The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-11-16
FOR FEMININE READERS
THE MODERN YOUNG WOMAN AR
RAIGNED AS IDLE y USELESS.
backs-DelectabIe Fruit Salads
Collars.

According to Mr.. Eliot Gregory, in the
November Century. the average New
York miss to-day is little better than a
'parlor boarder' in her home, than which
it is difficult to imagine a position more
detached. From the time she wakes in the
morning until retiring for the night she
takes no part in household matters. To
get through the morning she joins some
art school or attends a reading club, where
she lunches, if possible, or else wanders
home for that meal late and disturbs the
routine of the kitchen. After a hasty bite
my lady accomplishes a quick change and
is out of the house again for the rest of the
afternoon. Calls, receptions or aimless
trapesing-it doesn't matter what-fll her
hours, the great point being not to get
home until dinner time. If there is moth
ing on for the evening she passes it over
a novel, as undisturbed by any commissions
that may be in progress below-stairs as the
most self-respecting star boarder.' A sub
species of the genus parlor boarder exist
ing among us, and among US alone, no other
nation disputing our claim to this posses
sion, is-oh, hideous phrase!-the matinee
girl, a type one shade less attractive than
the tramp. When of a Saturday afternoon
the throngs of idle minXes come trooping,
opera glass in hand, from the elevated sta
tons, 1 feel as the elector of B~randenburg
must have done, when, on his walks about
Berlin, he would shake his cane at the
young women he met, calling out, Go
home, you idle wenches; the street is no
place for your Without going as far as
~disgruntled old. Frederick, L cannot help
feeling a certain irritation as the crowd
pushes into the theaters. for, somehow,
each half-grown girl calls up the picture
OF a neglected Harlem fiat or stuffy Office
where a weary parent is grinding out the
price of those theater tickets
He compares their lot with that OF their
European cousins: AN English or a French
girl of position is born into a circle of
duties and labor from which there is no
escape. She learns early that many peo-
pie are dependent upon her or look up 10
her as their model. The poor in the neigh
borhood fall to her lot; ii is she who aids
her mother in the finances of the house,
or when food and linen are being sent TO
cottages where there are new arrivals. IN
valid old women lave to be visited; the rec
tor calls on her TO furnish music for his
village club or help entertain his working
life is not and cannot possibly be all holi-
day is early impressed upon foreign wom-
en-. The work that lies ready to their
hands is a matter of tradition, and can no
more be shirked by such maidens than a
presentation at court or a first communion.
They are integral parts of life. Few girls
on our side of the Atlantic have experiences
of this kind. To the majority country life
means a hotel or cottage hired for the
summer months, which carries no response
bilities with it. A more powerful factor,
however, is the curious habit parents have
of so arranging household machinery that
their daughters shall be freed from its
wheels"