gives them, but no perception of that return which chivalry demands
from them. Women of the class to which I allude are always talking
of their rights, but seem to have a most indifferent idea of their
duties. They have no scruple at demanding from men everything that
a man can be called on to relinquish in a woman's behalf, but they
do so without any of that grace which turns the demand made into a
favor conferred.

I have seen much of this in various cities of America, but much
more of it in New York than elsewhere. I have heard young
Americans complain of it, swearing that they must change the whole
tenor of their habits toward women. I have heard American ladies
speak of it with loathing and disgust. For myself, I have
entertained on sundry occasions that sort of feeling for an
American woman which the close vicinity of an unclean animal
produces. I have spoken of this with reference to street cars,
because in no position of life does an unfortunate man become more
liable to these anti-feminine atrocities than in the center of one
of these vehicles. The woman, as she enters, drags after her a
misshapen, dirty mass of battered wirework, which she calls her
crinoline, and which adds as much to her grace and comfort as a log
of wood does to a donkey when tied to the animal's leg in a
paddock. Of this she takes much heed, not managing it so that it
may be conveyed up the carriage with some decency, but striking it
about against men's legs, and heaving it with violence over
people's knees. The touch of a real woman's dress is in itself
delicate; but these blows from a harpy's fins are as loathsome as a
snake's slime. If there be two of them they talk loudly together,
having a theory that modesty has been put out of court by women's
rights. But, though not modest, the woman I describe is ferocious