Arizona republican., 1904-01-21
AMERICAN CHAPERON.
Always on Hand in Spite of Foreign
 Notions.


 | Foreigners, even some who have vis- ited America, are convinced as a rule
 that the American girl is allowed to go
 her own sweet way on all occasions
 unhampered by so much as a ghost of a chaperon says the New York Sun. For instance, the other day young Oriental Prince, who has paid a visit of several weeks to, New York. was
 quoted on taking his departure for England thus:
 There is much less trouble from chaperons in New York than in contin- ental society. Chaperons are nuis- i ances.
 When l take girl to a theater in London I have to invite also her old father or her grumpy mother or her maiden aunt. Here she doesn't need chaperon. It is so much nicer" This Prince was either misquoted or he did not move in good society while here. After all, though one mis- statement about the American chap e-on. or the lack of her doesn't matter much. The American woman isn't par | ticularly sensitive.
 Even when held up 10 the world as a sort of a curio not to be found outside of the new world, the American girl only laughs and goes on in her spriSht- ly way Sometimes it is true she wish es she might have the game as well as the name of going about unchap
 eroned.
 As matter of fact instead of be- coming less of an institution the Amer ican chaperon is coming more to the front than she ever was before. Women who have lived on both sides of the water declare that in good society in New York as in good society in Lon don, young women are not allowed to attend entertainments of any sort, with young men. unchaperoned.
 Some go further and say that even among wage earners in this country the chaperon is now more or less in evidence-nuch more here it seems than she is in England for the reason that of late years many American wO- men of good social position have join ed the ranks of the money-makers.
 When it comes to fashionable so- ciety the American girl is hedged in just as carefully by chaperons as IS the English girl-all belief to the con trary notwithstanding. The American chaperon may be less formidable than the English chaperon-she usually is but she is equally omni present.
 Although it may turn that she is livelier and more facinaling to the men of the party than the young girl or girls she is chaperoning, it is none the less certain that she knows her busi- ness and does her duty. At all events she is always on hand.
 It may be possible that it was thIs style of chaperon that was encountered by the Prince already referred to. Tvypr, and odD,it+i,gy +bat ba ic took the chaperon for a young girl-a mistake often made by inexperienced | from other countries-that does not explain his presumption that Ameri- | can girls are ir the habit of attending l theaters with men quite unchaperoned. 1
 When this interesting question was | brought to the attention of a leading | society woman she replied:
 T never heard of such thing as . | young girl going to an entertainment | at night with a young man to whom | she was not related without a chaper- on. The thing can't be done It is not | done.
 Tn New York it would be next to | impossible to find two young people. | outside of the wage earners' ranks, | out in the evening alone. Neither will | you find them even lunching tete-a- tete in public.
 Were they to do such d rash, though apparently harmless thing, 1 think the news would be cabled across the ocean in less than twenty -four hours.
 Where foreigners get the notion that the New York society girl has the prt vilege of going around with men un chaperoned, I'm sure I don't know; certainly not from anything they them selves have experienced.
 The one thing in which the Ameri- can guardians arc the less strict. per haps, than the English is that when re- ceiVing men in their own drawing rooms our girls are not under such close espionage as the London girls. Under such circumstances the English chaperon sticks close to the elbow of her charge and seldom or never leaves the room.
 "Over here we ease matters by stay nig somewhere in the vicinity and putting in an appearance only occas- ionally. l have heard of cases where an English girl, even after she was betrothed, was not allowed to receive her fiancee alone.