Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1883-09-23
FAIR
Petticoaisd SwsIIs Who Initiate
Their Male Congsnsrs.i
She Was Inevitable, and She Has come-To
Be Seen In All the Glory Of Her Shame
and SubIimity Of Her I~mpudenes
Essentially T~aiIor-made
From Head to Foot.
L0ndOn Truth

She was inevitable, and she has some.
The 'female masher," dimly foreshad-
owed during the last London season,
has become a very uncomfortable fact
at the seaside. She Is to be seen in all
the glory Of her shame and the sublim-
ity Of her %impudence On the Spa at
Scarborough, on the pier at Ryde, on
the Lees at Folkstone and in Devon
shire Park at Eastbourn. Woman de-
lights in contradiction, and consequent
ly the female masher is in all her char
acteristics the exact opposite of hel
male companion. She has become a
little swell in petticoats, If she only
dared she would appear at the even.
ing seaside dances in the knee-breeches
and
Black Silk Stocking,
the evening coat and white waist-cOst
of the two little actresses who took part
in u recent Gayety burlesque. Saving
her petticoats, retained apparently out
of respect for the law that prohibits in
terchange OF Costume by the sexes, the
famale masher is a little man. She is
stiff and starch, well set up and all over
buttons. Her hat is made at a mans
shop, so is her trim little jackets, so are
her innumerable waistcoats; 80, appar-
emily, are her boots. She is essentially
tailor. make from head to foot. When
the weather is gusty she covers all with
a tailor-made, tight-fitting coat, to
which a certain swagger is impaired by
the use of the new preposterous and
manners oft proclaim the man, COS.
tune certainly advertises the woman;
so the female masher does not assume
Masculine Attire
without initiating, parrot-like, the eff
fectatiOn of her evident model. On the
pier and promenade of to-day the man
is not in it. 1t is the woman who laughs
loudly, talks at the top of her voice,
takes the pavement and elbows the
crowd to the right and to the left. The
female masher is neither polite in her
manners nor select In her conversation.
On a vely slight acquaintance she will
communicate suspicious stories to a per.
feet stranger and there is no slang or
popularity with which she is not &C.
Quainted. III the dOg.cart at the sta.
ton she takes the reins; in the yacht
She handles the tillcr. Sue whistles a.
she walks along the pier and bitches up
her clothes as II she were Il sailor. Alta
dance in the assembly rooms at night
she evidently finds the opposite sex so
insipid that she seiZes upon the first
girl she comes across and whirl5 her |
round the Don The ordinary, we'll |
behaved and courteous man finds the /
"FemaIe Masher'
the most difficult person to contend |
with, for when she is rude-as she very |
is-there Is necessarily no re- 1
ply. She can insult and injure without !
any chance of q "setting down. from |
any one, unless he be old enough to be
her father. Such a rebuff one of these |
impudent minxes received In my bear
ing the other day at the railway station |
A female masher of pronounced type,
after staggering about a railway sta
ton, walking like a dragon and -four |
ishing q stick instead OF a parasol, was
anxious to enter a train from which an
gentleman was handing his
wife with her innumerable |
lmpediments. The process WAS too
tedious for Miss Washer, who observed
far too audibly to her companion:
| suppose when these people
have got out we shall he allowed to get
in" There was a malicious sneer in the
delivery of this sarcasm that would
have frightened a younger man. BIT
the old gentleman was equal to he oc-
My dear young lady," said he, |
"a little patience would do you no
harm. In fact, if you practice patience
il is possible that some day you may |
get a husband, though | should venture
10 consider that it was no desirable
event ~