Arizona republican., 1895-10-11
COUNTRY COLLEENS.
Inc Queer Existence of Rural
 Maids in Ireland. :

 she be in provincial town or in the country, is as sluggish as that of her English sisters, with fewer resources than the English girl has. It is in the country that ennui dry rots. The Irish maiden of whatever class has few re- sources, says the New York lndepen- dent. If she be of the Protestant and gentle class - the term is nearly synonymous-she is reared in drowsy and gentle conservatism that excludes, as a rule, books, except of the most goodly sort, art, politics, and any inter- est in her neighbors. She is generally wrapped in love or in cotton wool, is gentle, and most innocent of the world and all appertaining thereto. Irish girls have not the training of the fin gers that the English girl usually has; they have not the resource of needle work or fancy work except to slight extent. Any departure, such as lit erary inclination, would be little short of scandal. The wings of home brood over such a girl, and in the shadow of them she is likely to have dreams of discontent if she be of the imaginative kind. There are not even the poor to visit as there would bein England.
 : Of course for a score of families such as this there is one which enjoys itself, whereof the young women follow the hounds a-l the mother rides to the meet in her pony phaeton. This is the class which gives it's daughters a sea- son in town and has relays of visitors, and entertains the officers from the nearest garrison towns. But as a rule the lives of Irish gentlewomen are mar rover, more colorless, and far more conservative than those of their Eng fish sisters.
 The dearth of young men in every place but the metropolis is a melan- choly feature of social life in Ireland. Families cannot afford to keep their sons at home idle, while in all classes except the most humble it is tradition that the daughters should stay at home and go white-handed. I have heard of evening parties where half dozen cav alters, ranging from eighteen to eighty, were apportioned to thirty or forty ladies. True, I have seen nearly as much disproportion at a Norfolk tennis party, but there one did not so pity the maids, who were in many cases birds of passage, and in other places had many opportunities for pleasure.
 The higher education has scarcely reached the Irish country homes In Dublin there is an excellent women's college, the Alexandra, but it's pupils are mainly drawn from the professional and mercantile classes of Dublin itself. In the country places women are leading very much the stagnant lives of the women of the sos. They have the gentler virtues and are not numer- ous enough-if that be not an unfair and ignoble explanation-to form the little coteries which in other lonely places are apt to degenerate into tat tiers and gossips. They have little out Kathleen and Ely should not be anna teur gardeners, for instance, and assist the old gardener, who is rather handi- capped for help; but there is the old tradition of the helplessness and soft handedness of the young ladies, often enough they pine and fret in the lonely and lovely country. For, if you will observe, the beauty of place becomes to the blunted senses of people lonely for their kind.
 In fhic a1aCC o+a1 o1yi,, Ic doubt, going out of fashion. It yet prevails in the smaller farming class and among the shop keepers of the country towns. It demolishes honest sentiment where it exists as custom. A girl said to me one day in a country shop, handsome, clever girl: "What for should l save my money? If stinted and scraped year in and year out, what good would it do me? There's nobody in this town to marry only ould shows of widowers, an they're lookin' for a girl with three hundred dollars" I had said nothing of marriage, and her non sequitur meant that in her mind the possession of money was closely connected with getting husband. She only sniffed scornful disbelief when one hinted at the existence of such thing as love.
 The matchmaking customs have been too often described for me to go over them here. My father has often assisted at them when cattle-buying in Munster, and has even brought one or the other to terms by splitting the in the number of pounds or cattle or sheep that were to make the dowry. There is generally conven- tent intermediary of this sort present, though it is with outward reluctance the parties give in, and "only because they wouldn't go ag'in MT. -'s word" All the time the boy and girl are gazing shyly and awkwardly at each other in an adiOininp room. not know