The Galaxy, May, 1877 Part 21

I feel, therefore, that I am saying very little against Englishwomen when I say that in general they are the worst dressed human creatures that I ever saw, except perhaps the female half of a certain cla.s.s of Germans. The reputation that they have in this respect among Frenchwomen and "Americans" is richly deserved. Good taste is simply absent. The notion of fitness, congruity, and "concatenation accordingly" does not exist. In form the Englishwoman's dress is dowdy, in color frightful. If not color-blind, she seems generally to be blind to the effect of color, either singly or in combination. At the Birmingham festival I saw a lady in a rich red-purple (plum color) silk--high around the neck of course, as it was morning--and over this swept a necklace of enormous coral beads. It made one's eyes ache to look at her. This was not an uncommon, but a characteristic instance.

Such combinations may be justly regarded as the rule in Englishwomen's dress. For purple they have strong liking. They not only wear it in gowns, but they use it for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, in bands and flounces, in ribbons, in feathers. They combine it with all other colors. An Englishwoman seems to think herself "made" if she can deck herself in some way with purple silk or velvet, or ribbons or feathers. Of course I am excepting from these remarks a few who have intuitive good taste, and other few who employ French _modistes_, and who submit implicitly to their authority. The latter condition is essential; for even when the main body of an Englishwoman's dress is in good taste she is very apt to destroy its effect by some incongruous addition from her stores of heterogeneous jewels, or by some other ornament--a collar, a cape, a _fichu_, or a ribbon. They have a sad way of putting forlorn things about their necks and on their heads which is very depressing, unless it is astonishing, which happens sometimes. An Englishwoman will be tolerably well dressed, and then will make a bundle of herself by tying up her neck and shoulders in a huge piece of lace; or she will wear specimens of two or three sets of jewels; or she will put a colored feather in her hair, or a bonnet on her head, that would tempt a tyrant to bring it to the block. I remember seeing a marchioness whose family was n.o.ble in the middle ages riding with an "American" lady who had not as much to spend in a year as the other had in a week; but the marchioness was so obtrusively ill dressed and the American with such good taste and simplicity that both being unusually intelligent, both perfectly well bred and self-possessed, and both fine healthy women, a person ignorant of their rank would have been likely to mistake the latter for the n.o.blewoman.

It has been said that Englishwomen dress better in full evening dress than in what is known as _demi-toilette_. I cannot think so. It is not the English dress that then looks better, but the Englishwoman; that is, if she has fine shoulders, b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and arms. It is the beauty that is revealed, the woman pure and simple, that pleases the eye, just as is the case elsewhere. For the things that an Englishwoman will put on, or put half-off herself, in the evening, are amazing to behold. An Englishwoman in full dress who has not a fine figure is even more dowdy than she is in the morning. For then she is likely to be at least neat and tidy, and she may wear a gown that is comparatively un.o.btrusive in form and color. Indeed, the best dress that the average Englishwoman wears is her simple street dress, which is apt to be of some sober color--black, gray, light or dark, or a dark soft blue, and to be entirely without ornament--not a flounce or a bow, or even a b.u.t.ton except for use, with a bonnet, or oftener a hat, equally sober in tint and in form. And this is best for her; in this she is safe. If she would not risk offence, let her enfold herself thus. Let her by no means wander forth into the wilderness of mingled colors: "that way madness lies." This outward show is in no way the consequence of carelessness. No one in England seems to be careless about anything, least of all a woman about her dress. It is helpless, hopeless, elaborated dowdyism. And yet as I write there rise up against me, with sweet, reproachful faces, figures draped worthily of their beauty; and more could not be said even for the work of Worth himself. One of many I particularly remember with whom I took five o'clock tea at the house of one of the Queen's chaplains, and who bore a name that may be found in the "Peveril of the Peak." Her bright intelligence and her rich beauty (her oval cheek was olive) would have made me indifferent to her dress had it been a homespun bedgown. But shall I ever forget the beautiful curves and tint of that soft-gray broad-leafed felt hat and feather, the elegance of the dark carriage dress that harmonized so well with it, or the perfect glove upon the hand that was held out so frankly to bid me good-by? No, fair British friends, it is not you that I mean; it is those other women whom I saw, but did not know.

It is because of the average Englishwoman's sad failure in dressing herself that the notion has got abroad that Englishmen are finer looking than Englishwomen. For the dress of the men is notably in good taste. It is simple, manly, neat; and although sober in tint and snug in cut, it is likely to have its general sobriety lightened up with a little touch of bright, warm color. On the other hand, the dress of "American" men is generally far, very, very far, inferior to that of the women in the corresponding conditions of life. This helps to produce the corresponding mistaken notion that the women in "America" are handsomer than the men; upon the incorrectness and essential absurdity of which I have already commented.

