The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1879-10-17

Beauties are sometimes out Of fashion.
We do not deny that beautiful women are
always more or less admired, but beauty
mania, like other manias, is an occasional
epidemic and not chronic disease. Even
when beauties are in fashion, only ono va
riety commands the market at time
There are men living who are old enough
to remember the time when the political
beauty was dominant. The woman of this
description was on rather large scale
mature and strong minded. She firted
with statesmen and diplomatists, and her
boudoir was supposed to be hotbed of po-
litical intrigue. If she had been as power.
ful as she pretended, no monarch could
have called his kingdom his own, but al
though the world took her too much at
her own valuation, she was in reality little
better than lion hunter and busybody.-
The queens of another period were the
young, the innocent, and the fair Many
of their portraits are still extant, in which
they appear in long limp white garments,
with waists just below their arm pits
They wcald ha,e been voted slow in our
time, but in their own day they were con.
sdered models of purity and grace. They
had little to say for themselves, but poetry
was written to them by the ream. Their
lovelness was of the wishywashy style, and
they were pure because they knew no bet
ter. They would be thought bores and
blue stockings in these days, and they were
probably very fighty in their own. "Eman-
cipated woman" have fortunately not been
hitherto beautiful, and fashionable beauties
have not yet been champions of women's
rights. Religious beauties have, through
out history had occasional reigns, but, upon
the whole, beautiful demons have had their
turn more frequently:
For good or for evil, beauties are now in
fashion. Indeed, so fashionabl, are they
that to be beauty is one of the recognized
and neglected and have no more chance of
success than a medical man with no diplo
ma. The faces of the leading statesmen, bar
risters and physicians, arc not SO familiar
as those Of the leading beauties. Marriage
seems to be necessary preliminary to re-
cognition as beauty in these days. When
the pretty woman has been married, she has,
as it were, passed the first examination
the "smalls" of beauty. a woman hardly
attains to her full beauty until she is TWEEN
ty-two and if she is not married by that
time the world thinks that she ought to be.
Having passed her "littlc CO." the candi-
date has to enter into competitive exam
ination, the examiners for which are fash.
ionablc men Of the faster sort, but only a
small number are allowed to pass into the
ranks of professional beauties
In all professions and trades the way to
get on, according to modern notions, is to
advertise, and beauties are not slow in avail
ing themselves Of this method of attaining
fame. We consequently fud item adver-
tiscd, like lost terriers and missionary meet
ings, in shop windows. Beauties contrive
to combine the two important modern agen-
cics of advertisement and photography in
their thirst for admiration, aud we sec their
names and their photographs in so many
windows that, were it not impossible to be
tired of them, We might grow slightly wea-
ry of the perpetual repetition. The simple
might expect to fni the carte dc visite of
the husbands by the side of their wives
Not bit Of it. If we look at photograph
of one of the beauties in a London shop
window we shall probably find the repre-
sontation of Cardinal Manning on one side
of it, and that of an eminent murderer on
the other. All three are notabes in their
way, but with this difference, that neither
the cardinal nor the murderer has any wish
to be advertised, whereas it is the hearts
desire of the beauty. The persistency of
the latter in this pursuit is amazing. She
even rivals the patent medicine monger,
who takes a column Of daily paper to cx.
plain that his wonderful syrup is good for
headache, heartburn, chronic rheumatism
and pulmonary complaints. She is not tc
be beaten by the quack, and occupies a
large space in every shop window of a Ger.
tain type, portrayed in as many aspects as
the unfailng physic. She seems to say
"Look at me in this position, and if you dc
not then admire me, look at me in that
Don't l look bewitching under an umbrella
and cannot [ melt your stony heart by
standing with my head on one side and my
thumb in my mouth Look at me, buy
me, talk about me and oh, write about me
Speak Of me as the beautiful Mrs. a. and
say am loyelicr than Mrs. b." And thus
the beauty hopes to gain even more eel
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