NEW ZEALAND GIRLS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1118, 5 July 1913, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND GIRLS.

“ MINCING AFFECTATION.”

A criticism of Australian girls, which appeared in a New Zealand paper recently, has been reprinted in Sydney and has brought forth many indignant letters. It was, on the authority of a Christchurch lady, asserted in the paper in which the criticism originally appeared, that the young ladies in offices in New Zealand “ are more diligent, more attentive, more careful, less frivolous, and more anxious to give satisfaction than Australian girls, who, as a rule, do not show any inclination for office work—indeed for any vocation which demands application and entails drudgery. Besides that, the Australian girl has developed a decided twang which amounts almost to a misuse of English.” “ Most of the girls in Sydney offices,” says one correspondent who takes, up the cudgels for the Australians, “ have matriculated, can make their own clothes and do their own millinery. In addition to possessing these estimable qualities,' they are extremely original and resourceful, and thoroughly domesticated, aud

therefore make companionable wives and good mothers. He refers to the Christchurch manner of speaking, and says they speak with a mincing affectation which is most distressing, and amounts to a distinct “ lingo.” A business man who has just returned to Sydney from New Zealand, after spending the last ten years there, is as much a champion for the Australian girl as the Christchurch lady is for the New Zealand girl. “It is quite impossible,” he said, for the New Zealand girl to be as competent as the Australian girl, for the simple reason that she has no means of acquiring the experience. New Zealanders are very nice to you when you are on a visit there, hut it is a different matter when you stay there for good. As for New Zealand girls, I can tell you I was glad to come away. They do nothing but mlk about each other all the time. They pick out everyone’s bad qualities, and embroider on them at length. God help any girl who goes astray, because they never forget her, and they’ll never let anyone else either.”