As to another attributed superiority of the Yankee woman I must express my surprised dissent. I have not only read, but heard their intelligence and social qualities rated much higher than that of their sisters in England. Fair countrywomen, heed not this flattery. It is not true. The typical Englishwoman of the upper and upper middle cla.s.s has in strength of mind and in information no type counterpart in "America." She may not know Latin, and she may, and get little good by it; she may not be brilliant, or quick, or self-adaptive, and she generally is not; but she is well informed both as to the past and the present; she shows the effect rather of true education than of school cramming, of culture inherited and slowly acquired, and of intercourse with able, highly educated, and cultivated men. She generally has some accomplishment which she has acquired in no mere showy boarding-school fashion, but with a respectable thoroughness. England is full of ladies who paint well in water colors, or who are musicians, not mere piano players, or who are botanists, or who write well, and who add one or more of such acquirements to a solid general education, a considerable knowledge of affairs, and the ability to manage a large household.

The conversation of the society in which such women are found is far more interesting, far worthier of respect than that which is heard in fashionable society (and these women are fashionable) in "America." And this without any reproach to the latter. For how could it be otherwise than that women who are the daughters, sisters, and wives of men who are themselves highly educated, and who have the affairs of a great empire, if not in their hands, at least upon their minds, should in all that can be acquired by intercourse with such men be superior to others most of whom bear the same relations to men who are necessarily inferior in all these respects, who are absorbed in business, and know little beyond their business except what can be learned from the hurried reading of newspapers? In England there is not only acc.u.mulated wealth, but acc.u.mulated culture; and of this the result appears not only in the men, but in the women. It could not be otherwise.

Englishwomen are companions, and friends, and helps to their fathers, their husbands, to all the men of their household. They are not absorbed in the mere external affairs of society; and society is not entirely in their hands. Men, men of mature years, form the substance of English society; they give it its tone; women its grace and its ornamentation. Even in the Englishwoman's drawing-room the Englishman is looked up to and treated with deference. The talk and the tone must be such as pleases him. She finds her pleasure as well as her duty in making it such as pleases him. She is even there his companion, his friend, his help. No matter how clever or brilliant she may be, she does not seek _tenir salon_ like the French female _bel esprit_. No matter how beautiful or how fashionable she may be, she does not leave him out of her society arrangements; unless, indeed, in either case, she chooses to set propriety at naught and brave an accusation of "bad form." And indeed, should she attempt this she would probably soon be checked by a very decided interposition of marital authority. The result of all this is a soberer tone in mixed society than we are accustomed to, and the discussion of graver topics in general conversation.

And yet in the household the Englishwoman is quite supreme--much more so, I think, than she is in "America." She really manages all household affairs, troubling her husband with no details, but being careful to manage in such a way as to please him. For, as I have said before, the wish of the master of an English household is the law of that household.

Notwithstanding all this, I have been led to the firm belief that hen-pecking is far more common in England than it is with us, and that curtain lectures are much oftener delivered there than here. "Mrs.

Caudle's Curtain Lectures" would hardly have suggested themselves to an American humorist, although the thing itself--if not in its perfection, in its germ--is sufficiently known here to make the humor and the satire of that series perfectly appreciated. And, strange to say, the average English husband seems to be a less independent creature than the "American." English wives more generally insist upon their prerogative of sitting solemnly up for their husbands at night; and latch-keys are regarded as a personal grievance. What American wife would think of making a fuss about a man's having a latch-key? Not a few of them, indeed, have one themselves. And yet I have seen an Englishwoman of the lower middle cla.s.s flush and choke and whimper when the subject of the inalienable right of a man to a latch-key to his own house was broached, and begin to talk about the worm turning when it is trampled upon.

The devotion of Englishwomen to their families, and particularly to their children, cannot be surpa.s.sed. I believe that they are the best, the most self-sacrificing daughters, wives, and mothers in the world, except the good daughters and wives and mothers in "America"; and even them I believe they generally surpa.s.s in submissiveness and thoughtful consideration. But this is the result of the general subordination which in all things pervades English society.

It is generally believed in England, I cannot tell why, that women in "America" take part in public affairs and are much more in the eye of the world than Englishwomen are. Of this belief I met with an amusing instance. One day at dinner in a "great house" I had on one side of me a gentleman who had come in alone for lack of ladies enough to "go round"; it was a small family party. He was the brother of my hostess, a fine, intelligent fellow about twenty-five years old, who had just taken his bachelor's degree at Oxford. As I turned from his sister to him, in a pause of conversation, he asked me with great earnestness, almost with solemnity, "Is--it--true--that--in--America--the--women-- sit--on--juries?"

I answered instantly, and with perfect gravity, "Yes; all of them who are not on duty as sergeants of dragoons." For one appreciable delightful moment doubt and bewilderment flashed through his bright, handsome eyes, and then he, as well as others within earshot, appreciated the situation, and there was a hearty laugh and an ingenuous blush mantled his cheeks--for young men can blush in England.

