eats, however
crowded a car may be. A man seldom offers his place to another man
unless it is evident that the other, because of age, infirmity, or
extreme fatigue is greatly in need of it. Well-bred girls resign their
seats to old men, but if they refuse to accept, the girls do not insist.
At a reunion of Confederate veterans several years ago a girl rose from
her place on a street car to allow a feeble old man to sit down. He
gripped the strap fiercely.

"I ain't dead yet," he responded sturdily.

One of the chief petty complaints brought against women is that they do
not keep their places in line. Some of them appear to have neither
conscience nor compunction about dashing up to a ticket window ahead of
twenty or thirty people who are waiting for their turn. Men would do the
same thing (so men themselves say) but they know very well that the
other men in the line would make them regret it in short order. Two or
three minutes is all one can save by such methods and it is not worth
it. Even if it were more it would still not be worth it.

When a woman breaks into a line it is quite permissible for the person
behind her (whoever he or she may be) to say, "I beg your pardon, I was
here first." This should be enough. Sometimes there is an almost
desperate reason why one should get to a window. Many times everybody in
the line has the same desperate reason for being in a hurry, but now and
then in individual cases it is allowable for a woman (or a man) to ask
for another person's place. _But only if there is a most urgent reason
for it._ Much of courtesy is made up of petty sacrifices, and most of
the great sacrifices are only a larger form of courtesy. It all comes
back to Sir Philip Sidney's principle of "Thy need is greater than
mine," but it is only extraordinary circumstances which warrant one's
saying, "My need is greater than thine."

Since the beginning of time, and before (if there was any before) women
have done their share of the work of the world. Formerly their part of
it centered in the home but now that machinery has taken it out of the
home they have come out of the home too, to stand in the fields and
factories of industry by the side of their fathers and husbands and
brothers. Because they have recently been thrown into closer association
in their hours of work than ever before there has sprung up a certain
amount of strife between men and women, and a great deal is said about
how superior men are to