ERRATIC ESSAYS. THE SPLENDID ADVANTAGES OF BEING A WOMAN. T has been said that lookers-on know more about a battle than do the soldiers engaged in the strife. With parity of reasoning, it may be argued that in very right of his manhood, a man is better qualified than a woman to pronounce an opinion upon the advantages specially appertaining to the female sex. Being a man, I deem myself ipso facto qualified to discourse authoritatively upon the gain and glory of being a woman. Before doing so, however, I must say a word in explanation of my motive, lest, peradventure, it should be misunderstood by those of whose good report in my regard I would on no account be unmindful. Let it not be supposed that I am envious of the splendid privileges enjoyed by the ladies, or would abridge their priceless prerogatives. Perish the ignoble thought! I would enlarge those privileges and multiply those prerogatives one hundred-fold, were it possible to do so. All I propose is, to show how much more enviable than the lot of man is that of woman, and in one emphatic word, to prove that the next dearest blessing that can befall a human being, after not having been born at all, is to have been born a woman. The physical advantages of being a woman are many and various. The gift of Beauty, with all its concomitant delights, belongs to woman, and to her alone. There never was, and it may be safely predicted that there never will be, on earth any such creature as an ugly woman. Nobody ever heard of such a phenomenon. To be a woman is to be beautiful, and so far is she from diminishing in personal attraction, that we are every day assured upon the most disinterested authority that "loveliness is on the increase." It stands to reason that it must be so, for women are on the increase; and woman and loveliness are convertible terms. How sweetly and how truly sings Otway! "Oh woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee To temper man; we had been brutes without you. There's in you all that we believe of heaven,- Eternal joy, and everlasting love." These are my sentiments, if not exactly my words. I have travelled in many lands and mingled with all classes, but I have never yet seen either an ugly woman or a handsome man. One man may possibly be a shade -just a shade-less hideous than another, but no man makes a nearer approach to beauty than that. All men are of necessity ill-shaped and ill-favored, whereas all women are, by a law no less inflexible, symmetrical in form and fair to look upon. Some of them, doubtless, are more symmetrical and fairer than others, but all are symmetrical and fair. When a sword is put into a man's hand, and he is told to go forth and fly at some other man's throat, for the dear sake of “England, home, and beauty," no one is such a fool as to imagine that he is thereby enjoined to do battle for his own miserable sex. England is a lady. Look at her Who ever saw Britannia in trow A Nothing of the kind. figure on our coins. sers and a chimney-pot? 66 Home," there is none without a woman. 66 Beauty" merely means the sex female. Not alone are women beautiful themselves, but they have an instinctive love of the beautiful wherever it is to be found. "Women," observes a lady, ""have a much nicer sense of the beautiful than men. They are by far the safer umpires in the matters of propriety and grace. A mere school-girl will be thinking and writing about the beauty of birds and flowers, while her brother is robbing the nests and destroying the roses." Then, again, consider the physical bother and irritation you escape by the simple expedient of being a woman. man either wears a beard, in which case he must brush, comb, and oil it, at a great cost of time and trouble daily, or he wears none, in which event he has to submit himself once every four-and-twenty hours to the horrible operation of shaving. No woman has to suffer either of these vile alternatives. A lady may sip soup with a dainty grace, whereas a gentleman, do what he may, is compromised in the most distressing manner by his mustache. Furthermore, Nature, who has given to woman the prize of Beauty, and withheld from her the penalty of a beard, has also bestowed upon her length of days. It is notorious that, all the world over, women as a sex live longer than men similarly classed. Extreme old age is rarely, very rarely attained by men, whereas you can hardly take up a newspaper without finding mention of some one lady who is well on for her hundredth year, or some other lady who has just died at that mature age. Moreover, in this country, at all events, women are numerically immensely in excess of men, and so have all the power and prestige of majority. So that, view it as we may, whether with reference to beauty of feature, grace of form, length of life, or numerical ascendancy, the advantage is still with wo men. But if the physical advantages of being a woman are great, who can estimate the social at their due value? Pas aux dames make way for the ladies! is the law of civilized society, from the equator to either pole. "Will any gentleman oblige a lady?" asks the omnibus-conductor, in his blandest of tones; and no sooner said than done. Out rushes a gentleman in soaking rain and cutting blasts, to oblige a lady (that is to say, to save her the expense of a sixpenny cab), whom he had never seen before, and will probably never see again. Who ever yet heard of a lady getting out to oblige a gentleman? The notion is monstrous. The man who would suggest such a thing would deserve to he hanged on the nearest lamp-post. Every man who has received a salute from a lady takes off his hat to her. Who takes off his hat to a man? Men glare or scowl, the one at the other, or at best exchange contemptuous nods, but as for lifting their hats-unless indeed one of the parties should happen to be the Speaker of the House of Commons-such a thing is unheard of among equals. If a man were to take off his hat to me, I should feel disposed to punch his head, concluding that he meant mockery, as naughty street-boys sometimes "take a sight" at one another. But men were only made to do homage to women. Everywhere and always the same golden rule obtains. For whom are the tit-bits reserved at every feast?—who gets sugar and spice and all things nice?-who is served first, and has the best seat at breakfast, dinner and supper?-who polishes off the Neapolitan ices at opera and play?—woman, woman lovely woman! Who pays for them? Man, the wretch! Who stands by patiently while they are being consumed?-man, hollow-eyed, famine-stricken man? Who comes in for all the kisses of fortune?-woman; and who for all her kicks? Man, man, ugly man, the most unfortunate of created beings! "The lapse of ages changes all things,-time, language, the earth, the bounds of the sea, the stars of the sky, and everything about, around and underneath man, except man himself, who has always been and always will be an unlucky rascal." So spake Lord Byron, and words of truer wisdom were never spoken. But as for Woman, she is the empress of creation, the world is her garden, and man her menial,-nothing more. Falling an easy victim to her enchantments, man indulges in a little innocent flirtation. He loves and he rides away. Woman brings her action for breach of promise, and gets swingeing damages. Woman loves and she rides away. Man brings his action for breach of promise. He is hooted out of court. Woman is privileged to dress in the costliest and most fanciful fashion. Silks, satins, velvets, the most curious fabrics of the loom, feathers, furs, laces, whatsoever things are beauteous, whatsoever things are rare and splendid, are at her disposal, to equip herself out withal, and make her irresistible. Even the innocent little dicky-birds are impressed into her service, and surrender their lives that woman's hat may look the sprucer for their plumage. In her cause the robin red-breast lays down his melodious life; and justly so, since a bird in her hat is worth two in the 1 |