Weekly commercial herald. (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1884-18??, 1885-10-09
THE ENGLISH GIRL.
A VERY CRITICAL CORRESPONDENT
INDUCES IN FAULT-FlNDlNG.
The Girl of the supper Middle Class"-
Intellectual sluggishnes Carrying on
3 Observation-Disclosures in the
Elements OF Housekeeping.
London Cor. Pioneer Press.l

OF course in England, as elsewhere, there
there are girls and girls l~contine my re-
marks to tho average girl, the girl of the
middle classes, or let US say, "the upper
middle classes " For in this very con-
sentative country, where the caste di-
visions are as strongly defined as in
India or China, there are an upper mid
die class, " a slower middle class, +" and q
SUPPOSE a middle middle class, :" though
of this latter | am not quite decided, At
any rate they don't call it by that name
exactly. The most predominant trait of
this English girl, the one characteristic
common to all of them without exception,
is the determination to marry. Other
girls in all lands marry, other girls think
Of "beaux" and "sweethearts as soon as
they get into long dresses-many of them
before; other girls are ambitious to write
MRS. " before their names, but in no land
that | have ever visited do the young
women make such dead sets" at all mar
riageable young Tor old men who come
within the focus of their attractions.
Another characteristic of the middle
class English girl, is that Of intellectual
American girl Of like social position, sim
llhE uuNuulhpCS, olu1lluL OPpOL bAhlLAOo Iva
education and mental improvement, sim
liar condition of fortune, the English girl
is a poor talker and a feeble reader. BY
feeble reader" l mean a girl who has in
her school days read only those works
which were given her as tasks, and who,
since leaving school, has confined her
| reading to the newspapers and works Of
fiction The great majority of English
girls, al least those whom ! meet, have
never read any prominent English poet
save Shakespeare, Tennyson and Mrs.
| Browning; know very little Of any French
authors save Victor Hugo and the horde
of sensational novelists headed by
lola, Gaboriau and B%oisgobey, and
as for American writers they are abso.
lutely ignorant Of them.
l know of few things more ennuyante,
more boresome, than the attempt to carry
on conversation during an hour with an
average "middle class" English girl, l
mean a girl who is fairly well educated,
gifted with average intelligence, a grad
uate of any good English seminary or
"women's college A half-hour of such
conversation uses me up completely, ten
minutes is quite sufficient for any onel l
know several mice" girls who, when
conversing nationally with q man, that is
when the subject of dress, the theatre and
field sports are tabooed, rarely rise above
o simple "Yes," "No," or Indeed, "
though they do, it is true, occasionally in
terpolato An SAW, " or a How FUNNY" I
like their races, 1 admire their good fig
ures, their robust strength, their
fresh bloom of youth, mot manu-
featured by Mrs. AllenD l am enthu-
siastic over their lawn tennis playing and
their tricycle. riding. / like their gait,
the way they "step out, " no girl walks SO
we'll as the English girl. ! can never
cease to praise their economy, in and
simplicity of dress, with certain excep-
tons, of courseN but / do not like their
talk and l am bored constantly by their
conversation.
English middle class" girls are very
religious At least they seem to be.
Inter any church in London, save only
those in ~the city, which are necessarily
almost deserted, except the Temple
church, because scarcely anybody save a
few porters, housekeepers, scare takers, +"
and the like, live in "the city"-enter any
church in London on q Sunday morning
or at the afternoon service, and you find
the seats crowded with ladies, the greatest
part being young women or misses. They
are devout; they go through the service
with decorum and all the outward evi.
dences Of respect and religious devotion.
No staring about the edifice here, as in an
Italian cathedral, where the worshiper
counts her beads and at the same time
studies the c-ountenances of all those
within range of her vision; no critical
examination of the new bonnet of her
neighbor or study of the trimming on the
mantle of the lady in the next pew, as in
q New York or q Chicago house of wor-
ship.
English girls of the middle class usu-
ally make good housewives They are
trained in the elements of housekeeping.
and oftentimes have much more than an
elementary knowledge" of household
duties They usually make their own
dresses-(perhaps that is the rea-j
son that they are so apt to be i'll.
made, or, at least, not tastefulD-they
know how to trim their own hats and bon
nets, they can cook a beefsteak and make
yorkshire pudding" They can usu.
ally tell you how many pounds of sugar
go 10 a pound of fruit in the compound
ing OF an A l strawberry jam. Many of
them can even handle a smoothing. iron,
though in London nearly all laundry work
is done by professional laundresses, most
Of it out Of the house. They do not drink
ice water, and that Is one respect in which
they display a superiority over their
American cousins, male and female alike.
English girls always of the upper
middle classesD lack expression. Their
countenances are too stolid. In fact, I
have good reason for believing that the
English girl is not very emotional-that
she lacks Sentiment, " as sentiment" is
understood by US Americans. This is
seen in her singing, in the wal she
phrases q song or MARBLES an aria. She
usually-save only in the case of those
singers who have studied under Italian or
French professors-delivers a song in a
cold, unimpassioned manner, utterly de,
void of expression, as the French and
Italians understand that word in its ap-
plication to music. The English consider
1t affected" to sing with expression. Ac-
cording to their ideas, it is 1stagey" and
theatrical" to move the hands. make
any gestures whatever, or even lift the
eyes heavenward when one Is singing.
They pride themselves greatly upon
"neVer manifesting emotion. This trait
is even more noticeable among the &up-
per classes, " or "tho ariatocracy. The
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