COLONIAL GIRLS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 54, 1 February 1884, Page 2

COLONIAL GIRLS.

Mr Archibald Forbes, in»delineating the social characteristics of Australia^ thus refers to our. Australian- girls: — "Australian ladies have a characteristic'bright A airj piquancy. 'Thejr sp&rkle as perliaps not even tiie American lady sparkles. Their "manner"— one finds one asking, oneself bewilderedly how or whonce they get it, for you will find it in the damsel of a. remote bush township as graceful,frank, dobonnaire, and winsome, as in the Melbourne girl who may have spent half a dozen years in European residence and travel. One of the finest ladies T have ever met, in every shade of inflection that term,' was never outside the colony of Yictoria in her life, except for a short visit to New Zealand. Australian -<hsdiea read. I fancy Gordon and Grotoh could supply some startling " statistics in regard to the number of high-class reviews and pereodicals they export to the Antipodes. I ajn happy to say that I never met a blue-stocking in Australia; but I have had the honor of conversing with many Australian women of high culture and deep thought on subjecfa, superficial thought on which is as the crackling of thorns under a pot. Bat you do not find yourself oppressed by untimeeus volunteered frankness of this sort ; you have to seek that you may find. To sum up with a curtness and; rough generalisation for which apology is due— Australian ladies are fairly accomplished; in modern languages they are somewhat weak; in, music very good, occasionally exoepn tionally good. They all sing, and ratiny sing well. The most exquisite flower-painter I know lives, under the Southern Cross, and her gift is real genius. Victoria •- can of an amateur actress in whom also I ventured to recognise something of the saored fire. In physique, they are taller, slighter, more lithe, shapelier, that* their congeners at lionie; their color, save in Tasmania, is. seldom brilliant. The expression is full of vivacity-; the eyes nearly always go6d v and the head and feet shapely, although not, as ate. those of American ladies, exceptionally' small, They dance divinely i\ ,