A SHOCKINGLY RUDE ARTICLE.

BEFORE I begin to write, I know that this
will be an unpopular article in certain select
quarters. I mean to proceed with it,
however, in spite of that conviction, because when
I have got something on my mind, I must
positively speak. Is it necessary, after that,
to confess that I am a woman? If it is, I
make the confession—to my sorrow. I
would much rather be a man.

I hope nobody will be misled by this
beginning into looking for another among the
many lectures recently delivered to the world
in general on the rights of women. Ridiculous
creatures! they have too many rights
already; and if they don't hold their chattering
tongues, one of these days the poor dear
deluded men will find them out.

The poor dear men! Mentioning them,
reminds me of what I have got to say.  I
have been staying at the seaside, and reading
an immense quantity of novels and periodicals,
and all that sort of thing, lately; and
my idea is, that the men-writers (the only
writers worth reading) are in the habit of
using each other very unfairly in books and
articles, and so on. Look where I may, I
find, for instance, that the large proportion of
the bad characters in their otherwise very
charming stories, are always men. As if
women were not a great deal worse! Then,
again, most of the amusing fools in their
books are, strangely and unaccountably, of
their own sex, in spite of its being perfectly
apparent that the vast majority of that sort
of character is to be found in ours. On the
other hand, while they make out their own
half of humanity (as I have distinctly proved)
so much too bad, they go to the contrary
extreme the other way, and make out our half
so much too good. What in the world do
they mean by representing us as so much
better and so much prettier, than we really
are! Upon my word, when I see what
angels the dear nice good men make of their
heroines, and when I think of myself, and of
the whole circle of my female friends
besides, I feel almost sick,—I do, indeed.

I should very much like to go into the
whole of this subject at once, and speak my
sentiments on it at the fullest length. But I
suppose there is no room for me to do that in
one number of this paper, or periodical, or
publication, or whatever it is you call it. No
matter; I will go into a part of the subject
instead; for, considering that I am a woman,
and making immense allowances for me on
that account, I am really not altogether
unreasonable. Give me a page or two and I
will show in one particular, and, what is
more, from real life, how absurdly partial
the men-writers are to our sex, and how
scandalously unjust they are to their own.

Bores.—Speaking as a woman of business,
who knows what she is about when she
descends into details, what I propose is, that
we take for our present example characters
of Bores alone. If we were only to read
men's novels, articles and so forth, I don't
hesitate to say we should assume that all the
Bores in the human creation were of the
male sex. It is generally, if not always, a
man in men's books, who tell the long-
winded story and turns up at the wrong
time, and makes himself altogether odious
and intolerable to everybody he comes in
contact with, without being in the least
aware of it himself. How very unjust, and,
I must be allowed to add, how extremely
untrue! Women are quite as bad, or worse.
Do, good gentlemen, look about you
impartially, for once in a way, and own the truth.
Good gracious! is not society full of Lady-
Bores? Why not give them a turn
when you write next?

Two instances: I will quote only two
instances out of hundreds I could produce
from my own acquaintance. Only two;
because, as I said before, I am reasonable about
not taking up room. I can put things into a
very small space when I write, as well as
when I travel. I should like the Conductor
of this journal (which I should certainly not
take in if it was edited by a woman) to see
how very little luggage I travel with. At
any rate, he shall see how little room I can
cheerfully put up with in these columns.

My first Lady-Bore—see how quickly I get
to the matter in hand, without wasting so
much as a single line in prefatory phrases!—
my first Lady-Bore is Miss Sticker. I don't
in the least mind mentioning her name;
because I know, if she got the chance, she
would do just the same by me. It is of no
use disguising the fact, so I may as well