Dear Sir, - This letter is a protest against the criticism in the letter from "Forward Minx" in the current number of your paper.
Sympathy is the last thing a cripple wants, and they hate to be dependent on others, and need not be. I am referring to one-legged people, of course.
The characters in the story referred to Tina and the Princess are quite impossible, but it must be remembered that it is a very bizarre fiction story, and if a person was so terribly maimed he or she would be far better dead. But "Forward Minx" quotes her one-legged brother as her authority, so she must therefore include one-legged women.
Because a girl loses a leg, must she in consequence lose everything that life holds good - hopes of marriage, children, and the company of a man that loves her?
I cannot dance or play games, but then neither can many two-legged persons. She has just been married. Her body is perfect, according to the measurements she gives. Because mine has lost half of a leg, is mine hideous?
She should remember that this world is - luckily - made up of all sorts of people, and if there are men who can love a one-legged woman must they then be unnatural, horrible, disgusting, and of bad taste?
I write this letter not only for myself, but for the many girls who are happy, married and one-legged.
Be fair, "Forward Minx", and let we who are either short of a limb or who are attracted by the deficiency, have what little pleasure we can get from reading about the subject.
I do not consider that the loss of a leg makes one a cripple, but the loss of two, or hand or arm is far too serious a loss to permit a girl to accept the love of a man; and a person as limbless as the two characters I refer to could not and should not marry.
I am writing this not in anger, but simply out of a desire to
see fair play for everybody.
Yours truly,
Helen Fivetoes