The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1894-02-24


| proposition that the same amount and
! quality of work should command the
same amount of wage, let it be done by
[ "A man or a woman. Then comes the
right of standing up in the cars, a right
which men themselves invented and con-
| ferred upon the mothers and wives of
other men, although their own mothers
and wives when subjected to similar dis
! cipliue from other men probably explain
| ed to their own mankind how injurious
| they found it.
! And the right Of franchise is being
! gradually torn and dragged from the I'M
willing hand of man, and for one am
very doubtful if it will not prove very
perplexing white elephant when it has
been fully captured.
But what concerns Us just now IS
woman's right TO protect herself, and it
seems by my friends report that this
right Is on trial in some of our cities
pretty extensively.
Now, it seems to me that this is very
legitimate and sensible kind of right,
| and also one which will develop by its
exercise the very best and most valuable
traits of the woman of the future. If
she is to stand for herself instead of run
ming behind her big brother at every
alarm, she must acquire, or rather prac
tice dignity, firlnness, self respect and
courage, not the courage of the prize
fighter, but of the monarch, the queen,
| who feels that she is safe among her sub
iects by the simple right of her queen
hood.
Now let us get back to the pith of
this little screed and consider whether
our girls do really need chaperons, or if
the old colonial custom of maids and
matrons going whittier they would, by
sunlight and moonlight, in company with
their brothers, their fathers, their cous-
inS or their Jtncles, as the case might be,
or without them, Just as it happened,
was not really nearer the proposed era of
woman's rights than the world has been
during the last half century. OF course
we all know that in the beginning theIe
United States, or rather the society of
the new nation, was by preference and
choice opposed to the traditions of the
old.
Etiquette and formality reigned su-
preme at the courts of Versailles and St.
James, so let US despise etiquette and
formality and be as patriarchal and
pastoral as possible. President Jeffer-
son. believe it was, who complained of
the cumbrous ceremonial of the White
House and stripped the servants of the
modest livery George Washington had
instituted, and when he gave state din
ner to the English plenipotentiary and
his wife took some other lady to dinner.
But as the country grows in wealth
and luxury, as Americans more and
more spend their holidays abroad and
keenly observe the manners of other peo-
pie, a change has crept over the prime
val simplicity. Anglomania has sue
ceeded to anglophobia, and whether the
White House servants may be iveried
or not half the coachmen and grooms of
New York are, and the etiquette of Wis
iting cards has been found worthy of
several elaborate treatises showing how
we may by these magic bits of paste
board pretend to those friendly visits
which our grandmothers honestly made
to each other.
Along with the other importations of
conventionaity has come the system of
chaperonage, and it is as artificial as all
the rest The original idea is good. A
very young girl should go into society
with her mother, just as the parent bird
when the fedgling begins to try its
wings accompanies its feeble flight,
chirping encouragement and showing
how to guide the tremulous course and
how to find the early worm or the gilt
tering grub. But so soon as the young
bird has strength and sense enough to fly
alone, the mother goes about her more
important affairs and leaves the daugh-
ter to make practical use of the lessons
she has learned.
But the conventional improvement up
ON this idea is that the young bird never
becomes responsible bird with the right
of self guidance until she is mated, and
that the most venerable and proper and
demure old maid sparrow must never
try to fly or to pick up that early worm
unless she is under the protection of
some little firty, fighty hen just married
to some jaunty little cock sparrow no
older than herself
/ hope the simile Is not insulting. but
L declare L cannot help thinking of it
when 1 see a lady of uncertain age, who
has ripened by the experience of some
score of seasons in society, entering the
room under convoy of q rosy, curly,
fresh young bride who was in her cradle
when the spinster was debutante.
Now, this absurdity arises from a rem
nant of the old barbaric idea that all
women are fools and all men are brutes,
for that is the core of the old code of
chivalry, of the institution by Arthur of
the Knights of the Round Table and
great deal more of the pretty and the
impossible state of things people some
times pretend that they would like to
reproduce.
What were the duties of the knights
of the Round Table? They We're to ride
up and down the land rescuing the danes
and damsels who were being carried
away by wicked knights, or who, being
married to other wicked knights, We're
being dragged about by their hair, turned
out to starve and otherwise maltreated.
They were also to take and keep VOW
of such self control and decency of life
as is now expected of every man. but in