The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-02-24
THE ENGLISH GIRL.
A VERY CRITICAL CORRESPONDENT
INDULoES IN FAULT-FlN0lNG.
The Girl OF the Upper Middle Class"-
intellectual sluggishn ess-carrying on
ConvePsatIOn-Traine In the
Elements OF Housekeeping.
[London Cor. Pioneer Press.l ]

London Cor Pioneer Press
OF course In England, as elsewhere, there
there are girls and girls con1ne my re-
marks to the average girl, the girl Of the
middle classes. or let us say, 1.-The upper
middle classes For in this very con
servative country, where the caste di-
visions are as strongly defined as in
India or China, there are an upper mid
die class, q lower middle class, and q
suppose) 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 l have ever visited do the young
women make such dead sets" at all mar
riageable young (or old men who come
within the focus of their attractions.
Another characteristic of the middle
class English girl, is that of intellectual
aIuggishness In comparison with the
American girl Of like social position, sim
liar advantages, similar opportunities for
education and mental improvement, sim
lar condition of fortune, the English girl
fs a poor talker and q feeble reader. BY
feeble reader" mean 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
Gction. The great majority OF English
girls. at 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
lola, Gaboriau and Boisgobey, and
IS for American writers they Pre abso-
lutely ignorant of them.
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 girl who is fairly well educated
gifted with average intelligence, a grad
uate of any good English seminary or
swomen's college A half hour of such
conversation uses me up completely, ten
minutes Is quite sufficient for any onel /
know several mice" girls who, when
conversing nationally with man, that Is
when the subject of dress, the theatre and
fsld sports are tabooed, rarely rise above
though they do. it is true, occasionally in
terpolate an Jaw, or How funny"
like their races, I admire their good fig
ures, their robust strength, Their
fresh bloom of youth, mot manu-
featured by Mrs. AllenD am enthu
9lastic over their lawn tennis playing and
their tricycle. riding like their gait
well as the English girl. ] can never
cease to praise their economy, in and
simplicity of dress, with certain excep
dens, of courseD but l do not like theil
talk aud / am bored constantly by theil
conversation.
English middle class" girls are very
religious At least they seem to be
Enter any church in London, save only
those In 1.-THE city, which are necessarily
church, because scarcely anybody save {
few porterS, housekeepers, scare takers,
and the like, live in "the city ENTER any
church in London on a Sunday morning
OF sc the afternoon service. and you finc
the seats crowded with ladies, the creates
part being young women or misses. They
are devout; they go through the servict
with decorum and all the outward evi
dences of respect and religious devotion
No staring about the edifice here, as in al
Italian cathedral, where the worshipe
counts her beads and at the same tim
studies the countenances of all thos
within range of her vision; no critica
exanaination of the new bonnet of he
neinhbor or study of the trimming on tn
rnantie of the lady in the next pew, as il
. New York or Chicago house of VOL
ahip.
ally make good housewives They ar
trained in the elements of housekeeping
and oftenimes have much more than a.
elementary knowledge" of household
duties They usually make their owl
n hot fa 40
son that they are so apt to be i'll
made. or, at least not tastefulD-the
know how to trim their own hats and Dor
nets, they can cook beefsteak ard max
q Yorkshire pudding" They can usu
ally tell you how many pounds Of suga
20 TO pound of fruit in the compound
Ing of an A strawberry jam. Many c
than can even handle a smoothing irOr
though In London nearly all laundry wor
a. done by professional laundresses, mo:
of Il out of the house. They do not drin
ice water and that is one respect in whic
thew display a superiority over the
American cousins, male and female alike
English girls always of the "uppe
Z middle classes y lack expression The
countenar ces are too stolid. In fact,
have good reason for believing that To
EEglish girl is not very emotional-ths
she lacks Sentiment, as sentiment"
understood by US Americans. This
seen in her singing, in the way sh
phrases a song or MARBLES an aria. Sh
Nsually-save only in the case of thos
singers who have studied under Italian c
French professors-delivers a song in
cold, unimpassioned manner, utterly d.
void of expression. as the French an
Italians understand that word in its al
plication to music. The English considC
ft AFFECTED" to sing with expression. A.
cording to their ideas, it is STACEY" an
atheatrical % move the hands. max
any gestures whatever, or even lift Il
eyes heavenward when one is singing
They pride themselves greatly upC
snsver manifesting emotion This ira
Is even more noticeable among the gu
per classes, or %the aristocracy. tt
cool, "well-bFed stare" of an aristocrat
English dame in society is something we
worth seeing. 1t is something that wi
cling to your memory for months, pc
haps years, afterward
.Bismarok's Land Grabs.
ILondon Times
The geographical society of Hambur