r her, and our friend
of the 'Evening Post' is right in saying that any country will advance
more rapidly in civilization and refinement where woman is thus
sheltered and protected. And I think, furthermore, that there is no
country in the world where women _are_ so much considered and cared
for and sheltered, in every walk of life, as in America. In England
and France,--all over the continent of Europe, in fact,--the other sex
are deferential to women only from some presumption of their social
standing, or from the fact of acquaintanceship; but among strangers,
and under circumstances where no particular rank or position can be
inferred, a woman traveling in England or France is jostled and pushed
to the wall, and left to take her own chance, precisely as if she were
not a woman. Deference to delicacy and weakness, the instinct of
protection, does not appear to characterize the masculine population
of any other quarter of the world so much as that of America. In
France, _les Messieurs_ will form a circle round the fire in the
receiving-room of a railroad station, and sit, tranquilly smoking
their cigars, while ladies who do not happen to be of their
acquaintance are standing shivering at the other side of the room. In
England, if a lady is incautiously booked for an outside place on a
coach, in hope of seeing the scenery, and the day turns out hopelessly
rainy, no gentleman in the coach below ever thinks of offering to
change seats with her, though it pour torrents. In America, the
roughest backwoods steamboat or canal-boat captain always, as a matter
of course, considers himself charged with the protection of the
ladies. '_Place aux dames_' is written in the heart of many a shaggy
fellow who could not utter a French word any more than could a
buffalo. It is just as I have before said,--women are the recognized
aristocracy, the only aristocracy, of America; and, so far from
regarding this fact as objectionable, it is an unceasing source of
pride in my country.

"That kind of knightly feeling towards woman which reverences her
delicacy, her frailty, which protects and cares for her, is, I think,
the crown of manhood; and without it a man is only a rough animal. But
our fair aristocrats and their knightly defenders need to be cautioned
lest they lose their position, as many privileged orders have before
done, by an arrogant and selfish use of power.

"I have said that the vices of aristocracy are more developed among