ARE WOMEN RUDE?

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 2, Issue 131, 7 August 1895, Page 3

ARE WOMEN RUDE?

Rudeness is a quality ordinarilycredited to those of low social rank or extreme youth, and we hear rude boj-s or men more frequently criticised than girls or women ; hut our observation for some years and in several Australian cities induces us to think that active public selfishness, which constitutes rudeness, is by no means, nor indeed chiefly a masculine quality. What woman does not dread to enter a street car full, or rather half full, of women ? There may be plenty of room for the added passenger, but "ladies" occuppying seats pay no heed to the rights of others, sit at an angle which makes two persons occupy the space intended for three, exhibit a ponderous inertia when requested to "move up a little, please," and frequently look daggers at the rash conductor or officiously amiable passenger who tries to make room for the last comer.

It is, too, often a woman who in the ordinary railroad train enscones herself in one half a seat beside bag and shawl, and turns a blind eye to the timid late arrival—generally another woman—who meekly asks, "Is this seat engaged, ma'am ?" Do not women invariably push and jostle each other at the railwa}' gate, forgetting that it is impossible for two persons to pass through the same opening at the same of timo? At the theatre, is it not a woman who disturbs herneighboisby giggling and audible comment ? Do not women, indifferent to other's comfort, cany bonnet-fehiolds which seriously interfero with the stage view, and practically limit the out-look from otherwise desirable seats ?

Go into any popular fancy or dry goods store where the customers are mainly women, and one is struck by the lack of consideration and courtsey for each other shown by the shoppers and when women are employed as clerks, by the frequent exchange of sharp and rude remarks between purchaser and seller. Even in church, where one is taught that class distinctions and privileges should be ignored, what woman does not shrink "from being shown as a stranger into a pew partly occupied by women, the pioneers so evidently show their unwillingness to move up V