The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-11-11
ENGLISH GIRLS OFTHE DAY.
The Way in Which Maidens Grow Up and
Get Views of Life.

A letter from the San Francisco Argonaut
says: "People do say it is this constant COM
panionship with men, and mixing with them
in their field sports, that give the fashionable
English girl Of the day all her love for ''man-
ish" ways and make her the slangy, horsy,
rapid creature we so often find her. Perhaps
people are right. Yet what real harm, after
all, if girls do wear stand-up collars and scarf
pins, and hunt, fish, shoot, play billiards and
smoke? None, certainly, if their hearts are
all right. Besides, look at the models
they have The empress of Austria
seems only happy in the saddle, and no
less personages than Princesses Louise
and Beatrice smoke cigarettes. Such &C
tons are, of course, likely to shock the sensi
bilities, not alone of our grandmothers, but of
a certain type of young lady whose conversa-
tonal powers are limited to undertoned re-
plies Of Eyes" and no." and whose proper
bringing up is exhibited in painfully studi-
Gus avoidance of either showing her feet or
separating her knees while sitting down. But
a woman nowadays does not care to please
her own sex as much as the other, and it is
only too clear which sort Of Young lady is
most attractive to men and which kind of girls
get the dances at balls and the most attention
everywhere. Men are pretty good
judges of women, ana if they don't object and
are willing to make their wives out of girls
who know more of horseesh than they do of
botany, and prefer Whit Of tobacco smoke
to ylang ylang or Atkinson's white rose, it is
their own lookout and no one else's business.
know young lady who lives down in one
OF the southern counties. She is one of the
prettiest girls in England, has five thousand a
year in her own right, is just three and twenty
and the daughter of a peer whose pedigree
goes back to the Conquest and whose country
house is the show place Of the country. To
look at her you would think her the quietest
Of the quiet and that she hadn't an idea be-
yond crochet and weak ted. But she hunts,
has her own stables, keeps four hunters, now
and then rides steeple-chase, buys and sells
her own horses without help from any one:
has her own wine merchant, wine cellar and
tobacconist; fences, boxes, skates and rows;
has her boudoir decorated with foils, gloves,
whips, horse-shoss and hunting trophies;
smokes cigarettes during the day and cigars
after dinner; is a capital Judge of claret and
port and can tell Amontillado from Marsha.
with her eyes SHUTS 6rst-rate shot with shot
gun or rock rifle; draws her own charges and
pays her own bills; and last, though not least
has delightful way of letting you. see her
foot and ankle when she puts one leg over the
other in sitting down, that would make prim
old dowager faint and get her sat upon direct
ly by the sly ones. Yet she has never been
known to frt, has refused more offers than
the sly ones dreamed of receiving, and once,
it is related, taught the Prince Of Wales les
son by stopping in the middle of valse with
him at a state ball at Buckingham Palace, and
refused to 60 on because he held her tighter
than she considered proper. You can't call
girl like that fast. But she knows enough to
take care of herself, and if her companion
ship with the young swells Of the day and her
imitation of their talk and ways has taught her
to prefer their friendship to their love it is not
unlikely she is nearer right in her estimate of
her fellow-beings than are the dragonesses of
propriety who regard her with adherence,
but are willing to sell their bashful maidens to
the first lbertine or titled scapegrace whose
establishment and rent-roll make him in their
eyes desirable party.