The gentlemanliness and Gallantry of Americans have at all times been acknowledged by observers of all nationalities; and it is indeed hardly too much to say that the average American is disposed to treat the whole female sex with a studied Gallantry, which in most European countries is reserved by men for the one girl with whom they happen to be in love. Even the irate and vituperative Anthony Trollope in his book on North America was obliged to admit that “It must be borne in mind that in that country material wellbeing and education are more extended than with us, and that therefore men there have learned to be chivalrous who with us have hardly progressed so far. The conduct of the men to the women throughout the states is always gracious.... But it seems to me that the women have not advanced as far as the men have done.... In America the spirit of chivalry has sunk deeper among men than it has among women.” Anthony Trollope is by no means the only writer who has put his finger on the greatest foible of American women. No doubt they have, as a class, been spoiled by excessive masculine Gallantry. They do not, like the women of the Troubadour period, who were similarly spoilt, go quite so far as to send their knights on crusades and among lepers, but they often shroud themselves in an atmosphere of selfishness which is very unfeminine—to choose a complimentary adjective. In the East, where there is already a large excess of women over men, this evil is less marked than in the West, where women are still in a minority. Thus the Denver _Tribune_, in an article on “The Impoliteness of Women,” remarks: “If there is any characteristic of Americans of which they are more proud than any other, it is the courtesy which the men who are natives of this country exhibit towards women, and the respect which the gentler sex receives in public. This is a trait of the American character of which Americans are justly proud, and in which they doubtless excel the people of any other country. But while this is true of the men, it is a matter to be deeply regretted that as much cannot be said of the women of this country.” After praising American women for their beauty, vivacity, high moral character, and other charms, the _Tribune_ adds that they “seem very generally to be prompted in their conduct in public by a spirit of selfishness which very often finds expression in acts of positive rudeness.” They are ungrateful, it continues, to the men who give up their seats in street-cars; they compel men to step into a muddy street, instead of walking one behind the other at a crossing; and at such places as the stamp-window of the post-office they do not wait for their turn, but force the men to stand aside.