Part 1

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Twenty-Fifth Thousand.

THE LEADENHALL PRESS

MAX O'RELL.

John Bull's Womankind _(Les Filles de John Bull)_

BY THE AUTHOR OF "John Bull and his Island"

_HALF-A-CROWN: CLOTH, THREE-AND-SIX._

[Decoration] _LONDON:_ =FIELD & TUER; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO.; HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO.=

(English Copyright Edition. All Rights Reserved.)

"I heard a lady say lately she had never seen a Dress of Redfern's on a bad figure, but I expect the truth is that Redfern's Gowns make a figure look well, however little nature may have done for it."--_Life_, Nov. 12th, 1884.

Specialities: WALKING & TRAVELLING GOWNS, JACKETS, ULSTERS & RIDING HABITS, Quiet, Lady-like Style, with Perfect Fit and Finish.

Full Sets of Newest Patterns and Designs, post free, from Cowes, where the art of fitting perfectly without a personal visit is especially studied; or on view at 26, Conduit Street, Bond Street, London.

JOHN REDFERN & SONS devote personal study and care to each order entrusted to them.

ROWLANDS' MACASSAR OIL

Serves and beautifies the hair; it contains no lead or mineral ingredients, and can be had in a golden colour for fair-haired children and persons. Sizes, 3s. 6d., 7s., 10s. 6d. equal to four small.

ROWLANDS' ODONTO

Is the best and most fragrant preparation for the teeth. All dentists allow that neither washes nor paste are as efficacious for polishing the teeth and keeping them sound and white as a pure and non-gritty tooth powder; such Rowlands' Odonto has always proved itself.

ROWLANDS' KALYDOR

Is the most cooling, healing, and refreshing wash for the face, hands and arms, and is perfectly free from any mineral or metallic admixture; it disperses freckles, tan, redness, pimples, and produces a beautiful and delicate complexion.

_ROWLANDS' EUKONIA_

Is a beautifully pure, delicate, and fragrant toilet powder. Each box has inside the lid a certificate of purity from Dr. Redwood, Ph.D., F.C.S., &c. Sold in three tints, white, rose, and cream, 2s. 6d. per box. Ask any Chemist or Hairdresser for Rowlands' articles, of 20 Hatton Garden, London.

EVERY DAUGHTER OF JOHN BULL SHOULD READ

NEW VOLUME COMMENCES WITH THE NOVEMBER MONTHLY PART.

==> THE Girls

Own

Paper.

6d. MONTHLY, OR ONE PENNY WEEKLY.

LONDON: 56, Paternoster Row, AND OF ALL NEWSVENDORS.

FIELD & TUER Ye Leadenhalle Presse, E.C. T. 4199.

TO MRS. JOHN BULL.

Dear Madam,

Now please not to frown, still less to cry out, "Shocking!"

I assure you, you may turn over the leaves of this book from beginning to end without fear of encountering a single piece of indiscretion.

I know that fresh air and cold water are your delight. You dearly love to shiver at the contact of a dripping sponge; but your door is carefully closed, and I have seen nothing.

It is not your undraped photograph that I publish, it is the litany of your good qualities that I sing.

May I be allowed here to say freely what I think?

Well, dear Madam, I think that, if the human race, including Mr. Bull your husband, felt for you half the admiration which your charms and virtues inspire in me, you would be justly proclaimed the goddess of conjugal felicity.

Now you ought to give me a smile for that, I think.

Open this little volume fearlessly, dear Madam, and if you should light upon any mention--I will not say of your faults, for most certainly you have none--but of some few little oddities perhaps, do not be offended; but remember that our real friends are those who tell us the truth--_en ami_, of course--but still who do tell it us.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

To Mrs. John Bull iii

Hors d'œuvre ix

I.

Flirtation--Sweethearting--Love in the Open Air--_Où il y a de la gêne il n'y a pas de plaisir_ 1

II.

Declarations of Love--Kisses--Disobliging Britons 8

III.

Love in Marriage--Mrs. John Bull's Bedroom--As you make your Bed, so you must lie on it--Young People, English and French--How it may sometimes be an economy to take your Wife with you when you travel on the Continent 12

IV.

The Marriage Ceremony in England--Civil Marriages-- Elopements--Marriage in Scotland--Show your Credentials--One word more about the _dot_ 22

V.

After the Ball--My Wife makes me a little Confidence (from the Diary of a Frenchman married to an Englishwoman) 30

VI.

