The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-11-11
USES AND ABUSES.

USES AND ABUSES.
1t seems to be difficult matter for the
average woman to distinguish between
the privileges of her private dressing
room and that of public railway car
riage. The fatigues and inconvenience
consequent on a journey are good tests
of the adaptability and uuseltishness of
human nature-a test under which, alas
too many women fail. Men are less en-
during, less adaptable, less patient, but
to them is accorded more liberty of
change and movement, and they are
more considerate of each others rights,
habits perhaps engendered by busine IS
il stincts of courtesy. 1t would seem as
if large majority o. the American wom-
eu left their credentials to being lady
locked up in their winter homes when
they sally out on their SUNNI 3r outings.
They are no more part of the women
in a Pullman car III IN in the emigrant
car that trails behind.
| If you are unfortunate enough to have
engaged section with her, you are
made to feel you are an interloper from
from the moment she gathers up her
various bundles from your seat till the
porter makes up the berth; and if there
is child with you, that it has no place
VI IlSllb W GAloU Dub III
ing-rOom her feminine instincts of Sc
clusion assert themselves in aparamount
degree. Given a crowded Pullman car
and warm day, and you have picture
of condensed seltishness, misery and pa
thence as pathetic as amusing. She rises
early to get possession of the dressing
room, she slams the door, locks it Sc
curely, and bravely maintains her posi-
ton against the efforts of every other
woman and child in the car to gun adj
mission; sick and well. old and young,
are treated with the same unperturbed
indifference. After an hour, more or
less, she energies, cool, serene, undis-
turbed by the weary, worn faces around
her. and number two rushes in.
She is quite as unmindful of the dis
comfort she has been occasioned, she
seems to try to Guido her prosecutor, aud
so the farce goes on, 1t does not mend
the matter to say she is an old maid, or
a woman without children, or a young
thoughtless girl with habits of punctil-
ious neatness. The old lady fidgets for
chance to adjust her bonnet before the
last call for breakfast, the baby cries for
a drink of water.
Why, with all their years of experience
with the "mannerless sexr the cars
should continue to lock up the drinking
water and the ladies toilet in the dress
ing-room is an insoluble problem. The
woman cannot be changed till the gener-
atoms are educated into kindly courtesy
and regard for the feelings of others.
Any one capable of so gross selfish
ness as to exclude dozens of others from
the toilet she is celebrating, is not capa-
BILE of education, and but little is to be
expected from her children. She is in
sensible to the finer perceptions of
thoughtfulness that prompts the kindly
act for others.
My train reached the city of its desti-
nation: at noon. had been unable to see
the inside of the dressing room; l asked
permission of the demurring porter to
wash in the gentlemen's wash-room, I'M
fortunately part of the smoking room,
and there l was forced to make a most
apologize, unsatisfactory toilet, in the
presence of half dozen astonished men,
who naturally felt l was invading their
province, as indeed was.
l thought of the comment they would
have good reason to make on my sex in
the aggregate, and cause Of the intrusion
/ wondered if after all women were fitted
and ready for the rights and positions
for which we clamor in this age of re-
form; whether we did not need in our
public schools, academies and colleges a
department for cultivation of manners,
more than we needed classics, and higher
mathematics, for our girls. l am never
more ashamed of being a woman, than
in crowded Pullman car. Sisters, is
there no remedyP Then let us who have
been content to wait and endure, petition
the car companies to remove the locks
from the dressing-room doors, as no bolt
is necessary in the hasty toilet one must
make on a railroad journey; and thus
give the equal rights to women we are
asking for, with our more considerate
husbands and brothers.
There are some cars constructed on
this plan, NAV they be multiplied.