The Merry Past 



or no knowledge of the laws of health and were 

 besides hampered by many restrictions and customs 

 which must have impaired the free development of 

 their frame. 



How the pirate eyes of the bucks of a more 

 rakish and amorous age would have gleamed at 

 the sight of the fine strapping craft which cruise 

 about our streets, and how crestfallen would such 

 buccaneers have been at the more than probable 

 failure of any adventurous efforts to make them 

 strike their sails ! The girls of to-day are not only 

 prettier, better dressed, and more generally attractive 

 than ever before, but unlike their less sophisticated 

 sisters of the past are experts at taking care of them- 

 selves and thoroughly understand " what offers to 

 disdain or love deny." Gone are the days when 

 little hearts were wont to flutter at the sight of a 

 beau — now an extinct type. Nevertheless, the bucks 

 of the past would certainly not have failed to toast 

 beauties the like of which their own age never saw, 

 and following this example, the writer, as he says 

 farewell, raises his glass, in honour of the charming 

 and self-reliant Englishwoman of to-day. 



300 



