A GIRL OF THE PERIOD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8082, 24 September 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

A GIRL OF THE PERIOD.

COMPARED FAVOURABLE WITH

GRANDMA.

BOTH FROM THE SAME PIECE.

ONE OF THE INJURED ATTEMPTS TO STEM THE TIDE OF FLIPPANT CRITICISM.

I think it is high time that some good knight should buckle on his armour, and, with sword or pen in hand, do battle for our girls, our modern girls, our girls of the period. Just show me any other period when they were brighter or sweeter or bettor informed, when they,were morally or phynioally better developed. Talk about our great-grandmothers, indeed ! No doubt they were fine women for the times, the time of spinning-wheels and hand-ohurhs and pillions; but I'll wager their greatgrandmothers were held over their beads just the same, and so on away back to Eve, though I confess I have never heard of her myself, except as a warning to her too curious descendants ; but even then she was man's superior. Aa someone onoe sagely remarked, " Just a pretty woman could tempt Adam, while it took the devil himself to get away with Eve." But I am tired of reading of the fast girls, the slangy girls, the masonline, go-as-you-please, overdressed, loud-talking, cigarette-smoking "girls," and I'd like to know what low strata of society the people who write that class up affect. They are not of my acquaintance, and I meet scores of them, girls in society and out of society. The American girl is no more " rapid" than her English cousin or her French one,

AS XT WAS IN THE GOOD OLD DATS,

either, for that matter. The difference in education may make her more at ease, more self-possessed, but self-possession is not brazenness, as some waspish people call it. And if she reads the daily papers and fa conversant with the topics of the day, from Gladstone to the last ball match, why should she not air her knowledge a little and gain more ? I heard a little blonde on the boat yesterday eagerly questioning a nautical man as to the peculiarity of con» struction in the Thistle and Volunteer, and wrinkling her brows in a stern endeavour to grasp the difference between a middle-board and keel. And she will grasp it, too, and bring it in asms day so deftly that the astoaaded listener will never know h)w she has been planning the whole conv«ria).ion for a half-hour to lead up to it. Ah, she is a clever, bright person, this modern girl of ours. Of course, she likes to dress well, and did not our great grandmothers? And, if she has a dozen gowns where her grandmother had one, it was because money was much more scarce then than new, sad such brocaclaa and satins as

AS It IS IN THESE DNRKQBSBEA.TK DATS, •he wore were of such texture as to defy the destroying baud of time, and only grew a rloher tint of cream and eora as years rolled on. It may be she did have a hand in the spinning and weaving of the woollen gowns she wore, but I doubt it. There were lilies of the field then as now, and it required quite a* many handmaidens to minister to their comfort and luxury. No doubt our girls do sometimes strive to improve Nature (not always unsucoess* fully) by a little velotine and rose petal, and tip up their bonny brown looks with various nerve-destroying oxides ; bat, after all, is it worse than the greasy pomade their greatgrandmothers used as a foundation on which to shake layer after layer of starohy flour, which was not removed for days, and left white smutches over everything they touched ? The cavaliers must have had serious times with their velvet coatflaps in those days ; and paint and face powder were on every toilet in that enlightened age, and snuff out of dainty boxes was quite as much in vogue as cigarettes, and, ob, that one

LORGNETTES.

must mention the villainous, jaw>dsveloping, chewing gam! Listen to the fathers and mothers talk of their grandmothers' straight, strong backs and perfect health, " because of their sensible dressing, my dearsthen look baok at the fashions of those times—French heels three inches high in the middle of the foot, attached to slippers of satin or silk, with mere paper soles, worn outdoors, and in tight-laced waists, so long that one was held npright as in a vice, whioh accounts, 1 think, for all that unyielding, rest-defying, up-and-down furniture then used; or, at another period of fashion, one's waist-belt passed under the armpits, regardless of all roles of health or anatomy, and the monster leg-o' mutton sleeve. Gould anything exceed its deformity ? It is fanny—very, very fanny—l admit to ait, for instance, in a street car filled with women, and watch first one, and then and another rise, each one impelled, it would Beam, by soma foroe attached to the conductor's bell, put their two hands baok of them, give a little push first to the right, and then to the left of the ponderous tOUYnunj, press down the little bobby tails of their jackets with the back of the hand, give a final shake, and shoot out of the oar door as if taking a header into apace. I saw one young girl once do that on a ferry-boat, and, m she pressed dow. her jacket-flaps, palm outward, a fleshy-looking masculine behind her gave it a hearty squeeze, to her great discomfiture. The tall, seven-storey-and-mansard hats, | too, are an abomination at the theatres and

concerts I will atfailt, and I don't blame men for complaini.'K' of them ; but I think it is a kind of righ teous judgment on them for crashing our silk and laoes and treading on our toes three or four times an evening when they go out to see a man, and perfume the whole row with doves on their return. But do you suppose there waa any less hue and cry a century ago, when the unhappy beaux had to crane their necks over and around such coiffures as those in the accompanying cut 1 I do not believe—have no reason to be* lieve, in —that our great-grandmothers were a bit more indastrious than we—could cook better, sew better, oonverse, or sing, or play, or comfort themselves in any way more oreditably than our modern, much-abused girls. If John, the young naval lieutenant,

GREAT-GRANDMAMMA. marries Mary, the pretty brunette, and on his return from a three years' cruise finds her prettier still, but a sunshining blonde, need he complain ? We all know men are fickle, and here he can write sonnets to his blonde in blue, and almost forget that she ever was his brunette in brown, if she only keeps the bottle bid and tips up those telltale streaks in the nape of the neck. Oar great-grandfathers had no such incentive to oonstanoy, unless, perhaps, our grandmothers bad the pomade and powder raked and dusted out occasionally. It may be, too, that pretty Mary had written ber dear John that her eyes have been troubling her of late, and she has bad to have them examined by an oculist, who tells her they are in a really very bad condition, indeed, and necessitates the use of glasses; and poor John is greatly troubled, having always admired those long-lashed, dusky orbs, and grows quite sentimental over them, till on bis return she gazss on him tenderly through a pair of goggles attached to a bit of carved tortoise shell, which pulls out to the length of a small walking-stick, and it is some days before he will allow the awful suspicion and then certainty to take full possession of his masculine mind that the glass is of the harmless window-pane family, and that the lovely orbs are not the mirrors of truth. Now, don't you suppose our great grand-

OUKAT-QBANDDIPOHTER, mothers fooled our great-grandfathers in much the same way, and made them all the fonder of them for it ? The same girl who blondes her dark bair carries a fund of good common sense underneath its reverse in a thousand instances, and her eyes detect the little and great meannesses in a man's soul, just as quickly ax though the window-pane in her lorgnettes was of the highest magnifying power known. Her pretty, pink* tipped, much-manicured fingers are out* stretohod to help those in need and do dainty or useful work, as the necessity calls. Her clothing may be too heavy for health, but she (if an American girl, and I only write of them) rarely laces, and on the streets wears broad-soled, low-heeled, sensible shoes. She can wield a racquet gracefully and row deftly, and, if I am allowed the space at another time, will tell you how she can make her own dresses and hats (and does), and cook a creditable meal, and does not make any fuss or parade about it either. ludeed, the modem Amerioan girl is a darling, and not half appreciated by the general public.—A Mouekn Girl, in the San Francisco Chronicle.