New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-12-02
THE AMERICAN GIRL
IN ENGLAND AND WHY THE ENGLIShMAN
MARRIES HER

fvnos THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT or THE inipoNS
""o'' ' Londnn November I.
II is Mr.. Chamberlains marriage "nioi' ""'
all az once made her again topic oil oiscussion ="
ENGLAND She has long been grievance W ''io
Rritish Mother. but the British Mother does not
IL ,,r,,o ,hc leading editorials In the
Rritisb Press She may sometimes inspire them'
Che insnrcd possibly, the elaborate essay when
onreared the other day in The Standard" HAD she
octuallv written the essay it would have been GER
calmly shorter and probably less absurd in theory
Tho subject WAS once dealt with by Dr'ish
Mother a lady clever enough ana with character
enough TO have been an American; real ieauer
in that society Of which the conservative writer
has an incomplete lSnOwledge-the best society OF
Iopdou. The American invasion was IN iull tide
81 success. and this lady was asked what she
thought of American girls. " They are sad poach-
o-ss was her answer She had expressed in four
words what the average British Mother who be-
lanes 70 the Glasses had been thinking for
years
In America. 1 suppose, the solicitudes Of the
British Mother must seem excessive lhey can
hardly he understood in a country whose social
organization is so unlike that Of England The
American Girl asks little or no help from her
n,other in choosing partner for lfe The
English girl has always been dependent upon her
mother 10 get her a husband. You do not hear
I'm London Of a girls coming out. You hear OF
her being brought out If the girl does hot
marry during her first or second season, ~ 10
The mother who is pitied. Lady \. has hackeu
those daughters Of hers about London the last
three years and got rid of only one OF them.
That is the sort of remark you may hear. III IS
brutal in FORM but the Englishman is often brutal
in form; perhaps secretly prdes himself on be-
inc so: is ashamed Of seeming so good fellow
o1 nat on a
truth Lady Y has started out on campaign
and failed She has toiled. schemcd and in
tricued 10 find husbands for her girls, and has
mot found them Perhaps the very men she had
fixed on for her own offspring have married Amer1-
cans Do you wonder that she is soreT Inc
Girls seem to have less interest In the business
than the mother They seldom have the ar OF
being on active service. They are not asKeo 10
take part in the manOeuvres They have only 10
look prcttv--if they can, poor thlngS,-to dahco
with the right man, and not 10 go down to supper
with the wrong one not TO spoil mamma game
not 70 spoon" with the pennies a. when the
eligible B. with money needs bat look or
word TO bring him TO the point. Their role is
massive. The mothers would he HORNED II they
cav their daughters thinking and acting for them
selves So, l suppose. would the eligible young
men. perhaps not the ineligible, for their chances
would be improved if the girls were given their
baods and if by chance they knew what TO do
with them when they had been given. 1t IS of
the average girl l speak; any one who KNOWS
London knows many who have little in common
with the average.
No doubt there has been q change Of late, but the
change is itself due in some degree TO Ameri-
can influence The English girl has beer encour-
aged TO copy her American cousin. All copies are
mistakes and this is greater mistake than most
others Their only USE as Ia Rochefoucauld says
is 10 bring out the faults of the original And II
IS the faults not the merits, that are copied
Probably the American girl has faults speak
of her as a type. not as an individual; tho lndl-
yidnal is always charming Nor is the American
girl. as girl very well known here. 1t is after
the has ceased TO be girl and becomes wife, and the
wife of an Englishman, that she has been most
studied in London. 1t is not in London or on
English soil that she has done most OF her poach-
inr. If YOU were content with superficial causes
il might be enough TO trace the causes OF the
American conquest TO the new passion of the young
Englishman for American travel Twenty years
ago hardly anybody went; the young Enghshman
of nosition who had seen the States was the ex-
ception. Now he is, if not the rule common
enough to make a rule for himself He goes to
America, secs the American girl is captured or
captures her. and brings her back TO the old
home II you run down the list you will
find that most Anglo American matches have been
made on American soil; with some brilliant in
stances TO the contrary.
Opportunity is much, but it is not everything
If the travelling Briton had not found the Ameri
can girl attractive. he would not have married
her Why did he find her attractive-more at
tractive than the girl he left behind him? The
portrait Of her in The Standard" is neither
recognizable nor of a kind TO explain in the least
the Briton's infatuatiOn Logic is out of place in
these matters but it is not necessary TO be abso-
lutely illogical, and if you reduce The Standard
article to loose syllogism it reads thus: Eng
Iishmen like to marry romantic girls the American
girls are proSaic, therefore the EnghShmen marry
American girls. The British Mother knows better
than that. She will give you dozen reasons Off
hand. If she happen 10 be in bad temper
she will declare they are forward hussies. She
would give her fingers if her own girls knew how
10 be forward in the same sense. Very likely
she will tell you that her own girls are as pretty
as well-brcd lshe will say BETTER well-dressed
as wel-taught, well dozen other things, as the
Americans 1t is not all quite accurate, but
we can afford to admit it, and the retort is the
more crushing, Why then do the young English
men prefer the Americans?'
Each has his own reason, good unto him, but
the reason which underes all the others is social
not personal The relations between the sexes
in youth are ten times more natural genuine,
and right in America than in England. Life
does not begin with the English girl on her
coming out She is still in the nursery or the
schoolroom, is still the bread-and- butter miss,
still the nonentity, still the shy, silent uniformed
creature she was. She is not sure OF herself or
Of anybody else. She has conversation, or
none that does not require drawing out, and the
young Englishman is not good at drawing out.
She knows that she has been taken to market,
and her sensations entering society cannot be
very different from those of the white slave
on the auction-block in the East She has
been taught to be timd Opinions, ideas, initia-