The Tasmanian Girls

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 76, 13 December 1890, Page 3

The Tasmanian Girls

r — » : Everyone has proverbially to go . home to hear the latest news. •Says " Allegro" in the Queenslander : >— There is a prevalent notion to the <effect that the special function of a 'Tasmanian. girl is to get married. To be sure the same may be affirmed of jgirls in, general, but for all that it is ■as a something marriageable that the Tasmanian girl seems solely to exist. There is, of course, a reason for the notion. Tasmanian girls are pretty. That in itself is enough. Moreover, it is understood that they know it, and act accordingly. Tasmania, t<»o, has attractions in scenery and climate that draw many visitors from the Australian continent, and there are fruit gardens besides. Between these two "facts Tasmania has become a sort of Benedict- manufactory for Australia generally, aud the exportation of drives a regular feature of Tasmanian industry. All the greater is one's astonishment at finding that Tasmanian girlhood is not, as generally, supposed, unanimous in favour oi marriage. There is a town on that tight little island called Evandale, where the question of "Married life or cingle which is preferable ?" was solemnly tried recently, with the startvling result of a verdict in favour of single blessedness. At a social meeting, at which 150 of the inhabitants of the town were present, a jury of 12 ladies, six married and six single, were chosen- from the audience to decide the momentous question, with the result stated. One can understand it in the case of the married women. The very fact tbat these were residents of Evandale proves that they were disappointed in marriage, for it Is a well known general law that nc Tasmanian woman marries a fellowislander until she has failed to catch an Australian squatter. But how about the six single girls ? Perhaps, »fter all, it was only a verdict oi deapair. :Not only is the marring* market very «lack in Tasmania itself. some years, owing to business depression, or the, price of wheat, oi ' ibnietning, there bias been a great fa! in the number of eligible vis itore '"irOna the mainland. ;',_ Hence— " littt of bourse; this is Jpnly con j ecture.