When I explained that in no part of that strange country "America" with which I was acquainted did women sit on juries, or take any part in public affairs, or even vote or go to public meetings, and that nine in ten of the women that I knew would be puzzled to tell who represented in Congress the districts in which they lived, who were the Senators from their States, and possibly who were their Governors, I was listened to with profound attention; and the surprise of my hearers was very manifest, and was strongly expressed. It could hardly have been otherwise; for nothing that I could have said would have brought into clearer light the fact that women in America are very much less informed upon public affairs and take very much less interest in them than is the case with almost all Englishwomen of the cultivated cla.s.ses. In England almost all intelligent women of the upper and upper middle cla.s.ses take a very lively interest in politics, are tolerably well informed upon the public questions of the day, and in many cases they have no inconsiderable influence upon them. The reason of this is that political life and the social life of the upper cla.s.ses there are so thoroughly intermingled. Politics form the chief concern of the members of those cla.s.ses; apart, of course, from their own private affairs. Hardly a woman of that cla.s.s is without a husband, brother, kinsman, or friend who is, or who has been, or hopes to be a member of Parliament, or who is in diplomacy, or connected in some way with colonial affairs. Politics there are intimately connected with the great object of woman's life in modern days--social success. It is difficult for women in England, and even for men, to understand the entire severance of politics and society which obtains in "America,"

and to believe that a man may be a member of Congress or even a Senator, and yet be entirely without social position. Politics there are the most interesting topic of conversation among intelligent and cultivated people in general society, and such an acquaintance with political questions and party manoeuvres as is here confined to a very few women indeed, whose relations to public men are peculiar, and who "go to Washington," is there very common among all women of superior position.

Of this I met with a striking ill.u.s.tration on my way from Warwick to Coventry. As I was about entering the railway carriage, a friend, an Englishman, who was kindly travelling with me for a day or two, and "coaching" me, told the porter who had my portmanteau to put it into the carriage. This, by the way, is permitted there. If there is room, and no one objects, you may take a huge trunk into a first-cla.s.s railway carriage. Indeed, one could hardly be taken into a second-cla.s.s carriage for lack of room; and a third-cla.s.s carriage is hardly larger than that marvellous inst.i.tution known to American women--but to no others--as a Saratoga trunk. I objected to my friend's proposal because there was a lady in the carriage. She was standing with her back to me as I spoke, but she immediately turned and said, in a clear, sweet voice, "Oh, yes; bring it in; never mind me; there's quite room enough." I never saw a more elegant woman. She was about forty years old, still very handsome, tall, with a fine lithe figure, and a gentle loftiness of manner which I might have called aristocratic, had she not reminded me strongly in every way of an "American" woman whom I had known from my boyhood.

Nothing could have been more simple, frank, and good-natured than the way in which she made me and my luggage welcome. Her maid, who was standing by her, and who was herself a very lady-like person, soon left us to take her place in a second-cla.s.s carriage, and we three were left in possession.

The train started with that gentle, un.o.btrusive motion which is usual on English railways, and we fell into the chat of fellow travellers. I was charmed with her. Her voice and her manner of speech would have made the recitation of the multiplication table agreeable. She had a son at Oxford, which I had left a few days before, and it proved that we had common acquaintances there. She showed, with all her superiority of manner, social and personal--for she was what would have been called in the last generation a superior woman--that deference to manhood which I have mentioned before as a trait of Englishwomen. Ere long my companion mentioned that we had been at Kenilworth that day. She replied, "Oh, I must go there. I have never been. Why! It is just like Americans to go to Kenilworth. All the Americans go to Kenilworth, and to Warwick Castle, and to Stratford." My companion replied that we had been at all those places. She laughed merrily, and said, "You ought to have been Americans to do that." My friend then told her that I was an "American."

She turned upon me almost with a stare, and after a moment of silence spoke to me again, but with a perceptible and very remarkable change of manner. It was very slight--of a delicate fineness. Her courtesy was not in the least diminished, nor her frankness; but the perfectly unconscious and careless expression of her face was impaired, and her attention to me was a little more p.r.o.nounced than it had been before.

She inquired if I had been pleased with my visit to Kenilworth, and told me that a novel had been written about it by Sir Walter Scott. "But perhaps you have read it," she added. "Have you met with it?" I answered, "I have heard of it"; and my inward satisfaction was great when I saw that I had done so with a face so unmoved that she replied with a gracious instructiveness of manner, "Oh, you should have read it before you went to Kenilworth; it would so have increased your pleasure.

