The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1893-07-19
ENGLISH JUSTICE TO OUR GIRLS
Sir Edwin Arnold Tells Eoeiishnten TheA
Ideas ,! American Women arc
Absurd.
iLondon Daily Telegraph

London Daily Telegraph
In England men of letters and hu-
norous artists are accustomed to treat
the American girl from too widely diff
fering, but in either case unjust points
Of view. "Mr. Punch's" artists confess
graphically that The American girl is
often sumptuously beautiful, but they
rarely present her to public admiration
without putting in her mouth utter
ances which are either grotesquely
'outres" or downright vulgar. If she
is asked to psrtske of refreshments, she
! declines on the score that she is ''pretty
well crowded already"; and if the Chi
cago Exhibition is alluded to in her
presence, she incidentally remarks that
the Worlds Fair is ''too big q chunk
to be chewed" without difficulty. AS
for the English novelist, the American
girls they depict are, in most instances,
handsome and more or less unscrupu-
lous young persons, who complete their
education by the intense study OF
Burke and Debrett, and who embark
on board the ocean steamship which ID
to bring them to Europe with 3 h.in
resolution to marry very high up in
deed in the English peerage.
We shall never have thoroughly
artistic series of studies OF the Ameri-
can girl from English pens and pencils
until our -countrymen recognize the
fact that American girls differ physical
" aad Enthusiastically among them
selves quite as widely, Nnot even more
widely, than English girls do. In the
Union multitudes OF girls may be- met
with who are almost German or almost
Irish blood. Half Swedish, half Span
ish South Americans, half italian types
of femininity are also continually met
with: and, indeed, there are skillful
students of American character who
declare that the genuine American girl
is only to be met with in New Eng
land-that is to say, in the States OF
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Con-
necticut. In those States the original
English blood has with scarcely any
foreign strain in it, descended from the
time of the immigration Of the Pilgrim
Fathers to our own days. They are the
true 'Yankees -; and yet unobser7ant
writers are ready to typify the New
York, OF the Philadelphian, or the Bal
timore, or the Virginian young lady as
"Yankee girl" "
New York city is perhaps one Of the
most cosmopolitan cities in the world,
and the French, the German. and the
Irish types have been freely mingled
| with the Anglo-Saxon ones; while
some account must be taken OF the
Knickerbocker sristocracy-thst ls to
saw, OF the descendants Of the Old
Dutch settlers. The expert in chassc-
ter will at once be able to distinguish
| between young lady from Manhattan
and one who halls from Pennsylvania
| or Maryland while journeying further
West another type of American girl
hood makes herself manifest in Ohio
and Michigan, and so on as the Rocky
Mountains are crossed and the descent
of the Pacific slope is begun yet snoth-
er wholly independent type OF the
feminine American makes its appear
ance. Nor, finally, would the study OF
the American daughter of Eve be com.
plete by even the ninutest observation
of the girls fthe Eastern, the Middle
| and the Western States. There H.
| mains the Southern girl to be dsal:
with; and when We approach that
charming type of feminine humanity
it will Re found that the girls Of Kea-
lucky, those of the Carolinas, and the
bellies of Louisiana, Alabama and
Georgia differ among themselves quite
as widely as does q Parisienne from
Provencale. zE
On the whole, if the American girl is
| to be thoroughly studied, the European
should live long in the States or make
many recurring visits thereto. The ex-
| isting and most current types of the
American female are either stupidity
conventional or wildly exaggerated,
and in most cases are altogether mis-
understood.