. Don't be extravagant. Nothing appeals more strongly to a man than the prospect of economic independence.
2. Keep your home clean. Nothing is more refreshing to the eyes of the tired, nerve-racked worker than the sight of a well-tidied home.
3. Do not permit your person to become unattractive. A slovenly wife makes a truant husband.
4. Do not receive attention from other men. Husbands are often jealous and some are suspicious without cause. Do not supply the cause. Friendly attentions from others may be received in a spirit of perfect innocence. When reported by the busy-body they become distorted, often criminal.
5. Do not resent reasonable discipline of children by their father. Mothers should not assume that all chastisement of a child by his father is severe and unjustifiable.
6. Do not spend too much time with your mother. You may easily, in such a way, spend too little time at home.
7. Do not accept advice from neighbors, or even stress too greatly that of your own family. Think for yourself. Have a plan of your own for solution of home problems. In all causes consult freely with your husband.
8. Do not disparage your husband.
9. Smile. Be attentive in little things. An indifferent wife is often supplanted by an ardent mistress.
10. Be tactful. Be feminine. Men, in the last analysis, are but over-grown children. They do not mind coaxing, but they resent coercion. Femininity attracts and compels them. Masculinity in the females repels.

School Punishments, 1848

The next time you spot a child complaining of strict teaching, show them the following — a list of 46 acts considered particularly mischievous by a North Carolina school back in 1848, along with the number of lashes to be given as punishment.

A couple of notes: To "blackguard" is to be verbally abusive, and "Bandy" is a game played on ice.

(Source: The Underground History of American Education; Image: Three 19th Century schoolboys, via the National Archives.)

RULES OF THE STOKES COUNTY SCHOOL

Offense	Lashes
1. Boys & Girls Playing Together	4
2. Quarreling	4
3. Fighting	5
4. Fighting at School	5
5. Quarreling at School	3
6. Gambling or Betting at School	4
7. Playing at Cards at School	10
8. Climbing for every foot over three feet up a tree	1
9. Telling Lies	7
10. Telling Tales Out of School	8
11. Nick Naming Each Other	4
12. Giving Each Other Ill Names	3
13. Fighting Each Other in Time of Books	2
14. Swearing at School	8
15. Blackguarding Each Other	6
16. For Misbehaving to Girls	10
17. For Leaving School Without Leave of the Teacher	4
18. Going Home With Each Other without Leave of Teacher	4
19. For Drinking Spiritous Liquors at School	8
20. Making Swings & Swinging on Them	7
21. For Misbehaving when a Stranger is in the House	6
22. For Wearing Long Finger Nails	2
23. For not Making a Bow when a Stranger Comes in	3
24. Misbehaving to Persons on the Road	4
25. For not Making a Bow when you Meet a Person	4
26. For Going to Girl’s Play Places	3
27. For Going to Boy’s Play Places	4
28. Coming to School with Dirty Face and Hands	2
29. For Calling Each Other Liars	4
30. For Playing Bandy	10
31. For Bloting Your Copy Book	2
32. For Not Making a bow when you go home	4
33. For Not Making a bow when you come away	4
34. Wrestling at School	4
35. Scuffling at School	4
36. For Weting each Other Washing at Play Time	2
37. For Hollowing and Hooping Going Home	3
38. For Delaying Time Going Home or Coming to School	3
39. For Not Making a Bow when you come in or go out	2
40. For Throwing anything harder than your trab ball	4
41. For every word you miss in your lesson without excuse	1
42. For Not saying yes Sir or no Sir or yes Marm, no Marm	2
43. For Troubling Each Others Writing Affairs	2
44. For Not Washing at Play Time when going to Books	4
45. For Going and Playing about the Mill or Creek	6
46. For Going about the barn or doing any mischief about	7

Wm. A. Chaffin, Master, November 10, 1848.

The 23 Types of Vagabond

In 1566, Thomas Harman published A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors, vulgarly called vagabonds, a book that aimed to shine a light on what he believed to be the devious rogues of society. As well as retelling stories of thievery, detailing the techniques of such criminals, and providing a dictionary of rogues' secret language ("Thieves' Cant"), each of the book's first 23 chapters were named after a different class of vagabond, as identified by Harman.

Those chapter titles soon became the following popular list, as described in William Harrison's Description Of England 11 years later.

(Source: The Description Of England.)

The several disorders and degrees amongst our idle vagabonds:

1. Rufflers (thieving beggars, apprentice uprightment)
2. Uprightmen (leaders of robber bands)
3. Hookers or anglers (thieves who steal through windows with hooks)
4. Rogues (rank-and-file vagabonds)
5. Wild rogues (those born of rogues)
6. Priggers of prancers (horse thieves)
7. Palliards (male and female beggars, traveling in pairs)
8. Fraters (sham proctors, pretending to beg for hospitals, etc.)
9. Abrams (feined lunatics)
10. Fresh-water mariners or whipjacks (beggars pretending shipwreck)
11. Dummerers (sham deaf-mutes)
12. Drunken tinkers (thieves using the trade as a cover)
13. Swadders or peddlers (thieves pretending to be peddlers)
14. Jarkmen (forgers of licenses) or patricoes (hedge priests)

Of Womenkind:

1. Demanders for glimmer or fire (female beggars pretending loss of fire)
2. Bawdy baskets (female peddlars)
3. Morts (prostitutes and thieves)
4. Autem morts (married harlots)
5. Walking morts (unmarried harlots)
6. Doxies (prostitutes who begin with uprightmen)
7. Dells (young girls, incipient doxies)
8. Kinchin morts (female beggar children)
9. Kinchin coes (male beggar children)