The Beauty of English Women--Their Dress--Their Hair--Advice to French Ladies--Hyde Park--Interior of English Theatres--O Routine! such is thy Handiwork! 37

VII.

The Word and the Thing--Little Essay on the English Language--There is nothing like a good Telescope if you want to see well--Master Dubius--Puritan Parlance--Salvation Fair--May Meetings and Spring Cleanings--Are you _Pooty_ Well?--A Suitable Menu 46

VIII.

The Boas of the Aristocracy--The Prettiest Women in London--Shop Girls--Barmaids--Actresses and Supernumeraries--Miss Mary Anderson 58

IX.

The _Demi-monde_--Sly Dogs--The Disreputable World--The Society for the Protection of Women--Humble Apologies for Grave Mistakes 66

X.

Reflections of an Innocent upon Women in general and Englishwomen in particular--Epistle to John Bull--Women's Rights--A Stormy Meeting--Viragos and other British Guys of the Sisterhood of St. Catharine 72

XI.

Women at Home--Daughters, Wives, Widows, and Mothers-- Comparisons--The Hospitality of Mrs. John Bull--Provincial Life 83

XII.

Mrs. John Bull at Home on the .... _R.S.V.P._--An Intelligent Landlord--Meaning of the word "Concert"--The Conversazione--The Royal Academy 100

XIII.

Ladies of the Royal Family--Mrs. Christian--Minnie and Alec--The noble Lord the Poet-Laureate--Wanted an English Academy 110

XIV.

The Governess and other Servants of Mrs. John Bull's Household--Lady-Helps--English and French Servants-- Burglar Chase: the Policeman is successful for once 120

XV.

In the Smoking Room (_Causerie_) 136

XVI.

The Brune and the Blonde--Madame la Comtesse d'A. and Lady B. chat a little about their husbands, discuss their respective merits, and indulge in several little confidences 146

XVII.

The Teetotal Mania--Second Epistle to John Bull--The darling Sin of Mrs. John Bull according to a Venerable Archdeacon and a few Charitable Ladies--A free-born Briton, member of the Yellow Ribbon Army 164

XVIII.

New Salvation Agencies--Priestess Rubbers--_Asinus asinam fricat_ 176

XIX.

The Vicar's Wife (Fragments) I. 180 II. 187 III. 200

XX.

Apotheosis of the Daughters of John Bull 209

XXI.

John Bull and His Island (_Postscript_) 228

Appendix 234

HORS D'ŒUVRE.

In proposing the toast to the ladies at a City dinner, one evening, Lord Derby expressed himself in these terms:--

"Before appointing an Englishman to any post of importance, the first question the electors ask is:

"'_What kind of a wife has he?_'"

And, indeed, the English, who introduce diplomacy into everything, place discretion above all the qualifications that an English candidate sends to the members of an electing board, in the form of testimonials.

The chief thing required of a man who is to be placed at the head of a Society, an Institution, a College, is that he should know how to maintain order and good discipline: not with fuss and severity, but with calmness and discretion; and the English are quite right, for self-control and discretion are the two qualities that most fit a man for government. "Now," the electors say, "if Mr. _So-and-So_, who is one of our selected candidates, cannot keep his wife in order, how will he keep a thousand men or boys in order? If he cannot maintain good discipline in his house, how will he maintain it in our Society? If he is ruled by his wife, it is his wife and not he whom we shall be electing. Therefore Mr. _So-and-So_ will not do for us."

Very proper reasoning.

How many talented men could I name, who will owe to their wives, all their life-time, the honour of being and remaining obscure heroes!

What is the main cause of England's greatness and prosperity? Simply this:

The thousands of small republics, all independent each of the other, that are called Societies, Hospitals, Colleges, etc., are governed, not by idols that have hands and handle not, or by badly salaried potentates who have eyes and see not, but by energetic and clear-sighted men, who receive immense salaries, but who, in return, devote to the Institutions that they rule over, all the resources, all the force of their minds.

Take the schools and colleges for instance.

I am convinced that, in Paris, a _proviseur_ does not know the names of more than thirty or forty of the pupils attending his _lycée_. At any rate, there are not twenty of them that he could recognise in the street and call by their names. His emoluments range from five to six hundred pounds a year.

