THE LADIES

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 235, 14 March 1885, Page 9

THE LADIES

Mrs Dudley, who shot O'Donovan llossa, has challenged him to single combat as soon as he shall have recovered from his wound.

"This is a nice time to come home, and a nice state you're in," she said. " Nice time ! nice state ! Thanksh, lovey. I thought you were going to schold me."

Princess Beatrice is only following the fashion when she takes a husband younger than herself, for many women lately have done the same thing. Prince Henry is considered one of the handsomest men of his time.

The following are a few specimens of eccentric women: — One who doesn't think her child the sweetest in the world ; who doesn't sit up for her husband when he goes out to the club ; who thinks some other woman's seal-skin sacque is better than her own; who thinks more about the sermon than she does about bonnets in the next seat ahead ; whose preacher and doctor are not better than any one else's ; who doesn't think she is the only woman in the world who is misunderstood; who keeps a cook five years without giving her the whole house ; who thinks her son's wife is as good as her own daughter ; who doesn't spend less money in a week than her husband does in a day, and stand more hard luck without complaining than he ever dreamed of.

The University College Women's Debating Society, which is now entered upon its sixth year of existence, seems in a fair way to become an established feature. Professor Henry Morley gave every assistance to render it a success. His inaugural address last winter resulted in re-establishing the society upon its former basis, and a practising society amongst a few members has produced a marked improvement in the speaking. For the first time the exclusion of women from the franchise is to be discussed, whether Socialism involves the surrender of personal liberty, whether the present system of education is antagonistic to culture, and whether self-sacrifice is necessarily a virtue. Another discussion, suggested by the Carlyle disclosures, will be opened by the Joseph Hulme Scholar in Political Economy with the assertion that hero-worship cannot stand the test of familiar intercourse with great men.

The world has become familiarised with medical women. One of the strongest arguments that have been put forth against . the employment of women in medical cases is the possibility of their losing their nerve and presence of mind in difficult cases. But this is not necessarily the rule. Many women are as well able to preserve their nerve under such trying conditions as are men. Nevertheless surgical, as distinguished from medical women, are hardly as yet recognised by the public in this country. In the East, however, a different state of things prevails, and we have received an account in the North China Daily News, of November last, of an operation, one of the most severe known even in*modern surgery, having been successfully performed by a woman, Miss Elizabeth Reifsnyder, of the American Woman's Union Mission. Her patient, a native Chinese woman, was suffering froua an enormous internal tumour, which was successfully removed, by Dr. Reif snyder, the patient making a perfect and rapid recovery.

Two ladies, called, not Smith, as one might expect, but Marvel, were at an evening reception in London. The were not related ; were not even friends or acquaintances, and they lived, one at the north, and the other' at the south side of the Park. One of them was Mrs Theophilus Marvel, the other Mrs Septimus; and their respective husbands, although not even fortieth cousins, were acquainted— that is, they; nodded, .to; one

another when they met in the City, .and said, "flow do?" These gentlemen were not at the reception with their wives. At twelve o'clock Mrs Theophilus went away; Mrs Marvel's carriage was called; it was a wet night; she stepped hurriedly in and was driven off. At live minutes past twelve Mrs Septimus departed. Again Mrs Marvel's carriage was called; she also got hurriedly in and out of the rain and .was driven away. Mrs Theophilus was sleepy, and she did not notice whether the drive was long or short. When the carriage stopped she got out and ran up the steps into the house. Everything looked strange, and she began to feel frightened ; then a door opened, and a manly, but unknown, voice said, " Here you are at last, my love !" and she found herself in a strange house and confronted by an unknown man. He was Theophilus Marvel. The ladies had exchanged" carriages. This was how it ended." Mr Theophilus insisted upon escorting Mrs Septimus in his carriage to her own house, and Mr Septimus performed the same kind office for Mrs Theophilus, and the respective pairs passed each other on the road. Then each lady insisted that her escort should wait and " See my husband ; he will be here directly." But that was impossible, as they were waiting for one another, and the coachmen were the only people aggrieved.

"It is no use," a young lady recently remarked despairingly, "there are no frivolous men any more, and it is quite useless to try to have parties. Nobody comes but the solemnly dudish empty-brains that it gives one cold chills simply to look at ; and if one of the fellows that is really interesting does stray into a ball or an assembly, he has the air of having made a dreadful mistake, and he gets away as quickly as possible. Everybody is so dreadfully in earnest either for working or being a fop, that there isn't a good comrade left." The lively youug creature had more to say in much the same style and to the same general purpose, the burden of her complaint beiug that there were no society men who seemed, as she phrased it, worth while ; and that the individuals who really were worth while — whatever that mysterious formula may mean — could not be dragged into those assemblies whither the belles of the town repair to criticise each other's dresses and to meet the opposite sex. The hearer into whose ears the young lady poured these dismal views exhibited to the fidl that sympathy which was evidently expected of him, and ventured to inquire the reasons for this most shocking and abnormal condition, of things. The speaker responded with a pout that, for her part, she did not know, thereupon proceeding, in truly feminine fashion, to elaborate this idea by remarking that of course it was not because girls were any less pretty, less accomplished, or less attractive than their grandmothers, and for her part she was convinced that this neglect on the part of the men arose solely from, that perversity which is the inherent property of the masculine mind. It was cautiously pointed out that this could hardly be regarded as an adequate explanation, since men are proverbially selfish, and if female society amused them they sought it, so that the evident inference seemed to be that modern belles must somehow be less fascinating than of old. The young lady was by no means inclined to admit this. Certainly, she declared, the girls of the period were far more elaborately educated than their grandmothers had been, and she maintained that they wore both prettier, and better dressed. Her interlocutor was prepared to grant all this, but timidly suggested that perhaps they were too wise, too independent, too self-reliant, in short, too little unlike men. " It's all right, of course," he declared ; *' it's progress and all that, but the truth is, there isn't variety enough from masculine society in the feminine world of to-day to attract men. Our civilisation is so dreadfully dead in earnest that men care little for frivolity in itself, and the society of modern girls is like a dilution of the company of their brothers." He would have said more, but the awful frown upon the brow of the lady warned him to desist in time, and, taking his hat, he left as precipitately as was consonant with the laxest interpretation of the rules of leave-taking.