The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1891-11-19
MAX O'RELL AID AMERICAN
WOMEN

NJ. Paul BlOuet, better known to
American readers as Max O'Rell, is
one of these superficial but pleasant
lecturers and writers and is now
making a second visit Of this country.
He has the talent Of giving hattery in
way that he succeeds in making
money out Of so shrewd people as the
Yankees.
He talks about the American hotels,
the Press, literature, the railroads and
many other characteristics Of the peo-
pie. To show that ne is just giving US
flattcry and his opinions are only
interesting, he says that while America
has every type of men in New York,
Boston, Chicago, and Charleston as
different in temperament as they can
be, the women in these localities are
all of the same type. He declares that
the American woman is distinct type
of her sex, possessing more vlvaclty, a
more charming manner, more indie
pendenCe and originality than her
sister in England, France or Germany.
That is, perhaps, true. Certainly Amer
lean men like to think so, but there is
great variety of types of both women
and men in this country and there is
as great a variety among women as
men.
A NewiYork newspaper chooses to
say this:
THERE'S virtually but zone type of the
English.girl, ii type with which English
literature has made everybody tolerably
familiar In France there may be two
types, the fair Parisienne and her equally
fair but unsuphisticated sister OF the
provinces.
In the United States the maleindividual
contemplating matrimony can choose
from the languid, stately brunettcss of
the Southern States, the brcezy, out
spoken, intensely energetic young woman
OF Chicago, the dignified, sedate bellies of
Philadelphia, the astOnishingly erudite
but charming demOiselIcs of classic Bos-
ton, or last, but by no means least, the
dainty, bewitching, irresistible girls of
Gotham.
This is indeed n great privilege, and
our young men ought to be thankful
for it,
It's a mistake to classify the South
ern girl as languid, because she is in
tensely womanly, modest and refined
in both person and manners. She has
been, and is yet, the best type of the
American woman. She is more con-
slant in faith and affection, she makes
a better wife, better mother-in law,
and she remains a more docile and af-
tectlonate spinster than her Northern
sister. The best evidence of the truth
Of these assertions is the records of the
divorce courts and indeed of all courts.
The Southern women of the middle
and highest classes of society do not
appear to any large extent in the
courts.
But no other women have been so
severely tried and tested as the South
ern women. Women always suffer
more in war than men, and in this
section it was both mental and phys
ical suffering and humiliation of the
hardest kind. See what a hard strug-
gle our women are passing through
now. In nearly every female college
IN the South, are the great majority Of
the students whose ancestry had wealth,
but lost it by the war. No one who
has not studied carefully the domestic
condition of the farmer, knows what
his wife and daughter are tried by.
Here is the very hardest field for
Southern women. No other women
have ever shown such heroism and pa
trlotlsm. No other women with equal
gifts and culture have done such druid
gerry. Women always suffer more and
bear greater burdens, both mentally
and physically, than men, and the
Southern women have been in the very
incarnation of the South's suffering
Charlotte Chronicle.