The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-02-21
THE LEAP YEAR PROPOSAL.

That woman labors under a great
matrimonial disadvantage in not be-
ing able to pop the question no one
will deny. 1t forces her to take
what is offered to her instead of the
thing for which she would ask if she
had the privilege, and even when
Leap Year removes the bar against
her speaking out in meeting it does
her little good, for it finds her with
no precedent to guide her, no expert
ence to be a lamp to her feet.
There is a complete chronicle of how
to lead a man up to the proposing
point, that like the law of the prophets,
generation orally from mother to
daughter, but no code of procedure
has been formulated for the woman
who means to propose herself OF
course people will say that this makes
no difference, that a woman's Leap
Year perogative, like most of her lib
critics, is merely a glittering mockery
that she does not dare to put to the
fest but how does any one know this?
The past is no criterion. Women DO
many things now that they did not do
forty, or even IOuT years ago. 1t is
NOT at all impossible that many a dis
Outraged spinSter, worn out with
waiting for her steady beauX to speak
and many a love-lorn maiden who has
heretofore let concealment prey upon
damask cheek, will take matters into
their own hands and propose matri-
mony TO the man they love, in this
year of grace 1904, so few sugges-
tons to the Leap Year girl may not
be amiss
The first one must necessarily be
warning. No one knows as yet Just
how woman should propose, but it is
to be hoped that when she does under
take to be love maker that she will
do it more Economically, and poetical-
ly than man does. 1t is true that
mans way works, but this is because
he has a monopoly of it. We all burn
Standard Oil because there is no other
kind of OIL Women have had to take
TIE kind of proposal offered them or
do without, and those who have suffer-
ed from this-who have seen their
dreams shattered and their ideals
smashed-who have had love made to
them between the jolts of a street car
or across beef steak and onions at d
restaurant table, or in any other old
place, ought to know enough to rem
der their proposals a romance that a
man will be glad to remember to the
longest day he lives.
But proposing to a man is going to
be a ticklish job anyway you do it,
because men are not more used to re-
ceiving offers of marriage than wom-
en- are to making them. Both parties
are inexperienced, nor does man
even know how he will take it. There
are some conservative individuals who
go so far as to contend that men will
be so shocked by a woman popping
hot Nryin
fuse on the spot, but this waits to be
proven. Past experience has not
shown that men are aYerse to the adj
miration of the fair sex, nor that they
turn a deaf ear to woman'S avowa.ls
of her deathless affection for them.
Startling as the innovation of propo-
sal may be, the chances are that man
will first endure, then pity, and en-
brace. He is but human, and there
are none we so admire as those that
have the intelligence and good taste
to admire us.
The Leap Year girl, however, who
proposes to propose must use great
taste and discretion, and above all she
must study the character of the man
whose hand and heart she desires to
win, and she must be wary about
choosing the psychological place and
moment. There are times when a man
is rushed, or tired, or hungry, when
it is simply counting disaster to ask him
anything, and when he would refuse a
free passport to heaven if it were ten
dered him on a silver salver. In this
important particular, men differ from
women. When a woman is happy she
seldom inclineS to matrimony. 1t is
when she is weary and discouraged and
has had a bad lunch, and wants some
mans shoulder to weep upon, that she
yearns for a wedding ring, and will
nrl~c Non
on the contrary, think of acquiring
wife as an adjunct to prosperity, and
it is seldom indeed that they think of
love making except in their atf1uent
moods. woman, therefore, should
be proposed to when she is down on
her luck; a man when he is pushing
his luck.
The first impulse of the Leap Year
girl will be to propose by letter This
is a fatal mistake, because in the first
place, her billet doux will reach the
man with his business letters, ana
thus pass ever to the cold considera-
ton of his stenographer. No American
man is sentimental in banking hours,
and during that sacred period of the
day no woman may hope to compete
in heart interest with the price OF
stocks or wheat, or lard. Moreover
the long distance proposal whether it
be made by man or woman, seldom
hits the bulls eye. 1t lacks the mag
netism of personal appeal, of trembling
hands, and anxious eyes, and quiver-
ing lips. Besides it is always easier
TO write mo" than it is to say 1t, and
the woman who wants a husband in
stead of somebody to be a brother to
her will have to face the music, and
make her proposal viva voce.
OF course the man who will get the
most proposals during Leap Year will
be the bashful man. There are in
Vulnerable desirable men all over the
country who have been burning out
the coal, and running up the gas bill
of girls for years, and. who have ex-
hbited all the symptoms of acute at
lacks of love, but who have never
summoned up their courage to the
proposing point, and nobody could
blame these women If they took adj
vantage of leap year to assist their
helpless sutor over the fence. How to
do this without throwing him into fits
Is a delicate and difficult question. 1t
won't do to lead up to the question
gently, POLITICALLY. Economically, for
that would give him a chance to run.
1t won't do to gaze wistfully into his
eyes for that would embarrass him, or
TO assume a tender attitude for that
would make him feel like fool, and
so probably as good way as any
wA N MM N WM ~ Ts