GALLANTRY. 1. In comparing modern with ancient manners, we are disposed to compliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry which we are supposed to pay to females, as females. 2. I shall believe this principle actuates our conduct, when I see in the nineteenth century of the era from which we date our civility, the same attention paid to age as to youth, to homely features as to handsome, to coarse complexion as to clear; to the woman as she is a woman, not as she is a beauty, a fortune, or a title. 3. I shall believe this principle actuates our conduct, when I see that a well-dressed gentleman, in a well-dressed company, can advert to the topic of female old age without exciting a sneer. I shall believe that this principle actuates our conduct, when the phrase, "antiquated spinster," pronounced in good company, shall raise immediate offence in the man or woman that shall hear it spoken. 4. I shall believe that gallantry is something better than a name, when we shall cease to hear by the wayside, in the street, in the mart, or 'in the turbulent crowd, remarks that offend the ear of delicacy. 5. And finally, I shall begin to think that gallantry is something, when, even in the fashionable lecture room, no allusions shall be made, either in reference to the condition or age of any class of females, which do excite, and are intended to excitè, a smile. 6. Until that day comes, I never shall believe that gallantry is any thing better than a conventional fiction, got up between the sexes, in a certain rank and at a certain time of life, in which both find their account equally. 7. Joseph Paxton, of Breadstreet Hill, merchant, I and one of the directors of the South Sea Company, was the only pattern of consistent gallantry I have ever met with. He took me under his protection at an early age, and bestowed some pains upon me. owe to his precepts and example whatever there is of the gentleman in my composition. It was not his fault that I did not profit more. 8. He was bred a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, and was the finest gentleman of his time. 9. He had not one system of attention to females in the drawing room and another in the shop, and still another at the stall. I do not mean that he made no distinction; but he never lost sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casualties of a disadvantageous situation. 10. I have seen him stand bareheaded smile, if you please - while a poor servant girl has been inquiring of him the way to some street, in such a position of unforced civility as neither to embarrass her in the acceptance, nor himself in the offer of it. 11. He was no dangler after women, but he reverenced womanhood in every form in which it came before him. 12. I have seen him nay, smile not tenderly escorting a market woman, whom he had encountered in a storm, holding his umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no harm, with as much cheerfulness as if she had been a countess. 13. He was never married, but, in his youth, he had paid his addresses to the beautiful Susan Walsingham, old Walsingham's daughter, of Clopton, who, dying in the early days of their courtship, confirmed him in the resolution of perpetual bachelorship. 14. He told me that he had been one day treating his mistress with a profusion of civil speeches, the common gallantries, to which kind of thing she had hitherto manifested no repugnance, but, in this case, she seemed rather to resent his compliment. 15. He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always shown herself above that little ness. 16. When he ventured on the following day, finding her a little better humored, to expostulate with her on her coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that she had no dislike to his attention—that she could endure some high-flown compliments. 17. As a young lady, placed in her situation, might expect all sorts of civil things said to her, she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, with as little injury to her humility as most young women. 18. But a little before he commenced his compliments to her, she had overheard him, in rather rough language, rating a young woman for not bringing home his cravats at the appointed time. 19. She then thought to herself, "As I am Miss Susan Walsingham, a young lady, a reputed beauty, and known to be a fortune, I can have my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth of this fine gentleman who is courting me. 20. “But if I had been poor Mary Burns, the milliner, and had failed to bring home the cravats at the appointed hour, though I had set up half the night to forward them, what sort of compliments should I have received then?" 21. My woman's pride now began to rise, and I was determined not to receive fine speeches from one who would not do me the honor to treat a female like myself with handsome usage. 22. I think the lady discovered both generosity and a just way of thinking in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have sometimes imagined, that the uncommon strain of courtesy which through life regulated the actions and behavior of my friend towards all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to this seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented mistress. 23. I wish the whole female world would entertain the same notion of these things that Miss Walsingham showed. Then we should see something of the spirit of consistent gallantry, and no longer witness the anomaly of the same man, a pattern of politeness to his mistress, and of rudeness to his unfortunate maiden aunt or cousin. 24. Just so much rudeness, incivility, or disrespect as a woman tacitly permits a single individual to manifest towards any one of her own sex, in whatever condition placed, she deserves to receive herself. 25. What a woman should demand of man is, respect for her as she is a woman. Let her stand upon her female character as upon an immovable foundation, a foundation not to be shaken by rudeness or incivility. Let her first lesson be, with sweet Susan Walsingham, to reverence her sex. THE PETITION. About sixty thousand operatives in the United States make the following representation, praying that the condition of certain individuals of their class may be ameliorated. To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, and to the Sovereign People: 1. WE, the constituents of the English language, whose names and origin, characters and duties, are so faithfully exhibited in Johnson's, Webster's, and Worcester's Dictionaries, would respectfully represent, that many of us have received the kindest treatment from our employers, from time immemorial. 2. Some thousands of us, indeed, might die of idleness, were it possible, having nothing to do but to sleep, being shut up in the dormitory of a dictionary, or in some learned book which the great mass of the people never open. 3. But of this we do not complain. Nor do we account it much of an evil, that certain Yankees make us weary with the monstrously long drawl with which they articulate us. 4. But we do complain that certain of our brethren are exceedingly abused, and made wretched, by some thousands, and perhaps millions, of the citizens of the United States. 5. Their piteous groans have shocked our ears; their sufferings have pained our sympathizing hearts for many years. We can endure no longer; we must speak. 6. We come, then, supplicating you to take measures for the relief of the sufferings of those of our number whose names and particular subjects of complaint shall now be enumerated. 7. Arithmetic, that accurate calculator, indispensable to this mighty and money-making nation, grievously complains that he is obliged to work for thousands without the use of A head, and deprived of one of his two i's. Here is a picture of his mutilated form: Rethmetic! 8. T seems to suit the constitution of Priests; and they always want t once, at least, in every one of their feasts. Pray tell us why they should be deprived of so simple, and in many cases, so necessary, a beverage as t. Deprived of their t, the Pries s always hiss their disapprobation. 9. If is deemed an unwholesome beverage; if it |