But the next best thing for you is to read it now." I thanked her, and said that I should like to do so. I think that she would have gone on to recommend a perusal of the works of William Shakespeare to me in connection with my visit to Stratford on Avon, although she looked at me in a puzzled way once or twice. But my companion, although I saw he was amused at something in her talk, marred whatever hopes I had of further instruction by breaking in with some remark upon the politics of Warwickshire. She rose to his fly like a trout on a hazy day, and in a minute or two she had forgotten my existence in her discussion with him of a topic which plainly was to her of far more interest than all the Scotts that could have dwelt in Kenilworth, and all the Shakespeares that could have stood in Stratford. He was a Birmingham magnate, and knew everything that was going on in the country; but she was his equal in information, and it seemed to me his superior in political craft. To every suggestion of his she made some reply that showed that the question was not new to her. She knew all the ins and outs of the politics of the county: who could be expected to support this measure, who was sure to oppose that. She knew all about the manufacturing interests of Birmingham: who had retired from active management; who was coming in; what money had been taken out of this establishment, what changes had taken place in the other, and had an opinion as to what effect this was going to have upon Parliament. I never heard the beginning of such political talk from a woman in America, even from one whose husband was in politics. The train stopped; her maid appeared, and she bade us courteously good-by, with the puzzled look in her eye as it rested upon the fellow pa.s.senger to whom she had recommended the perusal of "Kenilworth"; and then my companion told me, what indeed I had been sure of all along, that she was a member of the governing cla.s.s.

A few days before, I had observed in Oxford, where a local election was impending, small posters addressed to "The Burgesses," and these invariably began "_Ladies_ and Gentlemen," a form of "campaign doc.u.ment" as foreign to us as it would be to peoples subject to the Salique law--than which worse laws have long prevailed in many countries.

Not only in politics but in business women appear much more prominently than they do in "America." If they do not keep hotels, which they sometimes do, they manage them, whether they are great or small. The place which in "America" is filled by that exquisite, awful, and imperturbable being, the hotel clerk, is filled invariably in England by a woman--so at least I always found it, and I found the change a very happy one. To be met by the cheery, pleasant faces of these bright, well-mannered women, to be spoken to as if you were a human being whom, in consideration of what you are to pay, it was a pleasure to make as comfortable as possible, instead of being treated with lofty condescension, or at best with serene indifference, was a pleasant sensation. And these women did their work so quietly and cheerfully, and yet in such a businesslike way, that it was a constant pleasure to come into contact with them. Dressed in black serge or alpaca, they affected no flirting airs, and directed or obeyed promptly and quietly. And yet their womanhood constantly appeared in their manner and in their thoughtfulness for the comfort of those who were in their care. They always had a pleasant word or a smile in answer to a pa.s.sing remark, were always ready to answer any question or give any information, and were pleased at any acknowledgment of satisfaction. Naturally it was so; for they were women; and they were chosen, it seemed to me, for their pleasant ways as well as for their efficiency. From not one of them, from one end of England to the other, in great cities or in quiet country towns and villages, did I receive one surly word or look, or anything but the kindest and promptest attention. I can say the same of the shop women, who waited upon customers not as if they were consciously condescending in the performing of such duties, but cheerfully and pleasantly, and with a show of interest that a purchaser should be satisfied. Their dress was almost invariably the same black unornamented serge or alpaca, which, by the way, is the commonest street dress of all women of their condition. In the telegraph offices the clerks are generally women; and indeed, women seem to do everything except plough, drive omnibuses and railway engines, and be soldiers and policemen. They keep turnpikes, where turnpikes still exist; and in Suss.e.x I saw a woman's name with her husband's upon the pike-house.

Indeed, it seemed to me that in all public affairs, from politics down to turnpike keeping, women were very much more engaged and before the world in England than in America, although I saw no jury-women or she sergeants.

As to the manners of Englishwomen, they are, like the manners of other women, good, bad, and indifferent. And chiefly they are indifferent; being in this particular also like others, especially of the Teutonic races; which races, my readers may like to be reminded, are the Deutsch (which we call German), the Hollanders, the Anglo-Saxon (or better, the English), and the Scandinavians (Swedes, Nors.e.m.e.n, Danes, and Icelanders). The average manners of these peoples, even of the women among them, are on the whole truly indifferent. They are not coa.r.s.e, but as surely they are not polished. Manner, however, is a very different thing from manners; and in manner Englishwomen, from the highest cla.s.s to the lowest, are all more or less charming--strong-minded women and lodging-house keepers being of course excepted. This charm, like all traits and effects of manner, is not easy to describe; but it left upon me at this time, as it had left before, an impression of its being the outcoming of an intense consciousness of womanhood, and with this a feeling of modest but very firm self-respect. The most intelligent Englishwoman, even in her most exalted moments, never seems to resolve herself into a bare intelligence. Her mind is always clad in woman's flesh; and her body thinks. Thus conscious of her own womanhood, she keeps you conscious of it, not merely by the facts that her hair is long, her face beardless, and that her body (in the evening the lower part of it at least) is covered with voluminous and marvellous apparel--in a word, not merely by outer show.

