The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1906-06-30
NOW A VANISHING LADY.
PART THE CHAPERON is PLAY
ING IN SOCIETY.

Her Decline in England Charged to the
American Girl, Who Has Introduced
New Ideas ON the subject-substitu-
ton of Paid Chaperon for Girls of
Rank.
There is no doubt that the chaperon,
as an institution is playing the part of
a vanishing lady. More particularly is
this the case in the upper middle class
of society. The daughters of well ITO
do professional men and others of a
similar social stratum, such as coun-
try squires, large landowners, bankers,
and so on, were once on time as care
fully guarded as the young Lady Clara
We're de We're herself
That was in the days before the
| bicycle brought an undreamed of eman-
cipation on its wheel, an emancipation
that extended into scenes and occa-
sions from which the emancipator it.
self was unavoidably absent. The girl
who, for the first time in her life, rode
twenty miles from home and back
without even a groom behind her, fell
too much in love with such unwonted
freedom not to carry the thing out
consistently. If she could go unattend-
ed in the daytime why not to dances
| in the evening, and even to the theatre?
With certain limitations, SO it came to
pass
1t Is not by any means unusual for a
girl to go alone to dance, but there
is one thing she must not do, writes
'Madge'' in the London Truth, and
that is to go with a man, even if engag-
! ed to him. Here is one of the cases
where the chaperon is still necessary
Do we not know her, putting in her
hours Of penance at dance? Have we
not seen her, silent and neglected, at
the play, while the two heads near
her incline toward each other In the
manner so sympathetically described
by oliver Wendell Holmes?
| Now two or three girls can go un-
chaperoned to the opera or the play
| 1t was not always so. Those We're the
| days when mothers were really hard
| worked in the matter of chaperonage.
They had the choice of deprlving their
| girls Of amusement or else Of accom-
\ panying them in order to shield them
from the vicious tongue Of Mrs Grundy
/ Sometimes a worn out Cor indoent)
mother sent a maid as substitute a
course to which there are almost al
ways objections but now she can send
her girls alone, that is, if she can
trust them.
In high society, though the bonds of
the chaperon are beginning to be loos-
ened, she remains q necessity to a
much greater degree than in the upper
middle class. (The girls of the lower
middle class have ever been free from
ohaperonage.) True, the boy and girl
dances of the last few seasons have
tended to do away with the time hon
ored institution. The lady who gives
| the dance undertakes to chaperon the
girls who come to it. Her duties are
scarcely more than normal 1t is certain
than that a fair rop Of engagements
iresuted from these boy and girl dances.
Can it be that chaperonage is actu-
ally antagonistic to marriage? This
should not be so, for one of the origi-
nal reasons for the protecting lady was
that she should keep away all detri-
mentals from her charges and do her
best to encourage eligibles. OF course,
If she showed her game too plainly she
would defeat her object. "Vainly is
the snare set in the sight of any bird, !"
This may possibly explain the crop of
engagements that followed upon the
boy and girl dances.
There is still plenty of use for the
chaperon. Though country house visits
are less rowdy than they were some
years ago, well bred girl almost all
ways hesitates to accept an invitation
to one of them without a chaperon, UNI
less the hostess is a relative or a very
old friend of the family. High stakes
at bridge may get a girl visitor into
an awkward scrape. She may find
some practical jokes unpleasant Cir
cumstances may arise that would make
an early departure advisable; and in all
such cases and score of others that
might be instanced the presence of a
chaperon is shield and buckler.
Even in the highest society, however,
girls go visiting without a chaperon,
though some of our oldest and noblest
families hold firmly by the old order
of things and would not dream Of al
flowing daughter to go on visit with
tout the mother or matron friend to
take her place. In travelling, too girls
of rank are never unguarded, though
the paid lady Is now very frequently
substituted for the chaperon as once
understood.
One of the causes of the decline of
the chaperon is that the American
| girls who have flooded our society dur
ing the last decade or two have been
| the means Of introducing transatlantic
ideas on the subject. Accustomed to abb
solute freedom in their Intercourse
with men friends, their example has
unconsciously undermined our social
laws. Perhaps it Is for the better. Who
can tell?
Certain it is that change has been
gradually taking place, and chaperon
now means more and less than once it
did More, in that the word now APP
plies equally to the natural guardian
of the girl In society and to the numer-
Gus professional chaperons who, for a
stated sum, take girls into their own
Ihn,,nne and ntn snniatv tnpathar WI h