PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 99.

July 26, 1890.

MODERN TYPES.

(By Mr. Punch's own Type Writer.)

No. XVI.—THE HURLINGHAM GIRL.

It is not so easy as it might appear to define the Hurlingham Girl with complete accuracy. To say of her that she is one whose spirits are higher than her aspirations, would be true but inadequate. For, at the best, aspirations are etherial things, and those of the Hurlingham Girl, if they ever existed, have been so recklessly puffed into space as to vanish almost entirely from view. In any case they afford a very unsubstantial basis of comparison to the student who seeks to infer from them her general character. Yet it would be wrong to assume that she has dispensed with the etherial on account of her devotion to what is solid. Indeed nothing is more certain about her than the contempt with which she has been willingly taught to look upon all the attainments that are usually dignified with this epithet. History and geography, classics and mathematics, modern languages (her own and those of foreign nations), all these she candidly despises. Let others make their nests upon the shady branches of the tree of learning. For herself she is fain to soar into the empyrean of society, and to gaze with undazzled eyes into the sun of the smart set. She has of course had the advantage of teachers of all sorts, but the claims made upon her time by thoughtless parents have usually been so great as to leave her at the end of her school-room period with a few brittle fragments of knowledge, which shift and change in her mind as the bits of glass might shift in a kaleidoscope from which the looking-glass had been omitted. It is enough for her if, in place of historical dates, she knows the fashionable fixtures, whilst Sandown and Kempton, Ascot and Goodwood, Hurlingham, and the Ranelagh, supply her with a variety of knowledge infinitely more interesting and "actual" than the dry details of population, area, climate, and capital towns, which may be learnt (by others) from primers of geography.

Although it is, from their and her point of view, eminently desirable that the parents of the Hurlingham Girl should be rich, yet it is by no means absolutely necessary. It is, however, essential that they should possess a social position which will ensure to them and to their daughter an easy entrance into that world which considers itself, not perhaps better, but certainly good. Her mother has probably discovered long since that the task of being thwarted by her daughter is an intolerable addition to her social burdens. She therefore permits her, with as much resignation as she can command, to take her own course in all those matters that do not conflict directly with the maternal plans, and she may even come to take a pride in the bold and dashing independence by which her daughter seeks to relieve her of all responsibility, if not of all anxiety.

It is naturally during the London Season that the life of the Hurlingham Girl is at its fullest and best. On week-day mornings she is a frequent attendant in the Row, the means of her father being apparently sufficient to provide her with a sleek and showy Park hack and an irreproachable groom. Thence she hastens home to rest and dawdle until the hour arrives for luncheon, to which meal she has invited the youth who happens to be temporarily dancing attendance upon her, for it is understood in many houses that luncheon is an open meal for which no formal invitation from a parent is necessary. In the afternoon there is always a bazaar, an amateur concert, an exhibition, a fashionable matinée or a Society tea-party to be visited. For the evening there are dinners, and theatres, and an endless succession of dances, at which the flowers, the suppers, and the general decorations possess as much or as little variety as the conversation of those who overcrowd the rooms to an accompaniment of dance-music that may once have been new.

But of course there are distractions. Now and again Society seeks relief from its load of care by emigrating en masse for the day to a race-meeting at Sandown or Kempton. There the Hurlingham Girl is as much at home as though she were native to the spot, sprung, as it were, from the very turf itself. The interest she takes or pretends to take in racing is something astounding. For in truth she knows nothing about horses, their points, their pedigrees, or their performances. Yet she chatters about them and their races, their jockeys, their owners, the weight they carry, their tempers, and the state of the betting market, with a glib assurance which is apt to put to shame even those of her male companions who have devoted a lifetime to the earnest study of these supreme matters. In imitation of these gentlemen she will assure those who care to listen to her, that she has had a real bad day, not having managed to get on to a single winner, and that if it hadn't been for a fluke in backing Tantivy, one, two, three, she would have been reduced to a twopence in the pound condition of beggary. She will then forget her imaginary losses, and will listen with amusement and interest while a smooth-faced lad criticises with as much severity as he can command in the intervals of his cigarettes the dress, appearance, and general character of a lady whom she happens to dislike. On the following day she will visit Hurlingham in order to be looked at as a spectator at a polo match, in which she has no interest whatever. After this she is entertained at dinner together with a select party, which includes the young married lady who is her bosom friend and occasional chaperon, by a middle-aged dandy of somewhat shady antecedents, but of great wealth and undoubted position. On Sunday mornings she may not always go to Church, but she makes up for this neglect by the perfect regularity of her attendance at Church parade. In the afternoon she will go to Tattersall's to inspect horses. Ascot could not continue without her, and Goodwood would crumble into ruins if she were absent. This at least is her opinion, and thus the months flit by and leave her just as wise as they found her. For she never reads a book, and illustrates by constant practice her belief that the fashionable intelligence of the Morning Post is a sufficient mental pabulum for a grown-up woman.

It is unnecessary to describe further the pursuits and occupations of the Hurlingham Girl. With regard to her appearance and dress, it must be admitted that she displays considerable taste. She is always neat, polished, perfectly groomed—in a word, smart. It may be that it takes nine tailors to make a man. It is certain that it takes only one to make a well-dressed woman. Yet she does not always, of course, wear tailor-made costumes, for on the Sundays that she spends on the river, her impertinently poised straw hats, her tasteful ribbons, her sailor's knots, her collars, her manly shirts, and the general appropriateness of her dress, excite the envy of those who declare that they would not imitate her for worlds, merely because nature has made it impossible for them to be like her. Handsome she is undoubtedly, with the beauty that comes of perfect health undisturbed by thoughts of the why and the wherefore, or by anticipations of a troublesome to-morrow. Yet to the casual observer who beholds this admirably decorated creature, her conversation is disappointing. She revels in slang. Catch-words and phrases which are not called vulgar only because the better classes use them, come trippingly, but never with a pleasant effect from her lips. Nor has she that sense of