LONDON GIRLS TRIALS IN NEW YORK.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LX, Issue LX, 17 October 1910, Page 2

LONDON GIRLS TRIALS IN NEW YORK.

POSED AS A BOY.

Thoroughly disillusioned, Miss Langley, a pretty English girl, who went to New tforJfc from London to make her tortune, is returning home.

She had read that in America competition was far less keen than in jpJurope, and that every girl with educacion, perseverance, and enterprise had a fair chance of earning something more tnan mere bread and butter.

bhe found immediately she landed that she had struck wnat Americans call a "mighty tough proposition." The only posts available were in domestic service, of which there were plenty, but . for which she was not qualified.

She was fitted, she said, for office work, but in despair' she at last became a waitress in a restaurant. Then, says Miss Langley, "my real troubles began," until finally, to escape the terrible New York men, "who worry a girl to death," she threw away girl's clothes and posed as a man tor two months.

In turns, adds the Daily Telegraph correspondent, she was waiter, grocer's , boy, amateur detective, ' and barber's cashier, and no one detected the disguise until, in consequence of a statement made by a lady friend that she was a girl, and only masquerading in man's attire, she was brought before the police court, which remanded her in custody to a home for girls, until arrangements could be made for her return to London. j

Miss Langley, a frail, blonde, pretty, delicate girl looks essentially feminine. "Not a girl," she lamented, "who has a pretty face or a bit of figure can work independently for a living in New York and escape being annoyed by men unless she happens to be without feelings or is used to it from her childhood % "American men, especially those who have no home and have to dine in restaurants, are terrible. They worry a girl nearly to death. I think it is because so many American men have no homes and live in furnished rooms that they behave in this way. In England there is more home life, and we don't have that trouble. •

"With American girls it is different; they know how to what they call 'jolly a chap,' and it doesn't bother them; but I couldn't stand it.

"It is because I was insulted and worried so by men until I couldn't stand it any longer that I've had all this trouble. All I wanted was to be let alone, so that I could earn my living in peace, but I found the independence of a working woman in America, of which I heard so much at home, was a fairy tale.

"So I decided that the only way I could get the protection I wanted was to dress as a man. Now all I want is to get back to England. I will never leave England again."