THE COLONIAL GIRL

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 184, 25 July 1908, Page 3

THE COLONIAL GIRL

SOME IMPRESSIONS OF A SUSCEPTIBLE SUBALTERN.

"How happy could i be with either were t'other dear charmer away!" Xhi.i, I think, is the spirit in which any man whose good fortune it has been to' know | the Colonial girl, from Montreal to Melbourne, from Christchurch to Capetown, must approach the rival merits and charms of the various types of Colonial maiden. Indeed, -there can be no thought of comparison—one does not seek to appraise angels. J have skated and toboganned with her of Canada; have hunted and sat on the stoep with her of South Africa; have ridden and danced the night through with her of Australia; and 1

; have wandered (nervously) amidst th [ geysers witli her of New Zealand. Kaei . was peerless in her way, each commandi ed (and, alas! contemned) the entire de- , votion of a susceptible heart. But, of course, if all Colou'.il girls are knit together by a common I. m'd of imperial sisterhood, they have their individual characteristics and traits, and 1 shall endeavour first of all to do justice to the particular and manifold charms of Canada's fair (or dark) daugliters. Seldom is it that a British regiment goes to Canada without its officers' mess being decimated by marriage. And it is easy to understand why. For the Canadian girl combines in herself well-nigh everything that makes woman lovable. But her fascination is as difficult to describe as it is deadly to masculine hearts. It is as real, yet as elusive, as the indefinable charm of the well-bred Frenchwoman. And indeed it is the strain of French blood that (lows in so inany Canadian families that makes their daughters so ca ptivntiug. The Canadian girl Ims the " ehic " of a Parisienne, the dash of a "Cigarette" combined with the blushing healthiness of an English rose and the winsomeness and- housewifely instincts of \ha Scots lassies whom so many count amongst their ancestresses. And the Canadian girl is an ideal comrade. She is good at sports and games of all kinds, but she is never '* mannish."

On the other hand, if essentially and delightfully womanly she is never "womanish." She strikes the happy mean between the rather aggressive athleticism of the modern English girl and the hysterica! foolishness of the Early Victorian young lady. Physically, she is usually short, plump, mobile of feature, bright of eye. Just as the French strain in the Canadian girl distinguishes her markedly from her English sister, so the Dutch blood in the. Gape Colony maiden gives her distinctive " cachet" or hall-mark. She is usually big, broad-hipped, broadbosomed, something of an Amazon, though phlegmatic rather than iiery. lint she is strong. 1 remember, soon after arriving at Cape Town, being invited to a dance at a private house and thus making the acquaintance of a typical Cape damsel.. I have never forgotten her. I was her partner in a set of " kitchen " lancers. 1 do not know the name of the figure, but the one I hafe in mind is where four couples cross hands and dance round in a circle, hi this figure in '' kitchen " lancers the correct tiling to do is to try and swing your partner oil her feet. I tried this manoeuvre, but with unexpected results. Instead of my swinging her off her feet she swung me oil' mine, and in the astonishment of the moment I let go and disappeared through a fortunately open window. It is related, too, of a typical Cape girl that a very short officer was once leading licr downstairs to dinner, when he was heard to exclaim in anguished accents " Take my arm, take my arm." The young lady was rather absentminded and had got him round the neck! However, J do not wish to make the Cape girl out a giantess, though she is usually what our ancestors termed a " line woman," a, characteristic which becomes more pronounced as one goes north towards the Transvaal, for the Transvaal girl if reputed "slim" by nature is certainly not so in figure. The Natal girl, on the other hand differs little from her English sister, except that like all Colonial girls she is freer and easier iu speech and demeanour.

But the typical South African girl takes after her Dutch ancestors, and therefore is built on generous lines, and is a born housewife, but in her changed environment has become far more of a sportswoman than her great-great-great grandmother ever was. A miserable misogynist once said of the Australian girl that her chief characteristics were a bad complexion and a Cockney accent. Well, it is true that a pink-and-white complexion is something of a rarity under the Southern Cross. And there is some foundation for the story that an Australian girl once said to a startled A.D.C., who was hesitating between the rival claims of home-made cake and grapes, " Oh, Captain Sabretasche, won t you try my cike first, and have the gripes afterwards!" But ou the whole the Australian girl, secure in her particular charms of pliant, lissome figure, delightful vivacity, and peerless horsemanship (let the " bull" pass), can afford to laugh at such libels on her attractive and bracing personality. The New Zealand girl is perhaps the finest specimen of womanhood under the British flag—the "All Blacks" showed us what the New Zealand mother must he—and every girl in New Zealand is a princess and treated as such. Nowhere, not even in America, have women such respect paid to them as in New Zealand, for if in America woman is treated more or less as a goddess she has to remain on her jiedcstal, but in New Zealand woman, though still a goddess, is encouraged to share to the full her mankind's life and work. And the New Zealand girl is usually good-looking and attractive beyond the ordinary, and exacts from her mankind the highest standard of mental, physical, and moral soundness. Speaking i" general terms the chief characteristics of the Colonial girl are a complete absence of affectation and artificiality, a. charming spirit of camaraderie, n' usually most attractive, person, splendid health, and if not a very intellectual at all events an eminently sane and wholesome outlook on life, and a corresponding influence for good upon | her men folk.

And so hats off to the future mothers of the Empire I—Pearson's Weekly.