WHY AUCKLAND GIRLS DONT GET MARRIED.

Wanganui Herald, Volume VI, Issue 1845, 16 July 1873, Page 2

WHY AUCKLAND GIRLS DONT GET MARRIED.

T^e follmvino- letter appears iv the JN. L. Herald :—

Sir,-. In re the thousand and one virgins m the city of magnificent prospects. Fair ones, I'm sorry for you. Parents of those fair ones, I feel for you. Lovers of those fair ones I sympathise with you. But why i s ' it that you dear | girls can't get husbands, that is, eligible husbands •( Why is it you parents cannot enjoy the pleasure ot seeing your daughters married and grandchildren increasing auc i mu i tiplv _ ing about you ytar by year ? Why is it that you young men cannot indulge any hope of settling down as married men, and enjoying the many blessincs (and perhaps worries) of connubial felicity;? Answer me truly what you think is the cause, each one of you then perhaps the remedy may be discovered. Meantime let me tell you what I thmk is the cause, the bottom of all the evil. To be short, I attribute the whole blame to the circumstance in the first place, of the presence among us for several years of several regiments of her Majesty's troops ; and m the second place, to the occasional presence m the waters of die Waiteuiafca of one or more of her Majcstys vessels of war. Each regiment and each man-oi-war is supposed to contain a large proportion ofhighly eligible men amongst its officers. Those men are looked upon as prizes in the matrimonial lottery. Colonial youths are beside them mere dross, " goneys " &c, not to be mentioned in the same breath with an officer. To win one of these prizes girls will do much, they themselves know best how much. They give iip all idea of settling down as some honest settler's helpmate, and «o m for gambling for the prizes. Often have I heard the idea of becoming a settler's » drudge " laughed to scorn by fair damsels who had tasted the sweets of ball-room flirtations with England's gallant defenders, men, by the way who, though they enjoy a. little harmless flirtation with pretty colonial belles, do not by any means forget the girls they left behind them in their own dear native land. But, alas, how many will and do even now repeat the laugh ! how many willjhave to " buckle to " drudgery far harder to bear than that entailed upon a settler's wife, aye,and be thankful too, even to get the opportunity of becoming such drudges. Ah ! me, I feel sad when I think of the mischief caused by the piesence of those troops and war sloops. 1 sometimes think whether it would not be well for the young colpnials to carry out an idea I heard suggested by one of themselves quite lately, namely to invent an under water self-acting steam torpedo ito be employed in blowing up the men-o'-wars, as fast as they enter the harbor. It would be hard on the «allant tars no doubt, but something nuist be done in self-defence; 'twould instil a wholesome dread in the minds of-othey tars who might be cruising about Laaiha, of entering the Waitem?tM JSot only on the girls has an evil effect been produced by the presence of these mvmcibles. The men kind have beon moved to commit acts of extravagance such as would never have been dreamt of but for the pernicious example of the red-coats. To keep up external appearances of equality they have had to dress above their means, and altogether live above such means, and in a style unbe coming the pioneers of a new country They forget that as they are but pioneers, and therefore workers they ought to dress and live in a style be coming workers, and not be ashamed to let their neighbours see that after all they are not the wealthy people some of them appear to wish to be thought In other colonies, and parts of colonies which have been free from the visits of England s gallant defenders (who are well enough in their right place), the style of tilings :s very different from that observed in and about Auckland and other similarly afflicted colonies There people who have no real cl-iim to be called wealthy, as well as wellborn, do not assume half the airs or live m anything like the apparently well-to-do but (behind the scenes) pinched style of living adopted heri and elsewhere. They work hard and steadrly carve out positions, live plainly and dress plainly, as becomes poisons who are avowedly not very well-to-do, but are striving tobeco.no so Ihey show an amount of fellowfeeling and sympathy such as is scarcely even known in Auckland women look out for steadiness and other features of the same class in the characters of their lovers, and are prepared to help them to carve their way and not to wait until they have single-handed cutout a position to offer them. I f ear that to alter the state of anairs here is almost hopeless : youn* woman growing into old woman, and i;emammg single ; a few such would of course not be out of the way, but at

present the proportion is far too great. Young men either leave the country altogether or doing 110 good in it t]l the exception of a lucky few who obtain employment under the Government, bo it is, and so it must remain apparently for the present generation's time at any rate. There is something radically wrong somewhere—some Wnncr more than I have suggested • what is it ] 'Tis everyone's business to try and ascertain the cause, and remedy tiie evil; but that is « nobody's busi.ness," sayeth an old proverb. '