The susceptibilities of American women are sometimes very easily wounded:
A paper having announced a man's death under the heading, "John K. gone to a better home," the widow brought an action for libel against the editor.
The women are not content with beating the men in the market-place, they beat them at elections as well. During my stay in the States, the town of Oskaloosa, in the State of Kansas, returned all the women who put up as candidates for election to the Town Council. At the head of the poll was a Mrs. Lowman, who was proclaimed Mayor. It was said that for a year all the taverns and billiard-rooms of the town would be closed. When the result of the polling was known, the men pulled very long faces; but they finished by getting used to the idea of petticoat government, and in the evening they serenaded their Town Councilwomen.
The further west one goes, the more apparent becomes the power of the women; the further west one goes, the rarer does woman get. Is this the reason?
To every American hotel there is a ladies' entrance. This is to prevent contamination from the possible contact of man. When it rains or snows, an awning is thrown out over the pavement; but I daresay a permanent triumphal arch will ultimately be demanded by the ladies.
In the States of Kansas and Colorado, a woman on entering a railway train will touch a man on the shoulder, and say almost politely, "I like that seat; you take another."
I was riding one day in a Chicago tramcar. The seats were all occupied; but in America that does not mean that the car is full, and presently the conductor let in a woman, who came and stood near my seat. At the moment of her entry I had my head turned, and it might have been twenty or thirty seconds before I perceived that she was standing in front of me. Then I rose and offered her my place. Do not imagine that she thanked me. She shot me a glance which clearly said, "Oh! you have made up your mind at last; you take your time over it." I need not say that she was not a lady; but, at any rate, she was well, even stylishly, dressed, and looked highly respectable. The American lady accepts graciously and gracefully the homage men render her; but the vulgar woman exacts it as her due, and does not feel bound to give any such small change of politeness as thanks or smiles. Women are everywhere more prone than men to act as parvenues.