The Jersey City news., 1891-09-16
A GIRLS MINUTES.
What Is 1t That Young Women
Do That Compels Them to Be
Always Busy .?

Does anybody know what becomes
of a girls time? Was there ever girl
who could tell what she did with it or
where she puts it, or account in any
reasonable way for its mysterious dis
appearance?
Are the girls minutes like the lost
pins of which nobody ever finds
trace, though the factories have been
at work SO long that one would think
that the dropped ones would constl-
tute in themselves an adequate source
of supply?
There are some things which have
this capacity for utter annihilation.
Wild animals are never found dead i'll
the forests, watering place friendships
vanish into wind swept space; the
hole in the stocking speaks of tex
ture which was once there, but is there
no longer; yet these things get out of
the world no more quietly and unac-
countably than the hours and min
utes of a good proportion OF young
women.
There is theory, which is common
ly accepted, that girls time is all
spent upon dress. Certainly little
of it goes in that way. bat the amount
must be small. Older women, with
many social and domestic cares, dress
quite as well as young girls, and usu-
ally better.
They cannot give all their time, or
even any appreciable part of it, to the
planning and purchasing OF their raj
ment, SO there is evidently a fallacy
in the idea that feminine attire is ca
pable of engrossing the entire atten-
| tion of a woman.
There is another theory that girls
| time is spent in entertaining members
| of the other sex, but this is absolutely
untenable. Even the nildest of fir
| taton calls for two fiirters, and, as
| the student of our social system is
never weary of pointing out we have
| no class of men whose time is their
own.
| A girl may spend her evenings and
! Sundays in amusing the masculine
| half of creation, but business hours
are sacred from her invasion. Her
| will might be good to SO spend the
hours from sunrise to midnight, but
| in the nature of the case her oppor-
| tunities are limited.
| Is it domestic cares which are so alb
| sorbing? The newspaper paragrapher
would say not, and | think on the
| whole he is right. This is not because
most girls are unwilling to share the
| household responsibilities, but be-
cause, during the time of their educa-
tion home life goes on without their
assistance, and once out of school they
| find no place ready made i'll which
| they can be useful.
| 1t is about as easy for the camel to
go through the needles eve as for the
| daughter of well-to-do family to find
any domestic duties worthy the name
in her fathers house.
| There are yet other ways in which
it is popularly supposed girls time
| is employed, such as study and cores
a morning class? If SO you know
pretty we'll the formula 81 was SO
busy hadn't a minute to spare for
preparation p
Have you any women among your
correspondents, and did one of them
ever write a letter without explaining
how busy she was and had been for
weeks past and would be for weeks to
| come -? Whatever the mysterious,
| grinding tasks which fate imposes
upon the young women who have
apparently nothing to do, by their
| own confession studying and writing
are not among the things sought
Perhaps the subject is worthy of
scientific investigation. 1t would be
as useful to the race as the discovery
of the north pole; and, though the
inquiry might be as long and tedious
as an arctic exploration, it would not
be so dangerous. Industrially it
might be of value.
Here is a vast amount of labor
which we know, on the testimony of
every girl in the land, is put forth
daily, yet without visible result.
Would not experiments to make it
productive be as legitimate as those
for the reduction of aluminium or the
utilization of the solar force?
Anthropologists might spare little
time from the study of cranial de-
velopment and turn their attention to
finding out what becomes of girls
time 1t ought surely to be done, if
for no other reason than to crafty
the dear girls themselves, who GER
tainly are as much in the dark on this
question as any one else. Kate Fields
Washington.
How Queen Victoria Travels.
Many times have seen items in the
American papers which said that the
Queen of England travelled very
plainly; that her private carriage was
no better than any other first-class
English carriage. / wish right here
to say that these reports are based
upon no authentic evidence. An ofiic-
ial of the Midland road took ME into
the Queens carriage as it stood in st.
Pancras station, and must say it is
as fine as any Pullman car ever built
and that is saying good deal The
walls of the saloon are of satin-wood
highly polished. The cushions are OF
white silk embroidered in gold thread.
A garter containing her motto. 'sHo7aS
soft q,ti NAL q pe1aSe, surrounds her
initials, v. r. Her large chair
and it takes large one, tools at the
back of the carriage and faces the en-
| !.