THE GIRL OF THE PERIOD.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 19, 4 August 1894, Page 11

THE GIRL OF THE PERIOD.

In those confession books which were such a rage a few years ago one of the questions asked was —“ What is your opinion of the girl of the period ?” The answers were, of course, very different, some folk considering that the up-to-date girl only lacked wings to enable her to soar away from this world of: sorrow. These of course were her admirers. Others thought if she could only raise a few claws, there would be a slight resemblance to you know whom. How I am a girl myself, nevertheless I believe the claw theory has the most truth in it, and I am sure she would be much nicer with a few claws, than the girl who with hands clasped and looking down, seems more like a graduate for a nunnery than one who in the full bloom of her youth ought to look and act as if she had some life in her. Ever since the days of the garden of Eden woman has been expected to stay at home, watch the porridge pot and look after the bairns day after day—no change, no variety. If at any time she expressed a desire for other scenes, she was designated a gad-about. Is it any wonder that after the lapse of centuries, she sank into a kind of trance, moving about, fulfilling her duties in a soulless sort of way, for the brain was asleep P Scientists, naturalists, and phrenologists tell us that with disuse of any portion of a creation comes loss of power, and here is proof positive Woman’s brain lying fallow so long, was forgotten altogether, and she was looked upon as a machine, and a cheap one at that. It is true that her condition has improved greatly in the last hundred years. Hot for some time has she been ducked in a horsepond or put in the stocks ; but it remains for the nineteenth century to see the crowning glory of woman’s emancipation. She has rebelled against the thraldom which she has been under so long, and amongst other things considers the doggerel so often quoted — “ A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, The more you beat them the better they be,” an insult to herself, as well as a disgrace to the man who utters it. Our grandmothers would have fainted at the very thought of the “ treason ” which fills the mind of the girl of to-day, but I wonder, if our grandmothers were young again, would they not find us quite as nice and a great deal more entertaining than the girl of half a century ago, who worked samplers, of no earthly use, and made the agonising and impossible bunch of crape flowers which we sometimes see adorning the

parlour wall of some old friend] which, teeth-setting decoration we are expected to duly admire, forgetful of the fate of Sapphira and Ananias. Pew people object to the idea of women improving themselves —men especially. “ The Lords of creation,” as they fancy themselves, rather like the idea of their women folk being clever. It reflects a sort of glory on them as owners of the property, but when the poor women begin to think they would like to exercise the power of their knowledge the hubbub begins ; the noble Adam considers his dominion is invaded, and straightway begins to preach subjection. I heard a gentleman say not long ago, that men liked to set women on a pedestal to look up to, as something apart from, the hurly burly. Thank you, my friends, but it is cold work sitting on a pedestal like “ Patience on a monument smiling at grief,” we don’t like it at all.

Why will men persist in treating women as if they were brainless idiots ? It is very humiliating when we want a friend with whom to converse intelligently to be treated with a kindly tolerance, an if excuses had to be made for ns, when we know that we are quite able to hold our own in any worthy, discussion. And they know it too, but, like wise men, they consider discretion the better part of valor. E. E. S.