Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1893-07-29
M
Sir Edwin Arnold Tells snyIishmen Thsy
Know but Little on This Subject.

Sf EDWIN Arnolo 'eHs engHshmen may
Know but Little on This Subject.
London Telegraph; In England men
of letters and humorous artists are ac-
customed to treat the American girl
from two w:de!y differing, but in either
case unjust, points of view. ''Mr.
Punch's' artists confess graphically
that the American girl is often stump
tuously beautiful, but they rarely pre-
sent her 70 public admiration
without putting in her mouth
u%tterances which are either gro
tesquely ''outres" or downright vulgar.
II she is asked TO partake Of refresh
ments she declines on the score that
she is pretty well crowded already"
and if the Chicago exhibition is alluded
TO in her presence she incidentally re-
mar ks that the worlds fair is too big
a chunk TO be chewed' without Diff
Guilty. AS for the English novelists,
the American girls they depict are. in
most instances, handsome and more or
less INSCRIPTIONS young persons, who
complete their education by the in
tens study of Burke" and ''Debrett"
and who embark on board the ocean
steamship which lis 10 bring them 10
Europe with the firm resolution to
marry very high 90 indeed in the Eng
lish peerage.
We shall never have a thoroughly ar
tistic series of studies of the American
girl from English pens and pencils un-
til our countrymen recognize the fact
hat American girls differ physically
and Enthusiastically among them
selves quite Us widely, If not even more
widely, than English girls do. In the
union multitudes of girls may be met
with who are almost Germans or al
most Irish in blood. Half Swedish, half
Spanish South Americans, half Italian
types of femininity are also continually
met with; and, indeed, there are skillful
students of American character Who
declare hat the genuine American
girl is only To be met with in New Eng
land-that is TO say, in the states OF
Maine, New lamps ire, Vermont,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Con-
Iecticut. In those states the original
English blood has, with scarcely any
foreign strain in it, descended from the
time of the pilgrim fathers to our own
days They are the true Yankees"
and yet unobservant writers are ready
to typify the New York. or the Phila-
delphia, or the Baltimore, or the Nir-
GINA young lady as a Yankee girl"
New York city is perhaps u 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 aristocracy-that is
To say, Of the descendants of the old
Dutch settlers. The expert in charac-
ter will at once be able to dis
tinguish between a young lady from
Manhattan and one who halls from
Pennsylvania or Maryland: while jour
neying fun Their west another type of
American girlhood makes herself mani
fest in Ohio and Michigan, and as soon
as the Rocky mountains are crossed
and the descent of the Pacific slope is
begun vet another wholly independent
tyne of the feminine American makes
its appearance.
Nor finally would the study of the
American daughter of Eve be com
plete by even the minutest observation
of the eastern, the middle. and the
western states There remains the
southern girl to be dealt with; and
when we approach that charming type
of feminine humanity il will be found
that the girls of Kentucky, those of
the Carolinas, and the bellies of Louis
lana, Alabama and Georgia differ among
themselves quite as widely as does a
Parisienne from a provencale.
On the whole, if the American girl is
To be thoroughly studied, the European
student should live long in the states
or make many recurring visits thereto.
The existing and most current types of
the American female are either stup-
idly conventional or wildly exagger-
ated, and in most cases are altogether
misunderstood.