Port Royal standard and commercial. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1874-1876, 1876-12-28
Leave it to the Boys.

We desire TO call tue attentlon OF Mrs.
Stanton and Miss Anthony to the degen:
crate and pusilianimousf fashion in which
young girls run away from their homes:
for until something be done to give
these young adventurers, presumably
the boldest and most resolute OF the sex,
more hardihood and enterprise than
they have commonly shown, we shall
hardly modify our views in legard to
the inadvisability of granting female
suffrage. A girl gets indignant with
her father because he refuses to buy her
a new dress or pair of earrings, puts
on her bonnet and leaves the paternal
mansion in a pet. She disappears for
the space of twenty-four hours, her pa
rents are in agony, detectives are set to
work to look for her, and coroners 60 to
dragging the adjacent waters. In the
middle of the ccmmotion joyous dis
patch arrives from some maiden aunt in
distant part of the city or some cousin
IN neighboring town, with whom the
wanderer has taken refuge. The truant
damsel returns delighted to a delighted
household and gets all the earrings and
dress patterns she wants. This is ordi-
narily the end of a girls runaway, and
when the story is varied, as it sometimes
is, by the ruin of the truant, her de-
struction is commonly due to her will
lingness to sacrifice herself for place
of refuge. There have been several es.
capades on the part of young girls in
New York lately, all of which have ter
minated happily, and all of which 60 to
establish this fact, that girls should not
run away from home, for the simple
reason that they don't know how to do it
with any credit to themselves. Nature
never intended them for runaways
Their style of dress is not adapted for
running away. Their hearts are too
tender to bid an eternal farewell to
home in anger. They can't hire hack
or buy railroad ticket without exciting
suspicion. They can't sleep out under
haystack; they can't make living by
hiring out to drive mules on the canal.
In fact they are incapable of doing any
thing that BELTS a decent runaway.
They were designed for the domestic
circle, and ought tv stay there. It is
their kingdom, where with due discre.
tion they can rule absolutely. To run
away is simply to abandon their crown,
as King James did, and restoration is
their only chance for power and happi-
ness.
Look how neatly and effectively boy
Io hoe lon no for
hunting buffalo on the Western frontier,
or fighting Indians, or sailing round
Cape Horn. When his mother misses
him some fine morning there is little
anxiety about any bodily harm coming
to him, but a dread settles over the
family that he may not be back for
years. There is no need to search
among country cousins for the wander
er; no use in hunting about the byways
of the city; the vigilsbt detective watch
es the whale ships bouud for the North
ern Pacific or the traders sailing to
China or Japan; he looks after travelling
circuses and makes inquiries concerning
all red haired, blue eyed, snub nosed
boys on their way westward by the tow
path of The Erie canal, or stealing rides
on the freight trains of the Central rail
road. He settles to his WORK seriously
and solemnly, for he knows that while
the finding of runaway girl is ques-
tion OF a. few hours, the finding of
runaway boy is o matter of months or
even years. The boy can walk along
the country roads or catch rides on
farmers wagons; he. can black boots,
sell papers, run errands, and help him
self in hundred ways. The spirit of
adventure sustains him and he fights his
way along cheerfully, the buffets of the
world dong him no incurable damage.
If any member OF the human family was
designed for running away, he certainly
is that member. The girls should &C.
ognize this fact and leave the boys q
of the business, even if they
do in this way supply an inferential ar
gument against female suffrage
World.