St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-12-29
GOTHAM SWELLDOM.
New York Girls and Something Of Their
Clothes, Shoes and Limps.
The Vaccination Rage Among the
Belles-Opera Fashions.
Specimen of the New York Swell
Gotham Glimpses.

New York Correspondence:
From the windows of the Union league
the New Yorker may be studied in his or her
peculiarities.
Ii you use the latter pronoun change the
peculiarities into idiocies. Not that the
male bird is free from features that attract
your wondering attention, but that the lady
bird presents to the strangers eye features
SO extraordinary and so striking that your
attention is diverted from her more COM
monplace companion.
The men of New York are well worth
looking at OF course. The "doosid" good
fellow club man, you know, is always well
groomed, lives in bachelor apartments any
where from Washington square up to the
Sixty streets, is, above all else, English in
proclivities and taste, and in his moments
OF leisure land their name is legion), if it
doesn't bore him too much, does the heavy
agreeable to the fair opponents of social
art.
He is man, tits true, who doesn't con-
tribute anything Of Importance toward the
progress of the world, but then he fills, and
fills handsomely, you must admit, niche
that would look empty without his pleasing
form. He is inoffensive, and you are rather
glad that he is there.
The younger man, the dude. who lives
but to become something that he can
never be, who is always aping somebody or
something, whose appearance is at times
grotesQue, and always contemptible-he
deserves but little notice from you. You
sheer a sheer as he passes, and say short
mass for the repose of his soul.
These male birds. as l say, catch your
eye as they go by, and you size them up in
a moment A passing pleasure, as it were,
and soon forgotten.
But in the notice and study of the female
species, vast fields Of inquiry open out be-
fore you. Young society girls, young mar
ried women, stout countess dowagers. all
present points of interest that are worth
prolonged notice and consideration. And
yet. strange to say, the one most noticeable
feature of the younger members Of this
more interesting species, is the almost I'M
qualified and servile imitation of some of
the features of the other less interesting
species.
THE NEW YORK GIRL
is nothing if not manly. In many of her
habits, and especially in her dress, she
tries to look like the men, don't you know.
Redfern & Overall, and the other ladies'
tailors, make the clothes for the swell
young woman. Her tailor-made suits cost
her $125; are fitted by men, and are made
to look as much like mems clothes as waists
and skirts can be made to resemble waist
coats and trousers.
Her shoes are this fall exactly like mems
shoes. They have thick soles, square box
toes, and are made to lace up in front.
Shod with these ''stogies." encased like an
umbrella in a tight-ftting ulster, which fits
like paper on the wall over a huge hustle
projecting far into the rear; mans hat
on her head, and a small, big-handled
umbrella in hand, my lady strides up Fifth
avenue-one of many, but flying private
signals in the way of details of dress, and
making her ''the worst YETI until the next
one comes along.
Strides, however, is hardly the word to
be used. She minces, and she makes this
mincing noticeable by limp. You ask if
she is lame. By no means. They all
limp, and surely they can't all be lame. 1t
is simply the fashion to limp. The Princess
of Wales limps, and for time it was the
fashion for court ladies to limp also. 1t
is the swell thing to do here, but for a
different reason. They have all been vac
cinated. Not to be vaccinated is not to be
one Of us girls, and, therefore. whether OF
no, we limp, l heard a dudish young doc
tor, the other day at an afternoon tea, say
that he had just come from a vaccinating
seance, where he had just scratched the
symmetrical or otherwise calves of some
half-dozen society ''girls." One Of the
number was actually so timid and modest,
you know, that she cut little round hole
in her stocking, Just large enough for the
lance rather than to expose to the profess
sional eye the soft, white eXpanse of her
shapely leg. That is, 1 dare say it was
soft and white, and shapely.
Now, these same charming New York
girls are guilty of conspicuousness ON the
street. What would you say if you saw a
sumner come booming up the avenue. a
tailor-made suit on, and in the way of a
wrap, tight-ftting jacket of bright red
cloth, military-looking fastenings stretch
ing from one side to the other and involv-
ing a tremendous amount of cord. don't
know the scientific name for these fasten-
ings, but they are effective and numerous.
The edges of this red, danger-signal sort of
coat must be trimmed-that is if you are
to do the exceedingly swell thing-with
astrakhan. No, there is no compromise.
IT MUST BE ASTRAKHAN,
and of course if you insist, you can put on
other kinds of fur, such as the vulgar seal
skin, sable OF otter, but then you will be
without the pale of swelldom, and to be
correct, to be dressed unexceptionably, you
must have astrakhan and plenty of it. Your
coat does not offer space enough for it's dis
play. You must also trim the edges of
your hat with it. The hat must be of red
cloth, of small cone shape, and broad
band of astrakhan around the BASE And
you mustn't stop there. If you can't very
we'll get any more on your dress and coat,
and you already have muff made of it,
why, then have coat made of it for your
pet dog. He'll look awfully swell in it.
actually saw that on Madison avenue yes
terday, hound tottering along under COW
ering of astrakhan.
went to the Metropolitan the opening
night this season. l didn't expect to be
able to tell what the ladies wore. because
l knew that not more than from the waist
upward would be exposed to view from the
parquette. But 1 was surprised, not to say
disappointed.
In the decollete STYLE there were many,
but not so many as in previous seasons.
Square necks and corsages en- VS. abounded.
Now, square-neck dress is all right for a
quiet little dinner, or progressive euchre
party, or, say, for church society, but fol
box at the opera there is nothing like the
no-waist dress, commonly called low neck
and short sleeve. Before the masculine eye
looking through acknowledgements, say
only moderately-powerful opera glasses, a
costume of that kind looms up grandly.
The effect is superior. Lines are drawn out
and soft curves are brought into relief in a
way that is impossible with the vulgar
high-neck dress, whose principal office
seems to be to hide that which was meant