ENGLISH AND COLONIAL GIRLS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1095, 24 February 1893, Page 15

ENGLISH AND COLONIAL GIRLS.

(WRITTEN FOR THE MAIL BY V.Z.) The chief difference between an English and New Zealand girl, (for the Australians differ from New Zealanders) is that the latter are more independent, they rely upon themselves and not on others.

English ladies, when travelling alone, continually require the services of a railway porter, a steward, or some species of mankind, without which they are to colonial minds, comically helpless. A New Zealander, with almost boyish independence, will gather up her own goods and chattels, call her own cab, make her way to her own home, and smile at the remembrance of an English passenger, whom sho left in the cabin looking disconsolately at her luggage and calling ‘ Steward ! Steward 1’ every time she heard the footstep of one of those (at excursion time) overworked individuals. There is another difference, which to an English mind, tells against a colonial; that is the New Zealander’s manner of flirting, in fact, I had better say at once, their love of ‘ spooning.’ An English girl can aud does flirt, but all in a ‘ hands off’ manner, while a colonial, without meaning the least harm, will allow a man to put his arm round her waist, to say all sorts of sweet nothings to her, to kiss her even, and she enjoys the situation, but to their credit be it said they don’t think such conduct wrong, only having 1 such fun 1’ with somebody. Here is a confession of one of these ‘ kissing ’ men: ‘ I kiss girls,’ he said, ‘ because I know they like to be kissed 1’ And this monster walks down Lambton Quay every day of his life. If a man kisses a girl because he loves her, well he may be forgiven, but because he thinks she likes to be kissed—that is humiliating. Needless to say that man is a New Zealander.

It is a perfect revelation to an English girl to hear a colonial boasting about her ‘ boys,’ and to see her taking long walks and drives with a man to whom she is not engaged, without a chaperon, also goingto afternoon tea with married men while their wives are away at the seaside ; all this is done openly and innocently, showing it is merely a characteristic of the colonies, but in England it would be considered unladylike in the extreme. Another thing which makes an English woman open her eyes is to find in almost every spare bedroom in the colonies a brush and comb provided for visitors. You do not see this out of the colonies, and our New Zealand girls travelling in the Old Country will not find her English cousins so accommodating. Yet, with all their characteristics for a little slang (which an English girl’s brothers nip in the bud) their love of ‘spooning,’ of being the happy possessors of ‘ boys ’ from babyhood upwards, and behaving with all round independence, New Zealand may well be proud of her sunny daughters, God bless ’em!

[I regret I cannot agree with some of the contentions of my contributor Y.Z. English girls do not lack independence, on the contrary, their independence when travelling, especially on the Continent, causes great surprise to French and German ladies. I have personally known young ladies make a two months’ tour in France and Switzerland, unaccompanied by any chaperone or maid, and being ladies and behaving always as ladies, they never experienced the slightest annoyance. As for the typical ‘kissing man,’ mentioned by Y.Z,, to my poor old fashioned opinion, his vulgar boasting is that of a cad, and I pity the girl who has so little self respect as to permit his embraces. V.Z. is also sadly inaccurate when she supposes that, in English spare bedrooms, brushes and combs are not to be found. They are there, but it is seldom they are used by the visitor, who, in England, as in the colonies, generally brings her own in her dressing bag.— Ed. Ladies’ Pages.]