To the Editor of the Noxra-Cuixa Datty New:
Six,—Since you have taken to dictating to us in your daily columns as to the rules of procedure among ladies, and the uccasions on which they might, as you think, be with advantage set aside; since you have intimated that you prefer to play paper games alone in your study with a desk and ink bottle all to yourself, and that when a man dines out, he has no thought of entertaining his hostess, or her other guests, but ought to be allowed to sit in corner alone, because, forsooth after a hard day's work his brains are lagging, in which case we should have thought he would do better tu stop at home, and excuse his bodily absence, since it seems his mind could not anyhow be present; is it too much to ask you to go @ little further, and point out to the Shanghai young mau the error of his ways? For it seems to us it is not only the ladies of the present time who are in fault, There are men sv misguided—they are Naval otlicers mostly that they will actually pay " lady the compliment of going up to dak, and even otfering her their art to walk about the room, when they do not expect, nor even wish to get a waltz out of her. It is even rumoured that ong man has lately asked a well known married lady to introduce him to a young girl sitting beside her, purtnertess, The lady of course did not introduce him, dancing with him in silence herself instead. But ought such a compliment to be paid by self-respecting young man to any young lady—just because she is partnerless, not well known dancer. We have also observed
are beginning to ask other men's wives to be with much a onishment and regret that men allowed the honour of taking them down to supper, or getting them a cup of tea, as is usual in the played-out old world of London and Paris, instead of as heretofore Heaving ladies dependent—as they should always be—on their own husbands, unless there be a definite quid pro quo in: the shape of 4 dance to be obtained. We feel quite sure that none of these enormities will take place at the Country Club to-night, where no gentleman would naturally dream of introducing, or otherwise trying to make the evening pass pleasantly for any new comer, the invited guest of somebody else. There we feel sure the vid custom of secking your own pleasure, your own dances, your own drinks will be honoured in the observance, not the breach. But it is time that a definite stand should be made, and we should recommend that any mat observed making himself agreeable to a lady, or conducting her about the room for no object at all, but only out of courtesy, hould be once and for all ostracized. Tu this way dinner parties and dances will alike be saved from becoming too lively. From which may the good sense of all Shanghailanders preserve us, We beg to subscribe ourselves, Sir, A quorum of the Suaxouar Laptes' Denatixe Sovtety on 9th December.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.