LIFE IN SAN FRANCISCO.

Evening Star, Issue 3749, 27 February 1875, Page 3

LIFE IN SAN FRANCISCO.

{From the N. Z. Herald’s Correspondence.) servants and dress. Two very important mat* era, about which only a woman can write, and which must be dismised with a brief notice The native American servants are very few, very independent. and veiy clever. In five out of six households the servant is mistress of her own department, and of her mistress also, and will not tolerate the slighest interference on the part of her employer. She is as well-fed housed, and clothed as those she serves, and compels what is her due—kindness, and considerate care; these given, she works well. Out of doors and at parties or entertainments (an American lady does not “give a party’* like Hans Breitman, but “entertains ”) the ' merican lady is always el - gantly and harmoniously dressed. In the mornings and at home, under ordinary circumstance , she surpasses in every way her English s’ster, but in the graceful “at home ” dress of the English lady the latter has a decided advantage over her American sister. The cost of dressing in San Francisco is about three times as much as in your city, hut the material used and the labor employed fully compensate for the difference. The American ladv, as represented on the stage, or describ' d in sensational novels, is exceedingly unlike the true American woman. It has often been urged that she lacks mo desty. This is a libel: but the charge has an apparent foundation in fact, as) the American woman is taught to rely upon herself and become in all matters independent of her male freinds, she can visit and travel unattended by male escort without be ng guilty of any irapro* riety. She can embark in a business in which it is necessary to employ the male animal, and conduct it with out anv damage to her character or danger to her feelings. When men and women are on a perfect equality the question of modesty must be mea tired by the standard of the people. I admit that the soft, helpless, appealing nature of too many of our English sisters is foreign to the American character ; and T also know that the self-grudging, self-reliant nature of the American woman does not appeal to the sen timent of the English male, to whom the utter dependence, the gentle, tender clinging of his wife to himself is the most attractive features in her character. ' evertheless, whilst-the American woman is deficient in the matter of softness, she is neither bold nor immodest. w he receives her guests, entertains them, and may form a very high opinion of them, whilst her husband may only know them by sight. And this rule applies to young, unmarried ladies who have been “ out,” for they receive gentlemen visitors without any necessity for the pr- j sconce of either father or mother. ’Tie quite the correct thing for a young lady to nave half-a-dozen young gentlemen visiting at her mother’s house—going there to see the young lady herself, and perhaps never meeting father or mother at any of their visits. An American girl will undertake with perfect propriety a journey of severa ! hundreds of miles entirely alone. Nor wil : she ever be molested or annoyed in any way by her male companions on the voyage There are fifty ladies in this country proprietors ofjnewspapers, who conduct the business with as mm hj prudence and feminine propriety as attach to a public woman anywhere, and are as successful as their male competitors. There are hundreds of women who own and work large farms with amazing results, and I am not aware that any charge of immodesty or impropriety can be brought against either newspaper or farm proprietors. The difference between an Efigl'ab and American lady (of equal social rank) is simply one of education. For all practical purposes the education of an American woman is superior to that of her English sister, but what is proper and corre. t in the former is the reverse in the latter. By-an •- bye when this country is more densely populated and its vast accummulations of wealth produce what must come—a class of men and women devoted to art in all its forms in fact an aristocracy, where all that is good in the old world will be reproduced in the new, whilst the objectionable features will be toned down— then the difference between English and American society will be inappreciable. In the meantime, American wives occupy a vantage ground as compared with the daughters of Europe.