t
would be for me and my fellows? Yet we would be "roughs"--and she and
her crew must be "treated with the deference due the gentler sex." And
why am I a boor if I do not give her my seat, while she is considered a
lady if she takes it without thanking me?

3. Are girls, take them as a rule, as well-bred as boys?

Judging by appearances, it would seem that many men share in the
feeling expressed in your first query. I am not a "flighty, flashy
girl," but I crossed the city the other night in a horse-car in which
there were twenty men and two women--one of them being myself. I
stood, while the score of men sat and lounged comfortably behind their
newspapers. They were tired after a hard day's work, and would have
been wearied still more by standing. A well woman was worn out and a
delicate woman would have been made ill, by this exertion.

My dear boy! let me ask you one question. Why should you, no matter
how tired you are, spring eagerly forward to prevent your sister from
lifting a piece of furniture, or carrying a trunk upstairs? Why not
let her do it? I can imagine your look of indignant surprise. "Why?
because she is a woman! It would nearly kill her!" Exactly so; but you
will swing the burden on your broad, strong shoulders, bear it to its
destination, and the next minute run lightly down-stairs,--perhaps, as
you would say, "a little winded," but not one whit strained in nerve
or muscle.

There lies the difference. The good Lord who made us women had His own
excellent reason for making us physically weaker than men. Perhaps
because, had we their strength, we would be too ambitious. However
that may be, men, as the stronger sex, should help us in our weakness.
Standing in the horse-car that is jostling over a rough track, holding
on with up-stretched arm to a strap and "swinging corners" during a
two-mile ride, would do more harm to a girl of your own age than you
would suffer were you to stand while making a twenty-mile trip. For
humanity's sake, then, if your gallantry does not prompt you to make
sacrifice, do not allow any woman, old or young, to "hold her
perpendicular in the aisle" when you can offer her a seat and while
you have a pair of capable legs upon which to depend for support.

A true gentleman is always unselfish, be he old or young, rested or
weary; and such being the case, the foreign day-laborer, in blue
blouse and hob-nailed boots, who rises and gives a lady his place in
car or omnibus, is