The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1886-11-12
JAPANESE
Funny Little Mouth Wipers Ma de
From Rice Paper.

among the many exclamations uttered by
good housewives when they first learned
that paper napkins were being sold for
table use. They pictured to themselves
squares of thin, white paper hat would
break al the first attempt to put them TO
use, and sighed over the f~rivolity of the
Japanese for bothering to make such arti-
cles.
Now, however, since their value has be-
come known, every picnic party must be
we'll supplied with these little squares of
Japenese art. Hotels and boarding houses
have begun to use them, greatly to the de
light of their guests, and it will not be
long before restaurants. steamboats, and
even private families will have them for
use.
We make no pretensions to what is
called style. We are still in that social
stratum where the article called the napkin
ring is recognized as admissible at the din
ner table. The napkin ring is the bound
airy between certain classes says Oliver
Wendell Holmes in his most recent story,
"a Mortal Antipathy."
But the introduction of paper napkins
will do away with this social stratum, and
instead OF a clean napkin once Il day, or
twice a week, as the rule may be, every one
may be even more fastidious than q Van
derbilt or a Gould, and have a dainty and
new napkin three times a day, and at q
very trifling expense.
For a family of six three napkins for
each one every day would make 1876 a
week, which is quite an extra" in the
wash, besides the care to keep them in
nice order.
The reporter visited a quaint little
japanese store on Broadway; which,
strange to say, is kept by a Turk and a
youth from the Mikado land. Queer lit
tie dolls with bald heads and bright,
black eyes peeped out from Nankin bowls
and Toxic pots; mattings and hammocks,
fans and umbrellas of wonderful size,
spangled with impossible japanese ladies
and gentlemen in painful attitudes OF
japanese grace; funny little ivory black
scratchers, " tobacco jars, tea sets, bamboo
chairs and hundreds of other odd, yet use
full, articles, which the two countries haye
taught us how to use for our own comfort,
filled the little place.
"Abou Ben Adhem," i'll II flowing gown
of soft red silk and a little cap on the back
of his broad head, sat in the back OF the
shop on a square box covered with a bright
rug, and pulled calmly away at his long
pipe, while his Yokohama assistant llitted
about with a big silkcn handkerchief flip
ping specks of dust from the thousand ar
ticles of bric-a-brac.
The reporter asked the little Japanese if
he sold many paper napkins.
''How many hundred do You want ?" he
said, bringing ont four or five packages.
'ror picnic these very nice. Sell for fiji
ty cents 100, :" and he took out a soft bit of
crumpled white stuff bordered with pale
blue mandarins, each one trying to hit his
neighbor with a mushroem-like parasol,
while a big mandarin sat in the center in
seeming bliss.
"sYe sell great many OF these for picnic.
Americans say they are funny | see 10
funny. but still like they please. Here
some more fancy 81 one hundred. These
good for own dinner table"
The more expensive napkins were not
generally comical in design, according to
the japanese idea. Some were as soft as
silk, and could be doubled up in the palm
into little balls and smoothed out again
without a break. They We're in white,
pink and blue, and while the majority had
only borders of a different color about
them, many were covered with birds and
flowers, umbrellas, weeping willows, tea
cups and pots, and every kind of a Japan
ese figure.
do you sell many Of these ?" queried
the reporter.
"Oh, yes. We sell this warm time
thousands aud hundreds. They go for
picnics, hey go for summer resort cottages
where Ladies want no trouble with wash
ing. They go with travelling parties, who
like them at all times. Then we sell them
for decoration of parlors.'
500 the japanese use them ?"
ooh, yes, at all times. We have only
the rice and the bamboo for our house.
Out of rice we make our food, our paper,
some of our wraps. Rice makes the soft
paper like this, that does not break. Other
things we make ont of bamboo.
The re porter learned that scented paper
napkins as high rs fifty cents each, are
used in New York. Jay Gould and many
other men Of wealth have them for their
yachts, and many of the cottagers at New
port and Long Branch are using them this
summer.
For watermelon or berry parties, for pic-
MICS and garden parties, they are consider
cd Just the thing. Fine linen is apt 10 be-
come stained or get lost, but paper nap
kins are sweet and fresh, and may be
thrown away when used. The Japanese
expect TO drive a big trade in Them next
winter, and several cargoes have been
sent here.
When the lavender is in bloom this deli
cate powder should be made.
The powder or perfume has one pound
ground lavender flowers, a quarter pound