All this is but the outward sign; and it might exist--as it so often does, I shall not say where--in women, without the least of that grace, not of movement or of speech, or even of thought, but of moral condition, which is to me the chiefest charm in woman. How often have I sat by one of such women talking--no, talked at (for it reduces me to silence)--in such a splendid and overwhelming manner, and with such a superior consciousness of intellectuality, that I could not but think that except for the silk and the lace, and the lack of moustaches, and the evident expectation of a compliment, I might as well have been talking with a man (only a man would have said more with less fuss), and that I longed for the companionship of some pretty, well-bred ignoramus, whose head was full only of common sense, and whose soul as well as whose body was of the female s.e.x. England is not without women of the other kind, I suppose, but they are so rare that I met with none; while all the women that I did meet had the soft, sweet charm given by the contented consciousness of their womanhood. Womanhood looks out from an Englishwoman's eyes; it speaks in every inflection of her voice. No matter how clever she may be, how well informed, she never utters mind pure and simple; she never lays a bare statement of thought or of fact before you. She is too modest. A piece of her mind she does, indeed, sometimes give you. But then, be sure, she is, of all times, the most thoroughly womanlike and absolved from intellectuality; being, however, thus in her excitement not peculiar among her s.e.x. At all other times she leaves an impression of gentleness, and a lack of intellectual robustness; and, if you are a man at least, she, without any seeming intention of so doing, keeps you constantly in mind that she is trusting to you--to your strength, your ability, your position--to ensure that she shall be treated with respect and tenderness, and taken care of; and that therefore she owes you deference, and that it becomes her to be not only as charming but as serviceable as possible. Even in the hardest women there is a remnant at least of this. An Englishwoman shall be a sort of she-bagman, a traveller for manufacturers, and in the habit of riding second or even third cla.s.s alone, from one end of England to the other (and I talked with such women), and she shall yet show you this gentle, womanly consciousness. A woman's eye there never looks straight and steady into yours, saying, "I am quite able to take care of my own person, and interests, and reputation. Don't trouble yourself about me in those respects. Meantime, sir, I am taking your measure." There is always a mute appeal from her womanhood to your manhood. This charm belongs to the Englishwoman of all ranks, and beautifies everything that she does, even if she does it awkwardly, which is not always. She shows it if she is a great lady and welcomes you, or if she is a housemaid and serves you. Not actually every Englishwoman is thus of course; for there are hard, and proud, and cruel, and debased women there, as there are elsewhere. But, apart from these exceptions, this is the manner of Englishwomen; and, in so far as a man may judge, this manner, or the counterpart of it, does not forsake them when they are among themselves.

This soft charm of the Englishwoman's manner is greatly helped and heightened by her voice and her manner of speaking. In these she is not only without an equal, but beyond comparison with the women of any other people, except the few of her own blood and tongue in this country, who have like voices and the same utterance. The voices and the speech of Englishwomen of all cla.s.ses are, with few exceptions, pleasant to the ear--soft and clear; their words are well articulated, but not precisely p.r.o.nounced. They speak without much emphasis, yet not monotonously, but with gentle modulation. Their speech is therefore very easily understood--much more so than that of persons who speak louder and with stronger emphasis. You rarely or never are obliged to ask an Englishwoman to repeat what she has said because you have failed to catch her words. This soft, yet crisp and clear and easily flowing speech, is, as I have said, common to the whole s.e.x there.

I remember that in one of my prowlings about London I found myself in a little, dingy court that opened off Thames street--a low, water-side street that runs under London Bridge. It was Sunday morning, and I had come down from Charing Cross in one of the little Thames steamers, to attend service at St. Paul's, and had half an hour to spare. The street was almost deserted, and so quiet that my footsteps echoed from the walls of the dull and smoke-browned houses. In this court I found two women talking. One was Sairey Gamp. I am sure it was Sairey. The leer upon her heavy face could not be mistaken, and she had grown even a little stouter than when I was so happy as to make her acquaintance years ago. The other was probably Betsey Prig; she was a mere wisp of a woman; or, indeed, she may have been Mrs. Harris herself--her shadow-like figure being the next thing in woman form to nonent.i.ty. As I pa.s.sed these two humble people, I was struck by the tone and manner of their speech as they talked earnestly together. Their words and their p.r.o.nunciation were vulgar enough; but, as a whole, the speech of both was rich and musical. The whole of that otherwise silent court was filled with the soft murmur of their voices. I had no business there, but I pretended to have, and went from dingy door to dingy door, lingering and loitering all round the court, that I might listen. They did not stare at me any more than I did at them--plainly, they would not have thought of such rudeness--but they went on with their talk, speaking their language and mine with tones and inflections that I never heard from two women of like position in "America."

I was reminded of this afterward when one morning, at a great house, a country seat, I lingered with my hostess at the breakfast table after all the rest of the family had risen. She touched a bell, and a maid, an upper servant, answered the summons. No servants, by the way, wait at breakfast there, even in great houses. After you are once started, and the tea is made, you are left alone, to wait upon yourselves--a fashion full of comfort, making breakfast the most sociable meal of the day.

