ARE ENGLISHWOMEN GROWING WORSE?
[TO THE EDITOR Of TER " SPECTATOR:]
Sin,—" M. L's" " sisters " (see Spectator, July 16th) might. be more grateful for her strictures if they had not heard them so persistently for the last quarter of a century. Bat where are these dreadful women "more than half unsexed" I have one philanthropic lady among my acquaintance who- talks of the unsavoury details of her work a little too freely ;. but all the other philanthropic ladies of my acquaintance object to her on that account. I believe there are fast girls- who put themselves into risque positions; but judging by the- novels of the early part of the century, there always were. In " L'Ami des Enfans," even under the ancien regime, there. was a fast girl who used to ride on horseback in male attire, and her father got himself incarcerated at Vincennes that she. might share his imprisonment, and so be weaned from her bad ways, which was done so completely that when she came out she would not even wear a riding-habit ! But though I know a large number of modern girls who go. to early services, and bicycle, and even earn their own living by doctoring, nursing, and teaching, I do not know a single one of them who is not womanly, affectionate, and soft-hearted. They have faults, but they also have wide sympathies and full interests, and I think them, on the whole, very far superior to the self-absorbed and repressed maidens of the fifties, one of whom now pens this defence of her juniors. But "M. T." is mistaken in thinking that we- did not wear thick boots. They were very ugly, but we wore them. Also our needlework, which was in Berlin wool cross- stitch and "hole" embroidery, could not be said to bear the slightest relation to art. Also she misquotes Punch in her "celebrated sentence" which referred to hospital nursing.— I am, Sir, &C., ONE WHO CAME OUT IN THE FIFTIES.
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