Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1898-01-09

THE LADY OF ALTON DIsCOURsEs
UPON THE PROPOSED LAW.
OUR DEAR SOUTHERN GIRLS.
Are They staider Than Their North
ern Sisters or Not:-LessOns In CO.
auetry to lie Learned Even from
savage BeIIes-PersOnnls-B

ALTON. VA, January S.-(Special)-
Last week was heralded by sunny skies
and breezy winds-stinging cold winds for
the matter Of that-which set in with the
New Year and have continued to date.
The holiday season. well over now and
gone, was typical, and perhaps, though
this | write with a questioning void, just
q bit delusve Like our city cousins, only
on a smaller scale, we have been very
gay. We have gone from dinners TO
dances. from cosey home-teas TO rides
and drives, twenty miles over frozen
roads. to wind up at some country home
where big fires snapped defiance at Jack
Frost, and afterward to trip through
Roger-de-Coverly and the old-fashioned
cotillons to a concert pitch Of excitement.
FILTRATION.
am wondering, in this after quietus,
how many Of our dear girls are left
amenable to that new law they are try
ing to test down in Tennessee. This Is
law. If it be enacted. against filtration.
II is a horrid law, Of course, tending 10
min young love in the bud. and which, S
sure as you are born, will work itself
around as sauce for. the goose when 1t
is enacted. / have failed as yet to dis
cover. though the feminine citizen Is de-
MED many blessings Of the law, that she
is exempt from any Of its penalties. ms
OF course, is only aside.
/ noticed not long ago that similar bill
was solemnly "be ii enacted" by our own
solons. in state assembled at Richmond.
only this must have been joke-a gig IN
tic, gregarious joke.
PROPINQUITY.
Why. / read a ten-dollars-a thousand
word article on this very subject Of fiirt-
ing. and the writer, man Of national
fame. knew more about II than do about
ghosts. He handled It in all its phases OF
blonde, bruno, and between girls, 3nd
openly stated that Irritation was a mu-
tual thing, the outcome mostly of idle
ness and propinquity. My dictionary says:
that propinquity means something near,
and it doesn't imply a block Of wood.
To be sure this distinguished writer who
seems TO have been smarting from some
rash recollection, said also that south
ern girls were better adopts in the art
of filtration than their staider % north
ern sisters.
SO l think she must have been south
ctll girl dHu SA 81 hC NNAS1i4~NN eHei4A go
as fiirts.
These prattling, insouclant southern
girls, whose talk is punctuated with
laughter who converse equally at their
ease with one man or a dozen men, may
convey this impression. 1t is wrong.
Dangerous the southern girl may be. but
not more than other girls necessarily a
flirt.
COSMOPOLITAN.
The trouble is that whatever flirting
may be- 1t is not characteristic Of any
particular girl or girls; there are women
in all races and nations that Will hirt
Arctic explorers find them among the
Esqumaux. The savage bellies are noted
FOR their coquetry.
"God created the coquette as soon as
He had made the fool" Did He make
them for each other? Did you ever watch
a case Of real Irritation from beginning 20
end? / have, and marked many Of them
mislead the little god Cupid when Queen
Folly leads the march with the city girl
In the german. the country girl at the
hunt. the tennis girl with her racket,
the fair traveller with her chic hat and
swift, sweet eyes-and the young man!
The young man has usually nothing b..
himself. because all his mind Is centered
upon that. And we know that. broken
VOWS and broken hearts aside. many or
these actually drift into matrimony after
a SPACE OF time incredibly short Tor