When the maid appeared the lady spoke at once, and the servant stopped at the door and replied, and there was a little dialogue about some household matter. The young woman's answers were little more than, "Yes, my Lady," and, "No, my Lady," but I was charmed by them--more so than I have ever been by a lecture or a recitation from the lips of one of the s.e.x. She spoke in a subdued tone; but every syllable was distinct, although she was at the further end of a large dining-room. Her mistress's voice was no less clear and sweet and charming, and as they talked, in their low, even tones, with perfect ease and understanding at this distance, the whole of the great room resounded sweetly with this spoken music. When English is spoken in this way by a woman of superior breeding and intelligence there is, of course, an added charm, and it is then the most delightful speech that I ever heard, or can imagine.

Compared with it, German becomes hideous and ridiculous, French mean and snappish, Spanish too weak and open-mouthed, and even Italian, n.o.ble and sweet as it is, seems to lack a certain firmness and crispness, and to be without a homely charm that it may not lack to those whose mother tongue is b.a.s.t.a.r.d Latin.

One reason of this beauty of the speech of Englishwomen is doubtless in the voice itself. An Englishwoman's voice is soft, but it is not weak.

It is notably firm, clear, and vibrating. It is neither guttural nor nasal. While it soothes the ear, it compels attention. Like the tone of a fine old Cremona violin, its softest vibrations make themselves heard and understood when mere noise makes only confusion. Such voices are not entirely lacking among women in "America"; but, alas! how few of the fortunate possessors of such voices here use them worthily! For the other element of the beauty of the Englishwoman's speech is in her utterance. "Her voice is ever soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman." Shakespeare knew the truth in this, as in so many other things. One of the very few points on which we may be sure of his personal preferences is that he disliked high voices and sharp speech in women. Singular man! I fear that his ears would suffer here. The Englishwoman's voice is strong as well as sweet, but her speech is low.

She rarely raises her voice. I do not remember having ever heard an Englishwoman try to compel attention in that way; but I have heard French and Spanish and Italian women, ladies of unquestionable position and breeding, almost scream, and that, too, in society. Nor does the Englishwoman use much emphasis. Her manner of speech is calm, although without any suggestion of dignity, and her inflections, which rise often, although they are full of meaning, are gentle. I remarked this difference in her speech of itself, but much more when I heard again the speech of my own countrywomen. I had not been in their company five minutes--not one--when I was pierced through from ear to ear. They seemed to me to be talking in italics, to be emphasizing every word, as if they would thrust it into my ears, whether I would or not. They seemed to scream at me. They did scream. I am sure that to their emphatic and almost fierce utterance is due, in a very great measure, the inferior charm of their speech, when compared with that of their sisters who have remained in the "old home." If they would be a little more gentle, a little less self-a.s.serting, a little less determined, and a little more persuasive in their utterance as well as in their manner, I am sure that, with all their other advantages, they need fear no rivalry in womanly charm, even with the truly feminine, sensible, soft-mannered, sweet-voiced women of England.

RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

LIFE INSURANCE.

The most certain, and at the same time the most uncertain of events, is the period of the termination of human life. This is a seeming paradox; nay, it is more than seeming. The time when any member of the human family will shuffle off this mortal coil no science can forecast, no art discover; but the successive numbers out of any thousand men of given ages who will, year after year, die, has been ascertained by actual count in so many instances and verified by experience for so long a time, that it is safe to say that no law in nature is better established by proof. Given these elements, how easy to erect the fabric of life insurance--how easy to spread among the many the misfortunes of the individuals who die untimely deaths, their numbers being known beforehand.

Upon this paradox life insurance rests. It is at once one of the most simple and one of the most beneficent methods ever invented for alleviating the evils necessarily incident to our complex civilization.

For a trifling sum, a man may make provision for his family against untimely death, and thus gain the quiet of soul and peace of mind necessary for the pursuit of his avocation.

But I do not mean to sing a paean to life insurance. It may be safely said that the subject is not new, or the field uncultivated. On the contrary, the topic has been said and sung in prose and verse for so long that it ceases to attract for novelty's sake; while we have all heard the ubiquitous agent sound its praises in our ears, until it appeared to our excited imagination as if there were no need of any further want, or care, or trouble in the world, and that life insurance was, or was about to be, or at least

Might be the be-all and the end-all here.

The object of the present writer is to suggest the spots upon the sun, to point out the fallacies, the faults, and the frauds which have been allowed to grow up around the system, and to make some suggestions for the cure of the evils and their prevention.

To begin with, the frauds in life insurance date from the period when companies were started for the purpose of making money, and with the appearance of being philanthropical inst.i.tutions. Savings banks have gone through the same experience, and it is a sad one. Men who attempt to lead the public to believe that they are engaged in an enterprise based, not upon the selfish principle of profit, but upon the unselfish principle of doing good, and who then deliberately go to work to fill their own coffers by means of the business, are, to say the least, obtaining their money by false pretences.

