The weekly north Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1857-1867, 1867-01-16

Woman.
The accomplished "Lady Assistant" of
that superior paper, "The N. Y. Sunday
Times" thus discourses on New Years
day, relative to women:
1t has been decided in French court
that to call lady "a female is punisha-
bic offence. Well be it SO in France, but
oh how jolly it is here to be woman
Here we sit, on this first day of the new
born year, dressed in our very best, just
home from the drcssmaker's, 1.-TWO breadths
put in upside DOWN. our new Christmas
ijewelry, our finest collar, and with the
most lovely camelia placed in our hair,
little SOU by-sou' east. And sorry we feel
for the chivalry, flying about in the snow
storm, rushing up and down door steps,
out and in Of houses, saying silly things.
stupid things, and false things all day
long tasting all sorts of eatables and sip
ping all sorts of drinkables, fetching up at
night tired and dyspeptic, reproached by
their stomachs for what they had eaten,
and censured by entertainers for not eat
ing what they were not equal to; getting
home too weary and surfeitcd for the New
Years turkey, and sure to find day or
two later, that they have forgotten to pay
visit to some poor cousin far removed,
and have thereby given offence. So much
for being men. We, on the contrary,
dress up, sit still, look our prettiest, say
ing CHEEKY things, even if they are monoto-
nous.
Giving this day to us, as they do, seems
to signify that gentlemen acknowlcd &c the
value Of social amenities, and that before
they plunge into the ventures of the new
year, they ask our "God Speed I" 1t is
good thing and an important one to be
woman. ''Gail Hamilton says it is one
of her chief regrets that, being woman,
the world would consider the use of slang
minor immortality that she longs to say
dry upr' when she would Signify, I'M
peratively, that farther remark is super
Auous. She would like to call her articles
of bUoutcrie struck and decker" For our
part, we consider plain Saxon quite forci-
BILE enough, and that there is no masculine
privilege in the "heavens above, or earth
beneath, or waters under the EARTH; of
any sort whatever, that woman should
covet. Not even the editors privilege
and he prints what he pleases, and makes
other people read it.
1t is great thing to be woman. The
sources of our happiness are as the rivulets
that make the food-scattered and small,
perhaps, but all tributary. The secret of
control, as the philosopher said, lies not so
much in what we possess as in what we
don't want. We are all of us good deal
like the Scotchman's punch, which requir-
ed many ingredients, its excellence depen-
ding wholly on the proportion of each.
We never did have any faith in fault
less woman, and never knew one. We
should take her to be an alkali, or an cs-
sence that one could not analyse, or an
amiable malformation, negatively excel
lent and a trifle stupefactious. If we are
high tempered we are also energetic if we
are sharp of tongue, we know how to de-
TEND the absent. Faulty in ourselves and
socially helpless, we manage to be treated
like queens. Somebody bows down to
our individual supremacy, or relies upan
us-which is ever so much better.