THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN AUSTRALIA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8333, 3 June 1905, Page 2

THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN AUSTRALIA.

Not a Flattering Portrait. We become warmly attached to our male cousins, we generally marry them, and they stay out here, and become more Australian than the Australians (writes the Melbourne correspondent of the London "Daily News.") But our women cousins — well, we don't get on with them. They have more prejudices than their brothers, they are more conventional, and they never, for one instant, forget that they, as Englishwomen, are superior to all the women of the world. We are merely colonials whom they patronise. Where they don't understand they disapprove; and wheb an Englishwoman disapproves she rarely argues; she says in a cold way, " Of course, out here it does not matter so much, but in England one never does tuat kind of thing." The list of things one never does in England is very large and provokes our hoydens to the retort, " THANK HEAVEN I DON'T LIVE IK ENGLAND." Here is a sample of our English cousin— we all know her well. She did not like the voyage, she says, there were hardly any English people on board, and it is unwise to make friends with people on board ship unless you have known something of them previously. What an ugly city Melbourne is ! So square and straight. She would hate to live in it. What great, wide streets! So unpicturesque. I suppose the snops here are awful/ she says, placidly. " I want to buy some braid to rebind my skirt; do you think I could match it?" We take her into one of our best shops, and she looks round calmly. If wo expected to surprise her we are disappointed. You can't surprise an Englishwoman; it is part of her training to look with COLD PATRONAGE on everything that is not English to the marrow. She buys her braid, and, on passing out, looks at a costume on a stand. " Quite out of date," she remarkß. " We wore that in London two years ago. I suppose they send all the surplus goods out here." She is always critical of clothes in our shops, but her own wardrobe is anything but smart, and at length we realise that she is comparing our goods, which are for everyone and anyone, with the most expensive and newest novelties of Bond Street. She grumbles at the weather. The heat is appalling, the north winds too shocking for words. "OP COURSE TOTJ COLONIALS ABE USED TO IT," she says, " your skins are all ruined in any case, but my complexion will not stand this." We are genuinely sorry about her complexion; it is lovely, and we all envy it. We also envy her brigxiO, luxuriant hair, and her erect carriage and swinging easy walk. " I wouldn't live here for a thousand a year," she says, and she looks offend-! Ed when a smiling uncle remarks: — "I don't think you'll be asked to, my dear." We take her to see our public library. " What a queer little place," she says. " You ought to see the British Museum." We take her to the theatre, and she yawns and talks of ELLEN TEREY, IRVING, AND FORBES ROBERTSON. Presently we send her to other cousins in the country, and in the letter received a week later from our mutual aunt the following passages occur : — "We were very much struck with Helen's appearance. Her skin is lovely, and her hair is beautiful. Nelly and Marjorie look pale and colourless beside her, but she has no particular wish to please us, or anyone else, apparently. She is so self-satisfied that she doesn't even trouble to be grateful for what we do for her."