St. Paul daily globe., 1888-02-10
SOME INTERESTING WOMEN.
Lounging in Windows, Defying
Indians, Running. Races and
ReCeiynR HOMAGE.


Indians, Running. Races and
Receiving Homage.
In the dreamland of Cuba, where
every house has barred windows and
fortress-like doors (says writer in The
Albany Fair JOurnaD, l realized that
the women were prisoners, though l
doubt whether they would have valued
compassion, since, like canaries, they
have been in dureSs so many genera
tiOns as to have lost the standpoint from
which to judge between freedom and
thralldom. Though 1 visited towns that
had scarcely known any change, except
what earthquakes had brought them,
since COrteZ rested in them On his
way to conquer Mexico, l saw no
sight so strange as that of the
women lOlling in the bench-like sills, of
the great windows, dressed for public
view and looking laZily out of their
great black orbs at whoever passed
along the street. Those who were young
were nearly all beautiful, but their
elders had lost their good looks in
Snperabundance of flesh. They could
not go out of doors in the daytime eX-
cept In their carriages and accompanied
by parent or guardian. And when
they went shopping the clerks attended
them In their carriages, the ladies send
ing for what they wanted to look at and
the clerks staggering out under great
burdens of goods. You can imagine
nor vice, as it is said to
be in Paris. Isn't it in Paris
that the women are so fond of
1t? so, after tho morning was spent at
housework ard veiled visit to church,
tile Cuban ladies dressed to loll in the
windows, and their sweethearts crept
along close to the walls and chatted
with them, if no old woman was by to
prevent them, and if they had pro-
ceeded SO far in their love making as to
be able to converse with their hearts
delights. Before they could do that
they had to walk along the streets ever
SO many times, past their SweetheartS'
windows, waiting to be noticed and
fllrted with, and then came long period
OF ogling and the exchanging of swift
giances and peeping behind fans and
waving of handkerchiefs-a extremely
silly in the eyes of American girls.
One day | was making my way
through a dismal piece of woodland in
Canada Oh the outskirts of Montreal.
B-f-r-r! how cold it was, and how the
snow lay piled up all over the country!
Suddenly l heard merry voices and the
cracking of twigS and rustling of brush.
just as suddenly the figure Of young
man IN the uniform of the Tuque Bleue
SnoWshOe club appeared. ascending a
Knoll. Three girls were at his heels,
followed by other young men and
women. There was new view of
the possibilities of wOmanhood.
Our Yankee girls, best of all in the
best OF the sexes, have liberty enough,
but how few use it to place themselves
side by side with the men in their
athletic spOrtsi How ruddy and bright
eyed and wholesome were these Can
adian maidens. How superbly they
were framed and how Overfiowing with
animal spirits they were! AfterWard L
ing miles Of ice hand i'm hand with their
brothers (and the brothers of other
folks, and at tObOgganing, driving. and
all the other sports that interested them,
they were almost if not quite the equals
Of the men. When it came to dancing,
as L was informed, the merry ones
amang them took a delight in lifting the
young gentlemen from the States Off
their feet, once in a while, and swing
ing around with them as New York
girl might do with a child-if it was
small enough.
Far over on the Pacific coast of the
same country, and on Vancouver island,
found another race Of wOmen-SQuaws
of some tribes allied to the ESquimauX.
They were SO ignorant and homely, and
belonged to such rude order of civil
iZation, that / could scarcely expect to
interest any young lady readers in them.
But they possessed an interest for the
married ladies, and might even arouse
envy in the breasts of some fair
matrons, for their customs allow each
wife to have an assistant husband"
Better yet, their husbands do not
is left to the fair ladies them
selves. These assistant husbands
have to do what the New England folks
call "choreS" for the women, get kim
ding wood, run of errands and make
themselves useful in all menial ways.
Their only reward and recompense is
that if the real husband dies In any
case, or disappears, or goes away for an
unconscionable length of time, they
marry the women for whom they have
been working.
On the plains in Assiniboia I found
little lady in the larger of the only two
stores in the place who told me that the
Indians on reservation close by had
begun to grow restless, and were mani
Testing the fact by unusual insolence.
Only the day before dozen of
the braves had come into the
store, when she was stark alone
in it, and had demanded whisky, a COM
modify they were not allowed to touch
and no one was permitted to sell. She
told them she had none, and they sat,
as Indians will, for long time, as if to
show her they would not go away until
they. got it. CuriOsly enough no one
came to the store from the settlement.
PU h1T a I'm
search for the whisky. She laughed at
them and told them they could search.
They did so. peeping and pOking every
where that they could think OF. When
they offered TO go up stairs to her living
apartment she stood in the doorway and
told them they must not venture
there. She flattened her back against
the door and defed them. She was less
than the ordinary height, and did not
weigh oyer one Hundred pounds, but she
quailed them with the eye of brave
and determined woman, and when, pres
emily. some white men came to make
some purchases, the Indians took them
selves off. Only few nights before
this this same woman had seen wolf in
her back yard, nnd had gone out and
''ShOOed'' it away with her apron and
her scOlding, Just as one of our girls
might do to a cat. l never saw a man
that thought more plucky than She.
Perhaps, though, what no Indian OF
wolf could do might be done by mouse.
But it is beyond all reason to expect the
bravest not to fear mouse.
In our Southern states one gets still
another view of woman. I went
through the Virginia mountains, and
learned that south of Mason and Dix
on's line every white woman is aqueen,
idelized by brothers, husbands, sons
and fathers; respected as if sainted by
her neighbors. When poor old woman
entered railroad depot that was
crowded with men at time when it
was not expected that any woman would
be travelling, every man in that assem-