The New York herald., 1922-03-26
More Husbands, Please xhe Plaint d ENGLAND

~aM
put away along with these surplus animals.
The bachelor girls who put up together
will lnd solace-so long as they succeed In
agreeing; when Margot, in sunset vision.
sees herself man she is merely rejecting
the spirit Of the age Unashamed man
nishness aboundA
The reformer type is not an object OF
pity. although she may be a nuisance in
her curious coat which might have been
a carpet, and with toes turned out at an
angle of forty-1ve degrees, so that no mar
row gauge sidewalk could possibly have
accommodated life companion; her shoes
are mems size, but they are balanced by
hat that Is nothing if not tea cozy This
woman has a mission and you are to assisty
her In its fulfilling. She is reformer of
men. Anybody who is at all familiar with
London life is well aware that the club
woman is of every circle, but the affable
entertainer in the mixed club is frequently
Of uncertain age with a fast diminishing
list of callers which she is out to replenish.
She tends to be Bolshevik and to argue
as a man.
Sweet and pleasant, so long as you leave
her undisturbed, is the novel reader, whose
name is legion. This generous minded
maiden lady lives her life vigorously be-
tween the covers of any number of books.
Hers is the complicated life of a purely
fictitious character. And she believes in
herself. But In real life she lives on her
Chesterfield-that commodious settee which
fourishes in f1owery chintz in every Eng.
lish living room and was invented for the
novel reader along with the open fire and
the short legged chair, and the foot rest
and the toast rack and the trivet, dd in
fnitun,. The spinster of the circulating
library is an expert on plots that thicken,
whether in the hands of a Hardy or
Garvice.
Tipping Among Women
Now the General Rule
And some out of this combined peculiar
ity Is the long result of tippling. There
are few English women of the passe type
who cannot produce black bottle from
some recess. Obviously the one answer to
this from the defense Is perhaps you've
not known the right sort!" but there are
people who live in prohibition countries
who would not dream of putting a con-
cealer of bottles down as the wrong sort.
The higher up you go in the social scale
the more black bottles will you find; tip
pling is one of the things that is done and
is. moreover, considered the prerogative
of the lonesome. England is damp. And
the open fire has always been uncertain.
When, as caller, you drop the knocker
aJz
within--the concealing of the bottle! And
your fate in this little matter of cheer
hangs on the impression you have made.
or can. II you prove sympathetic you will
hear the tinkle of old glass-the most
charming of colored Irish glass-the treas,
ured possession of this left over woman. |
The novel reading spinster gets golden
glow" from out the black bottle, but with
II ruby touch which attacks the nose and
gives the game away; this evidence Is ir-
REPUTABLE; you do not see red noses on
young girls nor on comfortably married
women, but you do constantly on the over
looked; a nose can shine out like a beacon
and proclaim its owner.
What the unwanted woman lives on in
England 1t would be difficult to guess.
There still is in some cases the proverbial
300 to 400 pounds year allowance through
an older brother, but "in the old days"
this went considerably further, and gifts
from relations have long ago ceased to
roll In. There is, however, not the same
pride and independence in the matter of
accepting money here partly because,
money has not been venerated as in some
countries
But all argument aside, there is com
plex" and in addition the depressing state
ment that the death rate among men is
higher than among women.