The capital of the Continental Life Insurance Company was $100,000, and although, by the original charter, the stock-holders were ent.i.tled to share with the policy-holders in the profits of the business, yet some years ago an arrangement was made, upon the transfer of the risks of another company to the Continental, that only seven per cent. should be paid to stock-holders. Ever since the yearly statement to the State authorities set forth under oath that only seven per cent. had been paid to stock-holders, all the rest of the profits being presumably divided among the policy-holders. But now, when the light is let in upon this company, it appears that it always paid its stock-holders eighteen to twenty-eight per cent., and that while, of late years, only seven per cent. was charged on the books, yet the money was paid just the same.

Then, too, lest the policy-holders should get too much profits to be divided among them, princely salaries were paid to the officers and agents, and upon these salaries annuities were predicated, which were also commuted, capitalized, and surrendered to the company each year. I hardly know how to characterize this scheme. It came out in the evidence of an officer, who said he had $2,000 per annum, with an annuity of five per cent. That sounds quite simple, and persons not fully informed on the subject of life insurance would hesitate to expose their ignorance by asking questions. The annuity turns out to be $100 per annum for life, which at the time it is granted the company capitalized and purchased back, paying about $1,000 therefor. But next year there is another annuity for life granted, of the same amount, which is again purchased, and so on continually. The effect is to add to the officers'

salaries, yearly, about fifty per cent., and at the same time conceal it from the public, the State department, and the policy-holders. The president's $17,500 thus became over $26,000, without attracting attention. Besides, it helps demonstrate the scientific principles upon which life insurance and life annuities are based, and by practically ill.u.s.trating to the managers themselves the potency of algebraic formula in figuring large sums out of small, convinced them of the truth of the arguments which they are to make to the agents, and the agents to the public, by which the money is to be brought in to keep this fine system going.

You will say that this is only one case, and that it is an exception, and that companies honestly managed will not permit such things. I grant you the latter part of your answer, but ask you to show me an honestly managed company; I know but very few. It will be found, on investigation, that these practices, or others quite as bad, flourish in every company, in this State at least, with few exceptions.

Commuted commissions is another item under the thin disguise of which the policy-holders are robbed, but I defer the consideration of that topic for that of changing policies, to which more pressing interest attaches.

When a life policy has run for a certain number of years, and the company has received upon the policy a large number of premiums, it is obliged, both by prudential reasons and by law, to hold against the liability upon it a certain sum of money. This sum is called the reserve. It is also called the reinsurance fund. It is in fact the sum which the company has been improving at compound interest against the day when the policy must be paid. If for any reason the policy lapses--say for non-payment of premium--this sum becomes the property of the company. No policy-holder knows what the reserve on his policy is, and the company will not tell him. It is one of those interesting facts which you are not expected to ask questions about. It requires a complicated calculation to arrive at it. The officers tell you so. The fact is that every company has a book of tables which will tell you the reserve at any moment, and the policy register should show the reserve returned to the department the previous January. It will be seen that if the company can induce the policy-holder to sell his policy to them for a sum less than the reserve, it makes the difference in profit. This is what is known as freezing out. This is open, notorious, bold robbery.

But there is a secret method which accomplishes the same result. This is known as changing. If the company is not ready to incur the odium of attempting to purchase its policies, it sends accomplished agents to persuade its policy-holders that some new form of policy is more desirable than the old. Hence the numerous plans of insurance. In the change, it is safe to say that the reserve on the old policy is pretty well used up, and out of it the agent takes a slice, and a pretty good slice, and who takes the rest of it is no mystery. Every policy-holder in a life insurance company who is asked to surrender his policy and take money for it, or another policy, may rest a.s.sured that there is a fraud at the bottom of the transaction, and that whoever will make money by it, he will not. In the reinsurance of companies, and the consequent changes of policies from one company to another, this has been the method by which the promoters of the scheme have realized large amounts of money.

Leaving the fertile subject of changing policies, and the frauds of which that operation has been made the vehicle, let me examine the subject of supervision by the State over the companies, and the effect which such supervision has had upon the business. Of course the theory of a State department is that of supervision. It is based upon the power of visitation, as exercised by the founders of hospitals and colleges, for the purpose of seeing that the corporation is carrying out the will of the founder. Here the State, having conferred a corporate franchise, has the right to see that the franchise is properly exercised. To that end an officer is appointed, to whom each corporation is to make annual, detailed reports of its operations, and who is vested with the power of examining the companies, to ascertain if their reports be correct, and if the laws have been complied with. There is no doubt but that if the power were properly exercised, the action of the Superintendent of Insurance would have a beneficial effect. The great difficulty in carrying out the supervision effectively has been, however, the imperfect character of the legislation on the subject. The laws fix an arbitrary standard of solvency, which binds the Superintendent hand and foot.

Insurance experts differ very widely as to the correctness of this standard. It obliges the companies to have on hand invested a sum of money, being a certain arithmetical proportion to the amount of outstanding insurance. A company may not have this amount and yet be solvent, and have before it a long and prosperous career of usefulness.