In England, the head-masters of the great Public Schools receive three, four, five, and even six thousand pounds a year. Well, I guarantee that these head-masters know individually every one of the thousand boys or so that are under their care. They know the place that each one occupies in his class. The pupils are placed by the head-master, according to their merit and aptitude, in such and such form, in such and such department. He will write to some parents, "Your son has no taste for classics. I will put him in our modern school to learn mathematics and science. I advise you to make an engineer of him, an officer," etc.

In France, work is generally in inverse ratio to the emoluments.

In England, work is in proportion to the salary: responsible work, at all events.

Take the Church.

English bishops are fortunate mortals, who receive emoluments amounting to something like eight and ten thousand pounds a year. But, over here, a bishopric is no sinecure.

In France, the clergy of a diocese receive from their bishop orders which they obey blindly; they all teach the same dogma, and have no competition to keep up; but, in England, everybody reasons and argues: the young clergyman, fresh from Oxford or Cambridge, has his own way of interpreting the Scriptures, and the bishop is constantly called upon to pacify, to conciliate all his little clerical world who are for ever dogmatising, discussing, disputing, in the pulpit, in meetings, in the newspapers, and keep him on the alert all the year round. If a French priest shows signs of independence of thought, he is treated as a rebel, and his case is soon settled; public indifference to religious matters consigns him to swift oblivion, when he has succeeded in making a little noise, which happens very rarely; but, in England, the priest who holds original views is backed up by partisans who immediately take up his cause; at any moment, he may set up for a martyr and become a source of continual annoyance to his bishop.

Above all things, the man in office must avoid a scandal, what the English call in slang, a row. So he must be discreet, conciliating, and an accomplished diplomatist: such, I repeat, are the qualifications of any man occupying a high and responsible position in England.

Take the man of business, the City man. Everywhere you find the same activity, the same feverish, high pressure kind of life.

Under these circumstances, the part that the English woman has to play is clear enough: to make her husband forget, in private life, the strain, the rebuffs, the deceptions, the snubs and kicks that he has to endure in public life; to prepare for him a retreat in the calm atmosphere of which he may refresh himself and acquire new strength; to do the honours of her house with that liberality, that generous hospitality, which are only met with among the English; in short, to be satisfied with a part which, when filled with that abnegation and devotion of which the women of all countries are capable, is no less beautiful for being a secondary one.

Now, dear reader, if you will once more do me the honour of accepting me as guide, we will visit together those beautiful girls a trifle too emancipated, those virtuous wives a little too much respected, those good mothers perhaps a little neglected; those women hospitable above all others, whose ingenious forethought for the smallest needs of life makes of a humble cottage a little palace of cleanliness, order, and comfort.

JOHN BULL'S WOMANKIND.

I.

Flirtation--Sweethearting--Love in the open air--_Où il y a de la gêne il n'y a pas de plaisir_.

Seeing that the word _flirtation_ seems to have been definitely received into the French vocabulary, it is natural to suppose that our language contained no equivalent for it, or that the thing itself never existed in France.

Flirtation is, in fact, an essentially English pastime. No one flirts in France: we are more serious than that in love affairs.

Some etymologists have thought that the verb _to flirt_ was formed from _fleurette_ in the expression _conter fleurette_; but the best authorities agree in thinking that it took its origin from _fleardian_, an Anglo-Saxon word which means _to trifle_; and thus it seems possible that it may have some connection with the verb _fleureter_, which, in old French, signified "to say little nothings," whence _plaisanter_, _badiner_.

However this may be, let us leave to _savants_ the task of deciding the matter, while we concern ourselves about the thing itself. What, then, is flirtation?

Flirtation is a very innocent little pastime. I have read in the confession albums of young ladies of good society, "What is your favourite occupation? Flirting." The answer is not in exquisite taste, even from the English point of view, I admit; but no one would think of taking it amiss ... all the more so, I should add, because these confessions are not meant to be taken very seriously.

Young girls who at a ball had made themselves specially agreeable to certain of their partners, and succeeded in drawing a few compliments from them, might say, "We had such flirtation."

_To flirt_, then, is to make a young fellow believe that "_on l'a remarqué, distingué_," as the Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein says; it is to encourage him by sweet smiles and tender wiles, to quit his reserve and carry his gallantry almost so far as to declare himself. This kind of thing would be very dangerous with a young Frenchman; it leads to no bad consequences with the young Englishman, for flirtation is "attention without intention," as some one--I forget whom--has very aptly put it; and an Englishman is able to pay a lady attentions without harbouring any intentions. I compliment him upon it.

