The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-02-14
Gossip
About Men and Women.

The line of presidents down to Lincoln, ex-
cept Van Buren,, were nearly all closely shay
en- and none wore the slightest suggestion of a
mustacbe. No man who habitually wore a
mustache was ever elected President on the
Democratic ticket, and of late years the reverse
has been the experience of the Republicans,
for we find bearded men when they came into
power. Lincoln, Grant, Hayes and Garfield
are all more or less heavily bearded.
Miss Violet Brown, the 13-year-o!d daughter
of Ex-Governor Gratz Brown of Missouri. was
in the upper story of public school at St.
Louis the other day when the building took
fire. While the teachers were subduing the
panic and trying to take the children out in
safety, the girl stepped to the window, opened
1T, and jumped down upon the roof of an ex-
tension of the building, distance of ten feet,
caught hold of the lightning rod and slid down
to the ground.
A more ungainly, strange and awkward fig
ure than that of Thomas Carlyle in the last
days of his life can hardly be imagined. The
stopped and thick-set frame was attired in
rough, ill-fitting and almost shabby clothes.
His face was rugged and sombre, set in a bush
OF gray-white hair and beard. Beneath the
heavy brows, within deep hollows lined and
worn, shone dull the bluish-gray eyes, His
nose was handsome Scotch rose, straight,
fine and bold.
Mrs. Horace Davis of California, the daugh-
ter of the late Starr King, is tall and grace
full young lady, with blue eyes, rosy cheeks.
and brown hair falling in square-cut fashion
over her forehead. Mr.. Davis is a man of
large fortune, accumulated chiefly in the man
ufacture of flour.
According to Henri Rochefort, "Gambetta
cannot live long, and he is the greatest him
drance to the logical development of the Re-
publican idea. You know he suffers with
fatty degeneration of the heart, and frankly
tell you that look forward with pleasure to
his DEATH
zen. Sherman does not stand on ceremoni-
GUS etiquette. The other night at reception
given in his own house, when Mrs. Gen. Haw-
ley arrived he announced her to his daughter
in this hearty way: "What, Joe Hawley's
wife? Here, Lizzie, this is Joe Hawley's
wifeF' 1t seemed particularly nice thing, all
that evening, to be Joe Hawley's wife," for
her husbands universal popularity brought
this lady many congratulations on his recent
election, from the stateliest dignitaries present.
writer for the Cincinnati ENQUIRER has
been looking critically at the New York wo-
men, and the following is one of the conclu-
sions:-"As rule, the higher you 90 up in the
social scale of New York, the less beauty Won
find. could name top-lofty families whose
women are generally ugly to the extent of pos
tive hideousness. There is a theory that the
product of several generations of high culture
is palpably superior article of woman, with
small hands and feet, arched insteps, sensitive
nostrils. and other points supposed to indicate
physical and mental refinement. Observation
proves that the truth is no such thing. The
shop girls of the Bowery are prettier, as class
than the idle girls of Fifth avenue. This reads
like heresy, no doubt, but it is nevertheless
plain statement of a fact. Criticise the two
sorts without allowing the Judgment to be
prejudiced by the matter of dress, and the
prize medal must be awarded to the Bowery,
notwithstanding its sins of clothing and man,
ners."