The Sentinel. [volume] (Trenton, N.J.) 1880-1882, 1882-05-20
The "Jolly Girl" in England.

boys. The special habits and interests
of men, their athletic and sporting
tastes, their melancholy experience of
what is called ''life,' can no more be
| men at best succeed in resembling
appropriated by girl tnan our top
boots and riding-breeches. She only
approaches that unnatural monster,
the boy who Is aping man. L am
not 80 old or such misanthrope but
that l find myself at times among
young people at a dance or a garden
party. l see handsome young fell
low from Aldershot talking to a fine
girl, the picture Of youth and grace.
They ale flirting, I hope, as they
should be,'' says match. making old
thing. Flirting! my dear lady, he
has been telling her about that awfully
jolly run with the Quorn, don't you
know. And now she is asking him
with an anxious look if it Is really
true that No, Z is not fit. For an hour,
as sat within hearing on the bench,
she has patiently committed to memory
the merits of barrack after barrack
aud station after station-a form Of
feminine curiosity which he has but
languidly satisfied, though ne has no
other topic with which to entertain
her. "Aldershot." says be, sis such an
lawfully jolly place, don't you know"
lis it really ~ says she, with feeling.
81 mean," says he, .'such a jolly
| place to get away FROM" And
she knows who is bound to win the
nile race unless Jigger Mowbray can
stand the training, which is not to be
thought of, don't you know? And
so they go on, from mere habit, talk
ing the talk of the smokipg-room, or
go much Of it as can be dribbled into
the ears of a pure Dung girl. By all
that is sacred, glow with shame
when l see beautiful woman thus
put off her sex, when she certainly
can never put on ours. f(5
/ What are they to gain, these favor
ties of the regiment and the hunt,
| that they thus humble themselves,
that they so disfgure and weary
themselves in laboriously ceasing to
be women? 1t is not husbands, as
suredly, they are seeking. Our young
friend from Aldershot does not trouble
himself to flirt with girls; he has not
the remotest idea of marriage; MOI, in.
deed, has his fair partner, at least
with the like of him. She is not
thinking of fascinating him at all !;
would, indeed, that she were! Mar
rage is an affair of carriages and
| horses for these she must look to
older men, and she does not like older
men. No! she is only filling her ap-
pointed part-the awfully jolly girl
which her society expects her to be.
Dolly and Darling, Judy ana 10, have
to do it, and 80 must she.
| 1 wonder if she knows how little
men really care for this strange recep-
tivity of hers. To the young fellow
this girl with her manly requirements
just so far ceases to be woman without
advancing step toward man. She
listens to him as the flag at school lis
tens to the big fellow in the boat or
the eleven. 1t Is pleasant to him that
the young 'un wears skirts and has
lips ruddier than flag. 1t is pleasant
to him; but not wholly to us elders
and fathers.
Girls in my time expected us to
treat them on the assumption that
they were women, or that they very
soon would be. If we could not en-
terrain them as women all the world
over love to be entertained they turned
to one another and amused themselves.
| When we sat with a sweet young
| thing in the verandah as the band
played the last notes of kathleen
Mavourneen" we had something, 1
vow, to talk about besides cricket
| averages, the club cigars, and the right
cut of a bulldogs ears. And as we
never saw cigarettes in the lips of our
partners, it never occurred to us to
smoke between the dances.
have no turn for satire; but love
to watch our social moods and to
trace them to their causes and effects.
suppose the work began with that
wave of athleticism which of late has
swept over the land, turning the heads
of not few lads and importing some
laughable customs; but, if its effect
upon men was more or less manly and
wholesome, its effect indirectly on
women was perhaps more doubtful
gain. When the gymnastic idol was
set up, and the muscular type of virtue
became the whole duty of man, there
were found English girls to suppose it
the whole duty of woman. Physically,
it may be, it strengthened those whom
it did not slaughter outright But as
1 \ "a l. sz. ~