COURAGE OF MEN AND WOMAN.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5117, 13 January 1888, Page 2

COURAGE OF MEN AND WOMAN.

The accounts of the panic on the steamer

Sehoiten have revived an old controversy as to the relative courage of men and women. Of course the traditional theory, that men are by far the more courageous, is capable of being strongly supported, aud taking a ha-ty vie.v of the question it might be concluded that ;hc superior activity of the average masculine career, together with the more ireijuoM demands on nun for cool jud-rmeiit and .-elf-control, would settle the matter. But when men and women in numbers are together confronted with sudden and great danger, it docs not always, perhaps not even generally, appear that the former possess more courage. Fire in church or theatre, collision or other form of disaster ou board a vessel, constitute crucial tests, and in such situations it is not always the men who appear to the greatest advantage. There are indeed instances, such Hs'Umt of the siiikiiitr of the Birkenhead off the Cape of Good Hope, in which masculine self-sacrifice rises to the noblest heroism. It will be remembered that tho Birkenhead had troops ou board, and the boats were insuliicient to rescue more than half the passengers. The troops drew up on deck in parade order, their officers at their head. They declared that the l.ioats should bo reserved for the women ami children. The latter wero safely embarked and got away, and thou the gallant fellows left behind fired a volley in salute and went down, each standing in his plaeo. That is not a solitary example of mauly heroism, but there is a darker side to the question. Too frequently when alarms have occurred among crowds the men have seemed to go frantic, and in all such cases they use their brute strength most cruelly to preserve their own lives. In these panics every feeling- of shame vanishes. Men do not hesitate lo trample upon fainting women, to wrest life-preservers from them, to throw them aside, to crowd them out of the boats. Tho women uvc usually paralyzed by fear and made ineajoablo of doing anything. They fall easy victims to the strong Irutes around them. "They sometimes shriek and rave, but it is not certain 11ml they are much more prone to t jaculation than mule coward.:. They are apt to faint and to cry, but many vise abovo weak'ic-ses of the flesh and display ,-t calumes.. and readiness to face death deserving admiration. There is indeed some ground for suspecting that the selfishn.es of the present age has rendered

men, particularly town-dwellers, more liable to- abject panic fear than were their progenitors. Certainly there have been many cases of late years in which men have ~be-ha-ved most discreditably, and on tho whole it is less easy thau ever to determine judicially whether men or women have the more courage.