Girls who stoop to it are usually those who have failed to secure attention in their own circle, and belong, as a rule, to the sort of girl who marries a groom or runs away with a good-looking footman.
Offering an unknown lady an umbrella.
A young man once asked me if it would be etiquette to offer an unknown lady an umbrella in the street, supposing she stood in need of one. I replied: “No lady would accept the offer from a stranger, and the other sort of person might never return the umbrella.” In large towns women of breeding soon learn to view casual attentions from well-dressed men with the deepest distrust. They would suffer any amount of inconvenience rather than accept a favour from a stranger, knowing that so many men make it their amusement to prowl about the streets, looking after pretty faces and graceful figures, and forcing their attentions on the owners.
A contemptible class of men.
Contemptible curs they are, whether young or old, and they are of all ages. Very young girls have sometimes extremely unpleasant experiences with such men, not only in the streets but in omnibuses, trams, and trains. Cultivating a gentlemanly exterior, they can yet never be gentlemen, and a good, pure woman finds something hateful in the look of their eyes, the whole expression of their faces.
Their female counterparts.
It cannot be denied, however, that there is a corresponding class of women and girls who make promiscuous male acquaintances in the streets, and the young man learns to distinguish these from respectable members of the community almost as soon as the young girl learns to dread and fear the prowling man.
Offers of service from strangers not therefore allowable.
The existence of such a state of things makes self-respecting women most careful to accept no advances from a stranger, and the true gentleman, understanding this, refrains from offers of assistance that he would gladly make were society so constituted as to be free from such pests as the above.
On removing a cigar when passing a lady.