The American Girl.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 4983, 16 April 1889, Page 3

The American Girl.

Mr Q-. W. Smalley thus discourses in the New York Tribune of the burning social subject of the hour " Why, then, do the young Englishmen prefer the Americans ?” Each has his own reason, good unto him, but the reason which underlies all the others is social, not personal. The relation between the sexes in youth are ten times more natural, genuine, and right in Amterica than in England. Life does not begin with the English girl on her coming out. She is still in the nursery or the,schoolroom, is still the bread-and-butter miss, still the nonentity, still the shy, silent, unformed creature she was. She is not sure of herself or of anybody else. She has no conversation, or none that does not require drawing out, and the young Englishmen is not good at drawing out. She knows that she has been taken to market, and her sensations on entering society cannot be very different from those of the white slave on the auctionblock in the East. She has been taught to timid. Opinions,ideas, initiative of her own, the meeting on equal terms with youngsters in black coats and white ties, and kind of frank or friendly intercourse, any knowledge of the world of life —all these are to her anathema. She is what her mother and goyernpss have made her ; as her mother before her was'midp by'he? mother and' governess. Her incapacities are hereditary ; her notions are purely conventional; hire Grundy is the deity who rules over her universe. She is monotonous, and men like variety. She is a chrysalis, and to a chrysalis even a butterfly is preferable. She is the raw material of a charming woman, and it is not even young Briton who feels Jhimself competent to complete her education, or willing to let others

complete it. He often hung back long before he heard of America. When he went there ho found a girl who had everything the English girl had, and something beside. The American did meet him on even terms —as a rule, much more than even—for she is as superior to the average young Englishman as to the average English girl. Her intelligence, quickness, freshness, animation, fulness of character, often her brilliancy, always her individuality, were perfectly novel to him and perfectly delightful. Is it so wondorful that he liked her better than her doll cousin in this damp island, and married her ? I once knew, or rather I still have the honour of knowing, an American girl who has become an English woman by marriage. She was good enough to talk over this question with me. She knew both sides of it, and both sides of the Atlantic, perfectly. ‘ The girls have the best of it at home,’ said she, ‘ and the young married women in England. The right thing to do is to be born in the States and marry here.’ I said, ‘ You mean that the American girl has ns much freedom as the English wife.’ ' So has the American wife, but that is not the point. With us in America, as you know, tho girl gets all the attention from the men. In London society the girl is nowhere, and tho young wives are the attraction. Men will not bo bored to talk to girls.’ With her testimony may be compared that of a young Englishwoman, married, pretty, extremely clever, titled, and in the best set of socieiy. The company had been discussing a new Anglo-American union, and there were the usual wonderings what there was in these girls from beyond the sea that bewitched the best men who went over there. Lady Z listened and reflected, and said in her sunny way ; * Well, the best of them do beat us,’