202 AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



acters seem to keep a sweet side from corruption to 

 the last, and you will see good manners everywhere. 



We boast of our deference to women, but, if the 

 Old World made her a tool, we are fast making her 

 a toy ; and the latter is the more hopeless condition. 

 But among the better classes in England I am con- 

 vinced that woman is regarded more as a sister and 

 an equal than in this country, and is less subject to 

 insult and to leering, brutal comment there than here. 

 We are her slave or her tyrant ; so seldom her 

 brother and friend. I thought it a significant fact 

 that I found no place of amusement set apart for the 

 men ; where one sex went the other went ; what was 

 sauce for the gander was sauce for the goose ; and the 

 spirit that prevailed was soft and human accordingly. 

 The hotels had no " ladies' entrance," but all passed 

 in and out the same door, and met and mingled com- 

 monly in the same room, and the place was as much 

 for one as for the other. It was no more a mascu- 

 line monopoly than it was a feminine. Indeed, in 

 the country towns and villages the character of the 

 inns is unmistakably given by woman ; hence the 

 sweet, domestic atmosphere that pervades and fills 

 them is balm to the spirit. Even the larger hotels of 

 Liverpool and London have a private, cosy home 

 character that is most delightful. On entering them, 

 instead of finding yourself in a sort of public thorough- 

 fare or political caucus, amid crowds of men talking, 

 and smoking, and spitting, with stalls on either side, 

 where cigars and tobacco, and books and papers are 



