182 WINTER SUNSHINE 



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' en- 

 trance," but all passed in and out the same door, 

 and met and mingled commonly in the same room, 

 and the place was as much for one as for the other. 

 It was no more a masculine monopoly than it was a 

 feminine. Indeed, in the country towns and vil- 

 lages 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 de- 

 lightful. On entering them, instead of finding your- 

 self in a sort of public thoroughfare or political cau- 

 cus, amid crowds of men talking and smoking and 

 spitting, with stalls on either side where cigars and 

 tobacco and books and papers are sold, you perceive 

 you are in something like a larger hall of a private 

 house, with perhaps a parlor and coffee-room on one 

 side, and the office, and smoking-room, and stair- 

 way on the other. You may leave your coat and 



