Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1889-05-25
THE BOSTON WOMAN.
A Cynical Critic Who Does Not Consider
Her q Lovable Creature.


Her Lovable Creature.
The Boston woman, considered as O
type, affords most entertaining study
to the observer who is disposed to view
things from humorous standpoint.
She is interesting because so different
from the female of our species else
where. Unquestionably, she is not
beautiful. You may promenade Wash
lngton and fremont streets half day,
and never see one really pretty girl.
Venture into the shops and you will
find not few behind the counters. But
they are not of the indigenous breed
They come, almost without exception,
from ''down in Maine," or
from Irish-American parentage-a
cross nearly always productive
of pretty faces and good figures. In So
ciety, which is sort OF caste by itself,
there are some handsome women, but
not very many. In the population at
large, beauty in petticoats is singular
ly lacking. Doubtless the climate has
much to do with it. Here it is winter
eight months in the year. There is no
vegetation until the first OF June to
speak of, and it is mostly gone by the
beginning of October The sun is not
generous with the rays it sheds upon
the cold soil of Massachusetts. Such
conditions are not favorable to the
cultivation of loneliness. In the
warm parts of the earth things
bloom spontaneously, girls are
more apt than not to grow up
pretty. their compilations are clear and
good-at any rate in the youth--and
their figures are rounded with the lines
of grace. 1t ought to be as natural for
q woman to blossom into beauty, even
| If she fades afterwards, as for flower.
And, under favorable circumstances, it
is so. In this region. however, even
the young girls, at that age when they
should beloveliest, are plain and angu-
| lar.
The climate hereabouts is cold and
hard, and it is not surprising that the
Boston woman should be likewise.
Seemingly, she does not try to cultivate
the softer graces which should adorn
her sex. Her manners in public places
are apt to be unpleasant, and her ways
at home are inhospitable. In short, she
is not less angular morally than
physically. As a rule, she is aggressive
ly disposed, and does not hesitate to
assert her equality, at least, with the
masculine brute. From every thing
save skirts she is practically emanci-
pated. Even in the upper social
stratum the young bud just enter
ing the fashionable swim exhibits in q
refined way symptoms of like descrip-
ton. From the start she is entirely
self confident and methodical in her
pursuit of a husband who is pecuni-
arily desirable. She is thoroughly up
in book-lore, or pretends to be
so; but of the housewives
| uuuiUlC uiVS Blu plOiCoSCo OuO
most deplorable ignorance. Pos
itively, it is refreshing to contemplate
the ill-concealed pride with which she
confesses her inability to cook, sew, or
do any thing else that is useful.
1T must be perfectly charming to
know how to do such things" she ex-
claims, with transparent affectation;
"but somehow. have never had a
chance to learn"
OF course, she means it to be under
stood that circumstances of birth and
family connection have placed her be-
yond the necessity of vulgar labor. Her
husband, when she gets him, is not
likely, as may be surmised, to find such
woman in any true sense a helpmate.
In all probability he will be sat upon
to some extent, and made to feel that
man in the household is q necessary
evil, but rather to be discouraged than
otherwise. So he will take to living
at his club a good deal of the time,
while his wife devotes herself to social
and intellectual enjoyments in COM
pany with her female friends.
On the whole, the assertion may
safely be ventured that the Boston
woman can scarcely be termed Iowa
BILE creature. Cor. ST. Louis Globe
Democrat.