Another company may have the technical amount of a.s.sets and yet be rotten to the core. It is said that the very largest and best managed companies have pa.s.sed through periods when if this criterion were to have been applied to their condition, they would have been weighed and found wanting. The mere amount of a.s.sets at any given time cannot be a positive test of the condition of the business. The expense of doing business in one company may be small, and all of it taken out of the premium for the first year, in which case the technical reserve at the end of the year may be very much impaired; yet the company may be in a most promising and flourishing condition, with a good business on its books, and a large future income secure without further cost. On the other hand, a company may have the full technical reserve and yet have acquired its business at ruinous application, out of its future premiums, of large commissions. With laws so imperfect, with no provision for examining the commercial condition of a company, it is not strange that State supervision should gradually fade into an empty form.

It is true the department has been for some years kept in full apparent efficiency. There has been a respectable head, and a very full body of clerks duly appointed at the suggestion of members of the Senate. These clerks have been agreeably employed in receiving, folding, and filing the reports of the various companies; in receiving applications for licenses from agents of foreign companies; in issuing such licenses; in furnishing printed copies of the charters of companies to all who apply for the same, and also copies of the reports of the companies. These duties are supplemented by that of collecting the fees for the various services, and by the composition of answers to letters of policy-holders of the most Delphic character. The head of the department, I suppose, is meantime fully employed in digesting the statements of the companies and preparing his annual report of their condition, to be presented to the Legislature, and afterward printed and bound in gilt covers, for distribution among his const.i.tuents. These reports are quite pleasant reading. You will find year after year faint and delicate suggestions as to amendatory laws, opinions that there is doubt of the legality of amalgamations, and other twaddle. Not a word, however, denunciatory of the frauds being perpetrated under the very nose of the department, and which every man in the State can see quite plainly but himself. Of the epistolary productions of the Superintendent, it is hard to speak. If language be given to conceal thought, how well it is used by the Department of Insurance. Complaints, charges, requests to examine--all are met so politely, so evasively, that while you feel you are being put off, and that your request will not be granted, you know not why you are refused.

Thus the Department of Insurance ran its natural course. It became a storehouse of heaps of meaningless figures. The companies soon found that their mistakes were not corrected, and it became convenient to make mistakes. Gradually false statements grew out of exaggerated ones. Cash in bank would continue to represent money which had been lost by a bank failure. In one sense it was cash in bank--cash that would never again come out. Then money in the hands of agents is an item which could rise and sink with great facility. In some companies it grew to such proportions as to warrant the suspicion that pretty soon all the money of the company would be in the hands of agents, and very bad hands to be in they have generally proven, have these agents' hands. The books of the Continental Company show about a million of dollars in the hands of those gentlemen, with very little chance of any considerable portion of it ever getting into the hands of the receiver.

And the worst of this condition of affairs with respect to the Insurance Department is that it is a delusion and a snare. If there were no supervision, people would exercise their judgment themselves, uninfluenced by annual reports and all the apparently officially recognized, columnar, battalions of carefully disposed statistics. Then instead of producing certificates with the departmental seal authenticating solvency, the life insurance solicitor would be forced to prove his company ent.i.tled to credit by other and more convincing arguments. Naturally enough, the plain people suppose that when the State undertakes to regulate the business, it will do the work which it undertakes well and honestly. It has in fact done neither. While saying to the country, our companies are under strict supervision; they are obliged to make annual reports; and if there is any item in that report which leads the Superintendent to believe the company should be examined, it is immediately done, and we permit no company to continue in business unless it has a.s.sets enough to reinsure all its outstanding contracts. That is what in effect the State of New York says. How far otherwise are its actual doings let the history of the Continental and the Security answer. The receiver of the first named says it has been insolvent for five or six years, and insurance people gravely suspected that for some time. As to the Security, any boy in a life company will tell you that its absolute insolvency has been well known for at least two years to all persons having any knowledge of the business at all, who have read their annual reports. Nevertheless the department did not interfere. The Continental let it be understood in California that they were insolvent, so that they could buy in their contracts at a low price. At home they keep up the appearance of solvency, go through the solemn farce of making out reports and filing them in the department, showing a surplus of nearly a million, when in fact there was a deficiency of two millions.

What an efficient department! What a splendid system! How careful of the interests of the public! What a fatherly State to its expectant widows and orphans!

Just here is the vice of the whole system. Relying on the care of the State officers, the policy-holder takes out his policy and continues his payments year after year. Relying on a broken reed!

Can it be conceived possible that the real owners of two hundred millions of dollars would abandon to directors the entire charge of their interests and the interests of those dear to them, unless they were inspired by faith in that governmental supervision which they were led to believe would be effectual to protect their interests, and to make safe the provision which they had made, not for themselves, but for those helpless ones whom it is the duty of the State to care for, and the boast of our system of jurisprudence that it protects with jealous care?