A woman who flirted would pass in France for giddy, even fast: she knows her countrymen well, and is aware, when she coquettes with them, what she is exposing herself to. A young girl would never even think of it. But, in England, men are not so inflammable, and in flirting, a woman does not play with fire. Witness the following little scene, which gave me a quarter of an hour's diversion, at a conversazione given by one of the great learned societies of London.

A young girl, lovely as an Englishwoman knows how to be lovely, when she sets about it, stood in the corner of one of the rooms talking with a young fellow of eighteen or twenty.

You should have seen with what a mischievous delight this little angel, or rather this little demon, tortured the young booby, who appeared to me not to know what to do with himself, or which way to look, to escape the sight of a lovely and freely displayed _corsage_, that rose and fell, a few inches from his nose. "Poor dear child!" I thought to myself, "how oppressed you appear to be!" She seemed to be doing her utmost to sigh her life away; and what amused me most, was that, when the poor fellow appeared to have taken the firm resolution not to be tempted, his pretty torturer stopped her chatter, and set to work to fasten, with many careful and delicate touches, a rose that threatened, at one moment to escape, at the next to be swallowed in the heavy sea.

This little performance certainly lasted a quarter of an hour, and really I pitied from the bottom of my heart this poor Tantalus--if one may call Tantalus a young innocent who did not attempt to get nearer--when, to my great satisfaction, I saw him beat a retreat. I felt relieved. So did the poor fellow, I am sure.

A young Frenchman would soon have put an end to such a game by taking some liberty that the young girl, after all, would have only too richly deserved.

Sweethearting is a very different thing: we come now to love-making taken _au sérieux_. Sweethearts are two young people who have confessed their love to each other and have become mutually affianced, with or without the consent of their parents. This English word has an old-fashioned flavour about it. It corresponds very much to our _bon ami_ and _bonne amie_. In speaking of the intended husband of a lady of good society, you would now rather use the word _lover_.

Sweethearting could hardly exist in France, where the most firmly betrothed lovers scarcely ever have a chance of renewing their vows of love, except in the presence of a future mother-in-law. In England, sweethearting means to make love openly; to take one's choice about, to friends' houses, to concerts, to the theatre, to parties, for sentimental walks more or less solitary; to be allowed a thousand charming little liberties; it means, in a word, to play the comedy of love. Of course, accidents will happen, it is inevitable: carried away by the success of the play, the best actors may forget themselves. But it is far from being the rule: it is even a very rare exception, especially in the educated classes.

It is a curious spectacle, in a country where reserve, prudery, and propriety are carried to a point of uncomfortableness, to observe the couples of lovers walking about in the evening, holding each other by the hand, by the waist, around the neck, and, in rather deserted streets, forming regular processions. I am not speaking of the better classes, of course; but still I speak of the lower middle class--of clerks, shopmen, and shopgirls, very well dressed, and for the most part very respectable. These couples go "sober, sober," like the "poor man" in the nursery rhyme, and, with their eyes bent languishingly on each other, appear to find very little to say with their lips. When you pass and look at them, they seem to say to you: "You have been through it yourself, old fellow, haven't you? You know all about it: there's no need to mind you."

The seats in the parks and public promenades are occupied all the evening long by such couples. These seats are made to hold three persons, but, with a little management, they will accommodate six. The occupants are there by the hour together, each couple taking no notice of the others, but clasped in a silent embrace, motionless and rapturous. I have always admired these stoical young Englishmen who can thus undergo, for hours, this voluptuous treatment without any inconvenience.

One evening, in the month of March of last year, I crossed Hyde Park to get to the Marble Arch from Piccadilly. As I saw those couples reposing at their ease on the grass, and not attempting to disturb themselves for such a trifle as a man passing, I thought to myself, "O free England! to what lengths, after all, will thy love of liberty carry thee!"

As I was waiting at the Arch for my omnibus, a fine, good-humoured looking policeman was pacing up and down. I went up to him, and began by asking him if there would soon be a Bayswater omnibus passing. Seeing him disposed to be chatty, I said to him, "They seem to make themselves at home in the park, those lovers! They don't budge for anybody."

"No, sir; no, not they," he replied naïvely; "no fear!" _Où il y a de la gêne il n'y a pas de plaisir._

The policeman was evidently there at the entrance of the park to protect the sweethearts, and prevent anybody from disturbing them. I had always wondered why policemen were stationed outside the London parks, and never entered them after dusk. I understand at last: one does not take in everything at a glance.

II.

Declarations of love--Kisses--Disobliging Britons.