"Lady" for "Madam"

1895

A Young Woman of Observation Criticises the Form of Address.

"Three times today," said a young woman of observation, "I was addressed as 'lady,' I mean in the vocative. In two cases, I was bidden to come 'this way, lady,' by shop attendants, and in the third case my dentist's servant told me that it was my 'turn next, lady.' I have noticed for some time the growing tendency to use this form of address, and Jack tolls me that he has remarked the same thing in people addressing him. He told me only yesterday that he was running up the stairs at the elevated station down at the city hall when, thinking of something else, he took the wrong landing. A servant of the road barred his way and said, 'The other stairs to the ticket office, gentleman.' Jack said, moreover, that he didn't like the form of address, not that it was not perfectly respectful, he said, and he kept thinking about it all the way home. So, too, I don't mind confessing that I don't like to be told to come this way, 'lady,' or asked if I will buy anything, 'lady.'

"I know that it is a style of address that used to be considered the exclusive property of gypsies and sailormen, and I don't know if I should not be perfectly content to have it remain so. Possibly the spread of it is another evidence of the freedom of the age, and possibly, too, the shop attendant and the dentist's servant were of the opinion that to say 'lady' indicated a much less degree of inferiority than to say `ma'am' or 'madam.' If that is their opinion, I should like to have the opportunity of telling them that they are very much mistaken. For one woman to address another woman or for a man to address a woman as 'madam' betrays no sense of inferiority on the part of the speaker. It is simply the recognized form of address of one person — equal or not equal — to another person when the name of the person addressed need not or cannot be mentioned, and I for one am not an admirer of the innovation. I would rather he asked to come 'this way, please,' or even, just curtly, 'this way,' than he bowed to and smiled at when some clerk tells me that the ribbons are 'this way, lady.' Lady is a very cuckoo among words anyhow. It has foisted poor 'woman' out of her proper place and now is trying to oust plain 'ma'am.' " — New York Sun.

Just Wanted To See Her Money

1908

And The Little Old Lady Had Her Confidence Restored

She was a little old lady, so little and so old that with considerate friends she would never, never have been allowed alone in the hurried throng on the busy streets. She was such an old little lady that she had only just learned that there had been trouble in the banks, and she had made such haste as she could to be sure that her money — all the money she had saved — was safe.

"Have you got my money?" she asked tremulously when she finally reached the teller's window.

"How much did you have?" asked the teller kindly. No one could help being kind to such a little old lady.

"Twenty-five dollars," she answered. "Two tens and a five. I didn't wish to take it out," she continued apologetically, "but I should feel better if you could just let me see it."

So they showed her carefully "two tens and a five." Her faded eyes brightened, and with a grateful "Thank you," she left, every line of her bent little figure showing happy contentment and confidence, for she had seen her money.


Has Good Opinion of Women

"Men have no organization in the world that is doing as much for the world at the present time and for civilization as the National Federation of Women's Clubs," said Prof. Zeublin of Chicago in an address at Minneapolis. He said that woman is not only stronger mentally, but she is superior to man physically, and the day of her equality with man is at an end as she is in every respect his superior

The Duty of a Woman to be a Lady

1877

Wildness is a thing which girls cannot afford. Delicacy is a thing which cannot be lost and found. No art can restore to the grape its bloom. Familiarity without love, without confidence, without regard, is destructive to all that makes woman exalting and ennobling.

"The World is wide, these things are small,
They may be nothing, but they are all."

Nothing? It is the first duty of a woman to be a lady. Good breeding is good sense. Bad manners in a woman is an immorality. Awkwardness may be ineradicable. Bashfulness is constitutional. Ignorance of etiquette is the result of circumstances. All can be condoned, and do not banish man or woman from the amenities of their kind. But self-possessed, unshrinking and aggressive coarseness of demeanor may be reckoned as a state prison offence, and certainly merits that mild form of punishment called imprisonment for life.

It is a shame for women to be lectured on their manners. It is a bitter shame that they need. Women are the umpires of society. It is they to whom all mooted points should be referred. To be a lady is more than to be a prince. A lady is always in her right inalienably worthy of respect. To a lady prince and peasant alike bow. Do not be restrained. Do not have impulses that need restraint. Do not wish to dance with the prince unsought; feel differently. Be sure that you confer honor. Carry yourselves so lofty that men shall look up to you for reward, not at you in rebuke.

The natural sentiment of man toward woman is reverence. He loses a large means of grace when he is obliged to account her a being to be trained into propriety. A man's ideal is not wounded when a woman fails in worldly wisdom; but if in grace, in tact, in sentiment, in delicacy, in kindness, she should be found wanting, he receives an inward hurt. — Gail Hamilton.