The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1891. COLONIAL GIRLS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume X, Issue 2373, 6 May 1891, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1891. COLONIAL GIRLS.

I In the absence, apparently, of a subject with which he was better acquainted, a writer m one of our Christchurch contemporaries, tho " Press," lately took upon himself to criticise very severely what he called the " Average Gnristchurch Society Girls," and to draw comparisons between them and their English sisters very much to the disadvantage of the former. Though pointing his remarks at the young ladies of Christchurch, the writer m question evidently does not consider them as differing much from those of other New Zealand towns, and replies to his strictures have come from all parts. According to this authority our girls can neither dance, row, play tennis, walk, read or write so well as the average English girls; our girls can talk nothing but small gossip 'and mild slander, never read the newspapers, "yellow-backs" are their only literature, and m their dress they.,are "sad dowdies." He puts it all down, to their neglect to make use of their opportunities m the way of mental and physical education. Of course so eminent an authority has his remedies for this dreadful state of affairs. He prescribes games and sports, but not with the girls' brothers and cousins and lovers. He wishes the girls to cultivate a love of books or of sciences, though not to the exclusion of training m the domestic duties which are, or ought to be, the main business m life for women. One point, m which the critic is right is his condemnation of "the tyrannical custom of paying calls of ceremony". He has been told m letters covering several pages of his paper that he is wrong m everything else. The reporters of his paper own have told him on the authority of the leading dressmakers and milliners that the Christchuich girls dress with equal good taste to that shown by English ladies. He was told of lady tennis players who could hold their own iii most English courts ; of a Girls' Boating Club m Christchurch, the members of which can not only row but dance and cook; witness a delightful ball anl supper which they gave not long ago. The booksellers told him that the literary tastes of the young ladies were exceptionally high, and the list given of favourite authors and works quite bore this out, against the statement of one authority who said the greater number seemed to prefer " the most exciting and trashy kind of literature." Of their conversational powers the defence generally takes the line of asserting them to be superior to those of most of the men they meet, and we must admit that conversation, along with reading aloud and writing a facile legible hand, are lost arts, here as well as m England. Altogether the presumptuous man of the " Press " must now be thoroughly convinced that his attacks upon our "average society girls " were not warranted.