With all the space given recently in our columns to the morals and manners of bachelors and ma'ds, some of the community appear to feel that their case will receive more sympathetic treatment further afield. And thus we find the tastes of local girls described in a letter to the "Overseas Daily Mail" by a "Mr. J. C. W." whose address is Poste Restante, British Post Office, Shanghai. He couiplains of the indisposition of any but Eurasian and Chinese girls to marry people of moderate means, and after pointing out the numbe~ of surplus women in England and the dearth of the Home product here, adds that "European (particularly English) girls are generally satisfied with nothing less than a taipan." He has }een out here for nine years, is a a "good steady job with 'a comfor: able though not startling income, viz. Tls. 300 a month (about £1,000 a year at present rate of exchange)." and he wants to know whether any reader feels inclined to wed or, as he puts it, "take the place of what may be from sheer necessity a. Eurasian, Chinese Japanese girl." It cannot be described as a pleasant letter; it shows considerable bitterness of soul. And what is equally bad, the community as a whole seems disinclined to worry over a case of this sort. Recently, it may be remembered, some correspondents of ours were diverting themselves over the plethora of reluctant lovers, yet when a letter appeared rethe necessity for firms paying salaries adequate to marry upon, there was no sympathetic response anywhere. - Are we then to take it that marriage is regarded by the bulk of the affluent as a luxury only for the rich?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.