The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-05-12

ward me. found myself in . hurt.
 Utmost aggrieved state of mind- don't
 know whether 1t was because 1t was so evident that my attractions were
 not of as bewitching character as
 those of the Englishwoman, or wheth-
 CT 1t was that I felt I'd been the vic- tim of high colored and picturesque
 deception.
 Numberless women in New York will
 talk to you as my English friend did.
 They will tell you they wouldn't dare
 go out alone after dark. One said this
 to me, the other day, and asked her
 what she thought was going to hap
 pen, and then I still further enraged
 her by saying she reminded me of
 Holmes poem on his Maiden Aunt
 What could this lovely creature do
 against a desperate manY' Since this
 conversation we are not so friendly.
 Ladies in New York. as in all great cities. are often spoken to. The other evening. pausing for a car to pass on
 the corner of Twenty-third street and Fifth avenue. was accosted by an el- deriy party of stout build and with a singularly husky voice. He paid me
 compliment on my personal appear
 ance. which was really so gallant and discriminating nature, that I was quite flattered and would like to have turned round and politely thanked him and told him was glad to see he had such good taste. But the car passed. and did. too. fitting away in to the dusk and the crowd,
 Of course there are parts of the city mot distant or forbfdding-where a lady might have unpleasant adventures if she walked there alone after dark. One is cautioned by the aborigines against these locaiities-that portion of Broadway which runs down from Forty-fifth to Twenty-tflird street, and most of the streets branching there from on the west side. South Wash ington square has bad name and certainly just off it extend sinister
 looking slums, full of low class of negro and foreigner. Yet know girls who live all along this stretch of the
 park. and go home alone at night from dinners. from visits to another's rooms, and sometimes from the thea | ter, and claim that they have never met with unpleasant word ,ore look, and that the locality is a perfectly safe | one for a respectable female to pass l through.
 This revolutionary freedom of move
 ment has been developed by necessity. Every year the number of feminine | workers in New York grows larger. A
 majority of them are without hus-
 bands, and range in age from girls in their teens to widows and divorcees in their sixties. Among these the Journalists and doctors had from the first to claim immunity from the con- vention which made it impossible for them to be out alone after dark. Their
 work took them abroad at all hours
 The journalists sometimes did not get home from their newspapers till near r.,. 9rEk 1AI out on cases at any time from sunset till dawn! The small hand bag they carried, like the nurses uniform and the nuns habit, protected them, indi- eating their profession and errand. Be- fore the lone woman was permitted to pass unnoticed through the night streets, many feminine wage-earners, whose work called them out late, car- ried the doctors grip as a protection. But the numerous women now in
 New York, who have got no male i'm pedimenta and don't want to sit home
 In the chimney corner every evening, are rapidly removing the, prejudice against the unescorted female. Men, too, have become accustomed to the sight of her and take no notice of her. Where, five years ago, the appearance of two young pretty, and we'll dressed women riding alone in the car at, say ten o'clock at night, would have been
 a matter Of staring comment and curi- osity, to-day nobody pays any atten-
 tion to them. They are all over the city. drawn from every class of inde- pendent, unattached femininity, from the shop girls in the Sixth avenue de- partment stores, to the "bachelor . maids" of large means, who have smart flats and studios along the park.
 That now and then an unpleasant | rencontre does mar the joy of inde-