The Ancient Styles and Designations of Persons. 345 
grown up unmarried ladies, though the mother was living, and for 
a considerable part of the century maintained its ground against 
the infantine term of “ Miss.” 
At the Sun Fire Office, which was established in the year 1710, 
all ladies were in their policies of insurance styled ‘“ Mrs.” without 
any regard to their being married or single, but within the last 
three years the single ladies are in their policies styled ‘“ Miss,” as 
they do not like to be called “Mrs.” A hundred years ago they 
would have been offended at being called Miss, as that was then a 
term of contempt if not of reproach. 
In a work called “The Lover,” edited by Sir Richard Steele 
(p. 18), under the date of Feb. 27, 1714, is the following note 
in the edition printed in 1789 by Mr. J. Nichols, “That 
young women were at this time usually styled ‘ Mrs,’ has been 
repeatedly shown by the Zutler. It may be new to observe that 
it appears from the Register Book of St. Bride’s, London, that 
early in the last century children were so denominated when their 
names were recorded in baptism.” 
Miss. 
Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, [Tit. “ Miss,’’] defines this to be 
“the term of honour to a young girl ;” and Todd, in his edition of 
the Dictionary, adds, “ Miss, at the beginning of the last century, 
was appropriated to the daughters of gentlemen under the age of 
ten, or given opprobriously to young gentlewomen reproachable 
for the giddiness or irregularity of their conduct :” and he cites 
the notes to Steele’s Epist: Corres:, vol. 1, p.92. Todd also cites the 
following passage from Dean Swift : “ When there are little masters 
and misses in a house, they are great impediments to the diversions 
’ which shows that a little girl in his time was 
of the servants ;’ 
styled “ Miss.” 
In Galt’s Lives of the Players,! it is said that “the epithet Miss 
in the 17th century was a term of reproach. Miss Cross, who is 
particularly noticed in Hayne’s Epilogue to Farquhar’s “ Love and 
a Bottle,” about 1702, was the first actress announced as Miss.” 
LVOls Ly Par aon 
