THE COMING GIRL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7328, 11 August 1885, Page 4

THE COMING GIRL.

(Pall Mall Gazette.) _ We cannot have everything, and two tiling generally incompatible seem to be good looks and a colossal intellect—at least so Mr Dv Marnier held, and so he drew some time ago in Punch, when by the side of a beautiful girl, or "line animal,"'as he called her he 'placed a lady—Newnhaniite or Girtonian— of vast inteUectual attainments- Some ' thought Ins clever but indiscreet pencil had libelled the sex, but a visit to the collegiate establishment of Newnham on any/cfc day is calculated to convince the impartial observer that Dv Maurier had, if anythinounderstated Ins case, and that the mil' chief at which he struck is ,on the increase. Learning, or rather excessive cramming, seems to make women not only indifferent to the use of stays—for which there is something to be said—but insensible to proportion, neatness, and appearance generally Our first impression on survevinegroups of Girtonian and Newnhamite girll on a Cambridge lawn was that a number of them had torn down bed-curtains, windowblmds, whipped up antimacassars, and tacked them about their' persons, with various chiftons .here and there,_p<wB ttl :> c^ja _j c ,i t _ f^_: Japanese.silk bunched out behind or swaddled up in front in a knot or a bow, whichever took least time or looked most grotesque The result achieved was certainly heroic as an act of female martyrdom. In some cases girls of 17 contrived to look seven-and- ' thirty, in others short girls appeared like dwarfs, and tall girls like giraffes, and fat girls like sacks of flour—not to say coals. As to pretty girls, they were conspicuous by their absence, or had managed effectually to * conceal their points by rendering their bodies shapeless and scraping their hair back into knots like twine, until notlnng but bumps of more than manly learning and less than womanly grace appeared visible to the naked eye. '•"■■,-■ All this may doubtless be the beginning of ' a new era. The improved education 5-of women has been hailed as a step in theri°-ht " direction. And we have nothing to say . against the theory. But before this withering Girtonian and Newnharnite blast of progress the female graces certainly threaten to disappear. We are told that the young Cambridge dons pick out all the rich ' °L ba'l. dsome SM students and marry them off. If this be so, these enlightened institutions may doubtless be good as marriage markets to, a certain extent, but the consequence is that all things of beauty have a tendency to withdraw themselves from both establishments, leaving only those who : despise the graces they have not got, ana ' affect the learning which seldom makes them agreeable to each other or even tolerable to men. In a word, the university girl trpe is at present as conspicuous an affront to woman-nature as the school board pet is to child-nature. The mark aimed at is doubtless good, but the mark is not hit. Unnatural cram and excessive accumulation in view of competitive examination lend to the neglect of natural aims and healthy pleasures. This is. not and never will be, "education," or a" drawing out of the capacities of mind and body." In-nine cases out of ten it consists rather "in " pumping in " what never comes out at all, except in a cut-and-dried form under examination. It then comes out and is forgotten, leaving the mind as vacuous as before, and full only of infinite couceit.-

But with the method we are not here specially concerned. The product of the method is more easily judged. The appeal to the eye is at once logical, pitiless, and decisive. Here and there at the Newnham and Girton gatherings may be seea some pretty girl, probably from London, carefully dressed, tairly conscious of her charms, but .not conceited. It is easy to see that here she is, at all events, the ugly duck. The college ladies scarcely care to conceal their open contempt for one whose bonnet is becoming, but whose iguorance of trigonometry is probably absolute. But the Xewnhamite's scorn of the Lontloa belle is nothing to her pity and contempt for that helpless lunatic, man, who, when off his guard, has been known actually to prefer the fashionably - dressed Londonian girl to the Xewnhamite, and the rose-scented beauty to the virile Girtonian.

-Ihe "Kataaa Sutta" comprises fire pre . cents, the first of a series of houcls or obligations which under various conditions are assumed by Buddhist priests, &> The first excludes the taking of life, and tne second the takro* of what is not given. The third corresponds with the monastic vow of chastity, but needTonly bo untruth, and the fifth renounces the use of intoxicating liquors. Don't d is in the House.-" Rough on bed-bug*,, fhes, ants, insocts mol • k . O> 4'o^ PASSES,AKD Co., Agents, Ohnstchurch.—[ A.dvt ] tnTk-V 8 Stated, that Alnßrica" "gents were ready togveas much as £2000 for * single copy of catiou. At that time SOOO persons were bindnir fr« the book uudM st^t surveillance, and tho Quly person in the roalm whose power of safe custody was considered abovo suspicion \yasthe Archbishop of Canterbury Sk^'vMks.-.. wells' Health Renewer restores health and vigour, euros Dyspepsia, cCh.l[L°v^' AW C°- A*°l^ CW--7? 1' Je T-.ossops relates that on the occasion o hismarnage,the day of the opening of the feuo* Oaiial, I?owinber ISG9, his fattor-in-law w ifo. At that time, he adds, Suoz Canal shaves at 250 francs, or 50 per cent d"on i ■ ii? Ulve? ted tho present in these shares, on wl»cb. he realised 1,500,000 francs. " Koucm on Corns."—Ask for Wells pennm, ?" C°ms-n Quick rclief ' com Plet« l^^^^^o^ntT Cinstchurch.— [Ad-vt.] -agenxs,