Arizona silver belt., 1895-05-25
COUNTRY C0LLEENS.
The Queer Existepoe of Rural
 Maids In Ireland.
Their Lives as Dull as Ditch Water Match Making and Marrying About Their Only
 Diversion.


 The life of young girl in Ireland, if she be in q 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 Indepen- 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 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 a slight extent Any departure, such as lit erary inclination, would be little short of scandal. The wings of home brood over such girl, and in the shadow of them she is likely to have dreams of discontcnt if she be of the imaginative kind. There are not even the poor to visit as there would bcin England.
 Of course for score of families such as this there is one which enjoys itself, whereof the young women follow the bounds and the mother rides to the meet in her pony phaeton This is the class which gives its daughters a sea son in town and has relays of visitors and entcrtains the officers from the nearest garrison towns. But as a rule the lives of Irish gcntlewomen are mar rover, more colorless, and far more conservative than those of their Eng fish sisters.
 The dcarth 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 Goas at home idle. while in all classes except the most humble it is tradition that the daughters should stay at home and go whitc-haudcd l have heard of evening parties where half dozen cav alters, ranging from eighteen toeighty, were upportioned to thirty or forty ladies' True. have seen nearly as much disprop0rtion at q 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 therc is an excellent women $ college, the Alexandra, but its pupils are mainly drawn from the professional end mercantile classes of Dublin itself In the country places women are leading very much tho staFnani lives of the women Qf the 30's They have the geutler virtues and arc not nuHer- ous euongh-if that be not an unfair and ignoAe explanation to form the little coterics which in other lonely places are apt 70 degenerate into tat tiers and gossips They have little out door life There is no reason why Kathleen and Ely should not be anna teur gardeners, for instance, and assist the old gardener, who is rather handi. capped for help; but therc is the old tradition of the helplcssness and soft handcdness of the young Indies, often enough they pine and fret in che lonely and lovely country For. if you will observe, the beauty of place becomes meaningless to the bluntcd senses of people lonely for their kind.
 Tn this class matchlnaking is, no doubt. going out of fashion. II yet prevails in the smaller farming class and among the shop keepers of the country towns. It dcmolishcs honest sentiment where it exists as a custom < girl said to me one day in d country shop, handsome, clever giri; What for should l save my money? If stintcd and scrapcd year in and year out, what good would it do me? There's nobody in this town to marry only ould shows of widowcrs, an they're loollin' for a girl with three hundred dollars 1 had said nothing of marriagc, and her non sequitur meant that in her mind the possession of money was closely connected with getting g husband She only snitTed a seornful disbelief when one hintcd at the existence of such a thing as love.
 The matchmaking customs have been too often described for me to 20 over them here Ny father has often assisted at them when cattle-buyinR in Munster. and has even brought one or the other to terms by splitting the difference in the number of pounds or cattle or sheep that were to make the dowry There is generally conven. tent intermediary of shis sort present though it is with outward reluctance the parties give in, and "only because they wouldn't go ag'in Mir. --'s word All the time the boy and girl are gazing shyly and awlxwardly at each other in an adjoining room, not know ing whether they arc to be husband and wife, or if the bargain will be broken off
 The strange thing is that the system works well. Irish women are of all women most faithful to the marriage VOW. Domestic ties in Ireland arc very close and tender Occasionally there is such tragedy as girl coming fresh from convent school being handed over to man it to be her grandfather. Even then the tragedy does not end in unfaithfuluess; and an unfaithful wife, even where the people are less innocent and primitive than of old, is practically thing uDlsnown.
 Head and Hoart.
 The views of the elevator boy on the