Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1878-07-24


bers of women off the stage do.
We get to it by degrees, in this
way: First, you must understand,
we have to use paint on the stage.
Not one woman in 500, after the
first flush of girlhood at least, has a
complexion that will stand the glare
of the footlights without a toning
up Of white and red. Now nearly
all things sold for that purpose are
eventually ruinous to the skin.
There is one especially villainous
stuff that | fancy must have been
invented by the Evil one himself,
that has ruined more square miles
of feminine face than all other nos
trums together. Bloom of YOUTH
indeedl Why, it is, but there,
Pm diverging again. After an ac-
tress has dabbed her face with these
things for a few years, say while she
has been working her way up from
utility to 1eading juvenile just
at the time when the preservation
Of her beauty is most important to
her, her skin turns thick and rough,
pimples come out, and discolored
splotches appear. To her horror
she finds that instead of skin she
has a hide. She rushes to her doc
tor and learns that she has a horrid
skin disease, with a name as fright
full as the thing itself, and for her
relief he prescribes, in all human
probability, arsenic. Donovan's
solution, or Fowler's solution, she
is pretty sure to get, for while the
stuff produces skin diseases itself, it
is really eflcacious in removing
skin diseases arising from other
causes. Gradually her skin be-
comes smooth again and acquires a
clear whiteness and plumpness it
has not had before since her girl
hood. If she has been rather thin
she rounds out so that all hel
friends say,
HOW WELL YOU ARE LOOKING.
AA! you don't know what music
those five words are to woman'i
ear. After a while her eyelids be
gin to puff up. She goes again t.
her doctor and says, why is thi
thusY TOO much arsenic he re
spends blandly. She stops using it
Then her plumpness falls away
She looks like a withered apple,
yellow, withered apple. 'How il
you are looking, my DEAR othe
women say to her. They alway
say my dear when they have
hateful, malicious thing to hurl a
you. She goes to her doctor again
TOO little arsenic he tells her
Then, from that time on, her life
likely to be one long endeavor t,
maintain just the right balance O
arsenic to keep her looking wei
without hurrying up too much tn
evil and inevitable day in which tn
poison will bring its own train 0
| dire consequences upon her."
"What are those consequences?
"Obstinate and hideous skin dis
eases, falling out of the hair; some
times insanity"
"Not only is arsenic bought b
women and used by them In tn
solutions that are sold in the phar
macies, and in the white crystal:
but" the reporters fair informan
continued, "there are pills importe
from France, arsenical pills espec
ally made for the purpose of bein
used by women to beautify thei
eompleEions. They are very bi
pills, looking more like confection
than what they are, heavily sugar
coated, and cost one dollar a box
twelve, II think, in a oox, Mr.
- used them for some time be
fore her husband suspected. Whe
be found it out, he did his best t
break her of the habit, and use
to throw them away whenever b
could fnd them. And
WHAT SHIFTS SHE HAD TO REsoR
TO
to hide them from him. She trie
hiding the boxes everywhere, bu
he always pdsed them out. The
she took the pills out and poke
them into the ends Of the fingers G
: her gloves, which were rolled VI
, and he found them there. Sh
put them into the toes of her stock
ingS, rolled up, and there h
S pounced on them. Finally sh
: had the bright idea of concealin
them in the dirty clothes basket
, and as he never thought Of rumas
J, ing there they we're at last safC
: and that is where, have no doub
f she keeps them now. She had g
: so that she could take . whole DO
t isll OF them in 0 day and hal
, She used to be as thin as a rail, bl
c now she has pumped cut like
? prize fat baby"
t The head Of a drug-importin
house saysi
You can easily learn the amour
Y of arsenic imported annually, bl
S that would give you no basis fC
0 computation Of the extent to whic
S it is used in & legitimate medicini
t way and by women foF beaptifyin