The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-09-27
OUR ENGLISH SISTERS.
As Seen Through Yankee Spectacles
They Are Ungainly and Have
Big Feet.

l. a. RUS I'll ~
and draw a pen picture of the Eng
lish girl as she is generally described
by foreigners.
Behold a tall, ungainly figure, strid-
ing along with the gait of aprofes-
sional pedestrian. Her hair is red
and crowned with a hat OF simple n
uncompromising ugliness. Exposure
to the weather has rendered her COM
plexion coarse and tiorid, and her
teeth are large and prominent, owing
to her excessive indulgence in O diet
of tough meat.
A nondescript garment, half way
between a macintosh and an ulster,
envelopes her figure, which is angular,
bony and fiat. Her feet, generally
encased in galoshes. are Of remarka-
BILE contour and outrageous proper
tions. Not an engaging picture, is 1tY
And the worst of il is that the grain
of truth in the satire makes 1t bitter.
For English girls, with the best mate
rial in the world to work upon, do
not make the best of themselves.
Where in the world will you find q
natural complexion to equal the pure
pink and white of the English maid2
And yet she ruins it with hard water
and harder towels. Then her teeth
well. she cannot help that: but we
must confess that teeth a size or two
smaller would serve all the purposes
of use and ornament. Asto her figure,
nature has endowed her with a SPLEEN
did physique, a body well developed
by walking, riding, rowing and ten
mis-: but it is still in the rough. 1t is
marvellous that with her strong, active
and healthy form she still lacks that
browning beauty, the divine grace, !"
which the Greek goddess sheds around
her favorites. But she does lack it.
The French girl, sallow and even
ugly. is always graceful. The English.
beautiful and statuesque in repose, is
awkward when she begins to move.
Does it all lie in the feet, those feet
which the English climate ripens to
such astounding size and which their
owners persist in reducing by the pro-
cess of peine forte ct dure? 1t is more
probably the result of her whole train
inr. She has never been taught, like
the French girl, that the chief end of
woman is to be beautiful.
The high schools do not teach their
pupils grace of manners, and the ex-
natriated French noblemen who
taught our grandmothers dancing
and deportmentn have long since
taken down their brass plates and
GONE forth into the unknown country.
The English girl has tagged" at
cricket for her brothers in the holt
| days. played hockey at Girton,
| climbed mountains in Switzerland
| and toured through Normandy on a
| tricycle.. But all this gives her
| strength, not grace.
On the whole English girls live a
| iollv. careless sort of life, not so rest
| less as that of the American and not
| so secluded as that of the French girl.
Not all. Of course; for we, every n
| Of MS. know here and there a mother
| less girl who brings up a whole family
| Of Younger brothers and sisters, and
| sacrifices her own life to theirs.
| But these are the exceptions. Gen
| orally when they leave school they
| consider their education complete.
They have Learnt" French and Ger
man at school, but they never look
into q French or German book after
| wards. English literature, outside
the s'set books in an Oxford local ex-
! animation, is a terra lncognlta TO
them. and this is the more inexcusa-
| Bile because English newspapers and
| MAGAZINES, and in fact all contem-
| porary literature. is written with an
eve on the ''voung person" and there
| are few libraries where sweet seven
then maynot range at will. They have
| a sweet tooth in books, and devour
| novels, which is on the hole a good
thing; for a certain amount OF con-
| temporary thought filters through
the circulating libraries in a diluted
| form in the shape of Robert Eismeres
| and Donoyans.
Sometimes the English girl goes
| through a mysterious process called
ssinishing,n which means that she has
| lessons in music and singing. Why
| do all girls learn to play the piano?
| And why do they SO seldom learn
| enough to know that they can't playS
| Nine out Of every ten are either physi-
| cally or mentally incapable OF even
| moderate proficiency, and yet now
| rare O pleasure it is to meet a glri VINO
| frankly confesses that she cannot play.
| And the songs she singsl Well, there
is nothing that appears more remark
able to the intelligent foreigner than
fine way in which an English maid
| will stand up and sing, without turn
ing a hair, an impassioned love song
| at which Sappho might have blushed,
Cor. NeaG Orleans PscGyefae.
snlphur a Good Disinfectaut.
A writer on disinfectants claims thai
the most reliable one that is practica
~. r., f,,uiIiac is the Van0r of sui